St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Albany, NY
26 October 2025 + Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 25 / Lectionary 30c
Luke 18:9-14
The Rev. Josh Evans

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(Jump ahead to 23:05 for the beginning of the sermon this week.)

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I have a confession:
I hate stewardship sermons.

(How’s that for an intro from the guest preacher
brought here specifically for your stewardship campaign?)

Maybe “hate” is a strong word,
but suffice it to say,
they’re not my favorite.

Too often, it feels underhanded,
inauthentic,
sneaky.

A plea for money –
a good chunk of it for my own salary –
disguised as the proclamation of the gospel –
which, if you know anything about the Reformation,
as we Lutherans commemorate this week,
can be a major red flag.

Maybe your own experience with stewardship is similar –
pledge campaigns,
generosity appeals,
or whatever you want to call it.

You can see the ask coming from a mile away –
a letter from the pastor,
folded neatly around a small card
with a self-addressed stamped envelope;
or a “temple talk” or “mission moment” in worship,
given by a well-meaning member of the vestry
about how much they love this church –
and how much you should love it too (hint, hint).

And speaking of stewardship,
how’s that for a gospel reading this morning?
A parable about a self-important religious figure boasting about their tithing
before being brought down a peg or two by Jesus?

So what about this parable?

Enter a Pharisee
and a tax collector –
perhaps two of the most loaded (and complex) character types
in Luke’s gospel.

Pharisees –
who, on the whole, weren’t actually as self-righteous
as the gospels portray them to be
and were in fact much more closely aligned with Jesus’ movement
than years of misguided (and anti-Semitic) biblical interpretation
and Christian theology would suggest,
and some of whom, Luke tells us,
were themselves actually followers of Jesus…
which would explain their spirited debates
that occupy a great deal of space in the gospels…
which also explains how they came to be portrayed
and viewed as Jesus’ “opponents.”

Tax collectors –
who, on the whole, were wildly corrupt,
perceived by many as being in cahoots with their Roman occupiers,
and padding their families’ and their neighbors’ tax bills
with a little something extra for themselves…
which would explain just how bizarre and scandalous it would have been
for Jesus to spend so much of his time in their company.

Like I said…complex.
Already we have our presuppositions (and prejudices)
as we enter this parable,
whose message itself actually seems pretty straightforward
and not at all complex:

Don’t be like the Pharisee –
loud, proud, and arrogant.

Be like the tax collector –
quiet, humble, and contrite.

And therein lies one danger of this parable –
the temptation to fall into the trap of binary thinking:
Pharisee bad, tax collector good.
And such binaries are rarely, if ever, helpful.

A more dangerous trap of this parable, though,
is the trap of humility, as one commentary puts it:
“When we draw from [this parable] the lesson,
Go and be humble,
or Pray for mercy like the tax collector (for then you’ll be exalted) –
we thereby replace a brazen attempt at exaltation
with a disguised one.” (SALT)

In other words,
there’s really no difference
between blatantly jockeying for the spotlight –
like the Pharisee who places the emphasis on everything he has done
as if somehow to have earned it –
and decisively “standing far off,” away from the spotlight,
like the tax collector who really outdoes himself
in the confession department,
with the faintest whisper of an ulterior motive…
“all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

So if this isn’t a parable about humility,
despite Jesus’ tidy maxim,
then what is it about?

Let’s back up for moment:
Jesus told this parable to whom?
Jesus told this parable
“to some who trusted in themselves.”

The Pharisee had it all (or so he imagined).
He checked all the boxes required of him:
fasting – check.
tithing – check.
prayer – check.
Trusting in himself,
the Pharisee saw nothing he needed from God,
because (or so he imagined) he could do it all himself.

Meanwhile, the tax collector’s prayer is
“nothing but a declaration of need,
and a demonstration of complete trust and dependence on God’s mercy.” (SALT)
Trusting in God,
the tax collector expresses his desperate need for mercy,
acknowledging that he cannot do it all himself.

With a nod to Reformation Sunday,
Martin Luther puts it this way
in his explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed:

“I believe that by my own understanding or strength
I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him,
but instead the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel,
enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy,
and kept me in the true faith…” (Small Catechism)

Jesus told this parable
to those who trusted in themselves.

Jesus told this parable
as an invitation to trust —
to let go of our own efforts to save ourselves (as though we really could),
to relinquish our striving to earn God’s unconditional love
(as though it weren’t already irrevocably ours) –
to trust – not in ourselves, our own merits, our own self-righteousness –
but in God’s extravagant grace and unfailing abundance for us
as beloved children of our heavenly parent.

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So…what if stewardship doesn’t have to suck?
What if, instead, we could imagine what we are doing here today differently?

What if we could imagine our giving to God
as an invitation to trust?
To trust that God cares deeply about God’s people.
To trust that God is up to something in this place.
To trust that collectively, called and sustained by the Holy Spirit,
we can make God’s love real –
in this community, in our neighborhood, in our city, in the world.

People of St. Andrew’s,
trust in these words of promise for you:
You are God’s beloved.
and you are called to embody that love in all you say and do.

Trusting in the love of God as our source and goal,
we can’t go wrong.

That is the irrevocable promise that is ours
in this waters of the font,
and around this table.

That is the mission we share,
as together we respond to God’s call,
in love,
in generosity,
in hope,
sent forth from this place
to strive for justice and peace
in all the earth.