Homily, October 26, 2025, Rev. Holly Cardone

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

October 26, 2025

Two men go up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Eugene Peterson, in The Message, says it like this: “Jesus told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people.”

“Complacently pleased with themselves.” In the New Revised Standard Version, it says the men “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” The hubris, the arrogance, right? These Pharisees have a very overblown sense of their own importance, and this does not sit well with Jesus.

The temple in Jerusalem is a busy place. It’s not quiet or contemplative—it’s loud, crowded, alive with the noise of animals, priests, sacrifices, prayers, and people coming and going. Holy chaos.

The two men enter, both coming to the temple to pray. The first, a Pharisee, is a highly respected leader, influential in both religious and political life. The Pharisees were deeply religious people who wanted to reform daily living so that ordinary life reflected the holiness of Scripture. Their intentions were noble. They wanted people to live faithfully, not just at the temple but in their homes, their work, and their meals. They believed holiness wasn’t confined to priests and altars but could infuse all of life.

Of course, it was a short distance between believing in faithful living and believing they had all the answers. And then it’s a hop, skip, and a jump from figuring out how to live rightly to looking down on everyone who wasn’t.

The Pharisee prays—or maybe performs is the better word. He stands by himself, far enough away that no one impure could brush against his robes and send him home for ritual cleansing. He lifts his eyes, his hands, his chin, and says, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even this tax collector.”

It may sound like he’s praising God, but he’s just praising himself. He may be looking upward, but his prayer is turned inward. He has oriented toward himself—comparing, measuring, evaluating, needing to be the one who is right, clean, and good. The Pharisee may be standing in the presence of God, but he’s concerned only with how good and faithful he is, creating division between himself and the people he labels as “thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even this tax collector.”

The tax collector, on the other hand, stands far away—not just from the Pharisee, but from the holy spot of the temple itself. He doesn’t even lift his eyes to heaven. He beats his chest, a gesture of grief, and says simply, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

In the time of Jesus, tax collectors were despised and considered social outcasts. They were seen as traitors because they worked for the Roman occupiers and were known to enrich themselves by extorting extra money from their own people. Consequently, they were viewed with the same low social and religious standing as prostitutes.

Now, it’s worth noting that Jesus doesn’t tell us he quit his job or changed his life. He doesn’t make a pledge to reform. What he does is show up and tell the truth. His prayer isn’t a confession designed to earn forgiveness. It’s an acknowledgment of reality—that his life, all of it, depends upon God’s mercy.

And Jesus says, “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.”

The word justified doesn’t mean he suddenly became a perfect person. It means he was set right—brought into right relationship. The Pharisee leaves the temple self-satisfied with his own goodness. The tax collector leaves aware of God’s goodness. One has religion; the other has relationship.

The Pharisee is right—he is righteous and living a moral, disciplined life. What he’s wrong about is the source of that righteousness. The blessing comes from God, not from himself. Because he lacks humility to recognize the source of his righteousness, he despises the very people God loves.

The tendency with this story is to say, “Oh, thank God I’m not like that Pharisee!” and call it a day. And just like that, we’re doing exactly what Jesus identifies in the Pharisee. We have become the Pharisee.

It’s also easy to over-identify with the tax collector. Maybe you’ve battled self-flagellation—the tendency to see yourself as less worthy than your peers, more broken, beyond redemption. I know I have. The desperate need for relief from self-hatred, like the tax collector, pouring your soul out to God, begging for forgiveness just for being. But neither characterization is true. They are both traps. We can fall into persistent habitual arrogance just as easily as perpetual self-hatred. Either way, our gaze is still toward the self.

There’s a Lutheran church in Denver called House for All Sinners and Saints, founded by Nadia Bolz-Weber. Because that’s what we are—all sinners, and all saints.

What the tax collector has that the Pharisee does not is self-awareness. God’s infinite love and grace make that possible. Humility becomes possible. A single moment can change our perspective from arrogance to humility—the moment we become just a human being on a human journey, experiencing the full range of life, some exquisite and some terrible.

Jesus ends his story with a paradox: “The one who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” A lesson for our time. The one who elevates themself will eventually fall, and the one who has fallen will be lifted up.

It’s as if Jesus is saying: stop trying to live above everyone else. God meets us when we have fallen—where we admit our need, where we stop pretending, where we finally turn away from ourselves and toward the Source of life and mercy.

We don’t have to choose between arrogance and shame. We are human. We experience it all. The lesson is to stand before God honestly—to realize the tax collector and the Pharisee both live inside us. Some days we’re full of pride and arrogance, and some days we’re beating our chest with regret.

The good news is that God meets us in both places. God’s mercy is not a prize for the humble or a punishment for the proud. It is always there, available, flowing toward us. Not because we’ve earned it, but because God’s nature is to pour unconditional, limitless love toward us all the time.

The trick is to pour some of that unconditional and limitless love onto everyone we meet.

Amen.