Stumbling Blocks 10-26-25
Stumbling Blocks
Jer 14:7-10, 19-22; Luke 18:9-14
Jer 14:7-10, 19-22
Although our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for your name’s sake; our apostasies indeed are many, and we have sinned against you. O hope of Israel, its savior in time of trouble, why should you be like a stranger in the land, like a traveler turning aside for the night? Why should you be like someone confused, like a mighty warrior who cannot give help? Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not forsake us! Have you completely rejected Judah? Does your heart loathe Zion? Why have you struck us down so that there is no healing for us? We look for peace, but find no good; for a time of healing, but there is terror instead. We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord, the iniquity of our ancestors, for we have sinned against you. Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake; do not dishonor your glorious throne; remember and do not break your covenant with us. Can any idols of the nations bring rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, O Lord our God? We set our hope on you, for it is you who do all this.
Luke 18:9-14
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Prayer – O God of grace, we see people who are different than ourselves and we all too often compare, judge and even demean. Perhaps that is part of human nature and we need to be reminded that it is not part of divine nature. Help us to eliminate our blind spots that are frequently quite visible. Help us to see through your lens of love and behave accordingly – amen.
“God, I thank you that I am not like other people. Really, thank you, God.” Wow, does this passage ever convict! And if we are not found guilty in hearing this parable, we are deluding ourselves. We pray this prayer all too often. With too much justification. With all kinds of explanation for such an expression of relief.
It starts out as a benign statement, doesn’t it? A brief observation of comparison. A glance that sizes up the other. An aspect of an individual singled out as especially distasteful. All manifestations of our human brokenness toward comparison and condemnation.
But then, something changes. It is no longer a passing appraisal, but that which leads to judgment. Judgment without understanding. Judgment without empathy. Judgment without any attempt to see as Jesus sees. Without any action that tries to come near to the marginalized whom Jesus regards.
This story calls out this sin of ours — the sin of dismissal. The sin of one-upmanship. The sin of appraisal and assessment before compassion. Sinful stumbling blocks. It calls attention to that time and space in between an all-too-quick evaluation and the final verdict of whether or not we deem another as one who meets the expectations we have set out. And this sin of exclusion, of thinking that God sees others as we do is a huge stumbling block.
This passage calls attention to those moments in our ministry — in our lives — when we too readily judge, when our own stumbling blocks get in the way of faith and even righteousness. When we abdicate to denominational principle, doctrinal commitments, theological convictions, or individual ecclesial ideologies, or even worse, political and economic differences instead of leading with love and generosity. When we size up the other with the assumption that our faith, our religiosity, our spirituality, our politics, our prosperity is somehow better.
But faith doesn’t work that way. As soon as we start to question whether or not someone deserves a place in the kingdom, we would do well to remember this passage. As soon as someone points out the inadequacy of others, we would do well to remember this passage. As soon as the justification of another is easily determined, it’s time to re-read this passage. What will our response be? A stumbling block or grace?
This week's parable is one of two men who each offer prayers, with surprisingly different results. It reveals a couple of Luke's favorite foci: on prayer and on God's mercy to outcast sinners. It reveals the combination of realistic, yet strange, details and the presence of paradox to undercut conventional understandings of the kingdom of God. That two people go to the Temple to pray, one of whom is a Pharisee, is unremarkable. What is strange is that one of them is a tax collector. Tax collecting was one of the occupations forbidden to Jews. Tax collectors were viewed as ritually impure and as dishonest. In a country exploited through widespread taxation, they were highly unpopular. The paradox in the parable lies in the fact that someone viewed so negatively by the established religion and the people should be the one "justified" or accepted by God for his prayer. The other half of the paradox is that someone viewed positively by the people, the Pharisee, should behave in a blatantly self-righteous manner.
Before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E., the Pharisaic way of life was practiced by a relatively modest group of men and women. It had no political power. It was favored by the people because it took Jewish tradition and the Torah seriously and tried to interpret and live them in ways that touched daily life. The Pharisees taught the people to regard the gathering around the household dinner table as a community of worship. The handling of food and dishes were religious activities.
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E, when the institutions of Jewish life were disrupted by Roman violence, the Pharisaic tradition of teaching and living was a force that enabled the survival of the people.
A lot of interpreters of this parable make the mistake of assuming that the Pharisee in the parable is representative of all Pharisees, that it was a religious movement founded on works alone and despising others. The story is not intended to show, illustrated by this one Pharisee, that this is how all Pharisees are. This negative perspective on this parable and on Pharisees in general is reflected by our common use of the word pharisaic, which we take as synonymous with self-righteousness. The listeners of Jesus' day would have expected the Pharisee to be a careful observer of the Law, in keeping with their generally high view of the Pharisaic movement. They would not expect the tax collector to go to the Temple at all. The parable serves up two behaviors that are out of character: that the Pharisee prays in a self-righteous manner, and the tax collector prays at all!
The contrast between the two prayers is impossible to miss. The Pharisee stands apart, probably so that his litany of virtues can be heard by other worshipers and by the tax collector. The Pharisee's prayer keeps the focus on himself. It is "I" this and "I" that. His list of virtues divides the community rather than unifying it. It perpetuates the us/them dichotomy we often use in thinking of other people.
The tax collector stands, on the margins, ‘beating his breast.' This is a physical gesture associated with women rather than men in the Ancient Near East, emphasizing the unexpected nature of his actions. He keeps his head bent. His words are simple. He does not embark on an eloquent litany of his sins to match the Pharisee's virtues. He hopes in God alone, not in an extravagant outpouring of remorse, perhaps from a place of wanting to belong, somewhere and somehow. Like other powerless outsiders in Luke and in the Old Testament, the poor, the widow, the stranger, the tax collector casts himself on the mercies of God, and God hears and upholds his prayer.
Stories invite us to identify with characters. Human nature being what it is, we like to identify with the more positive characters in a story. The Pharisee would not be my choice of a character with whom to identify. If I identified with the Pharisee, that would be like admitting that I am proud of my adherence to certain moral values. It would mean I secretly felt that my credentials and education and good intentions made me better than other people and more deserving of God's attention and salvation. It's too threatening to identify with the Pharisee in this parable. People of Jesus' day would have been surprised to see a respected religious professional showing his arrogance like this. What would people of our day think of us if and when we allow a hidden arrogance to show, however briefly? I would rather identify with the tax collector, not, of course, because he is hated by his community due to his exploitative profession, but because God liked his prayer better.
Those who felt unworthy may not have been the original audience of this parable, but it does have a message, not only for the puffed up, but also for any of us today who have become comfortable in our low self-esteem and use it as an excuse for inaction. You see arrogance and self-righteousness may not be the only stumbling block in this parable.
True humility contributes to the dynamic of faith allowing the power of God to work through us. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with genuine humility. Not the arrogance that assumes that we are to be placed above others. Not the self-loathing that presumes to denigrate a human being, in this case, ourselves, who is made in the image of God. This parable is a freeze frame, a slice of life. Sooner or later the preacher closes the Bible, says, "Here ends the lesson," and the listeners go out into the world to love and serve our neighbors, divested of both arrogance and shame.
Luke believed the purpose of this parable was to challenge self-righteousness and to promote humility. The lead-in to the parables speaks volumes, "He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt". For any who are prone to the dangers of pride and self-righteousness, the parable calls us to look over in the corner to where our teacher stands with bent head. For the tax collector becomes the teacher of the Pharisee in the parable. The invitation to enter into the kingdom of God shows up where we least expect it. It shows up in our inward lives, in the ember of humility that still burns, yet that needs to be fanned to warm and illumine our inner life. In our families, our churches, our communities, the gate to the kingdom of God opens before us in the example of those who are humble before God.
Jesus offers us a parable today about two very different and probably equally questionable individuals of his time – a Pharisee and a tax collector. Both show up in the Temple at the same time, both to pray. One prayer reflects one’s spiritual accomplishments while the other focuses on God’s grace. When we trust on our own faith, when we trust on our own works, then our parable today shows us how those can be stumbling blocks. When we live our lives taking advantage of others, when we live with corruption and manipulation as a core value, then those too can be stumbling blocks. Our passage today reminds us, good, bad or indifferent, that at the end of the day, all any of us can rely on is God’s goodness and grace, and that is never going to be a stumbling block – thanks be to God – amen.