I confess that I hold my breath when I check out what the assigned Scripture is on a coming Sunday from the ccumenical lectionary, particularly when I'm preparing for parents' weekend. Because, look, I- I realize that your high tuition pays my salary, and so naturally I want to make a good impression on visiting parents and, by the way, let me take this opportunity to thank all of your parents for your tuitions payments. Because I know that without you, not only your Duke daughter or son but this Methodist preacher would probably not be here. At any rate, I want to look good for visiting parents and to convince you that the spiritual care of your son or daughter is in good hands and I believe in making a good impression on visitors. And yet I also believe in preaching from the Bible and therein lies my Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost Parents'-Weekend dilemma. Because today's Gospel is not a parentally approved text - Jesus' story of the Pharisee and the Publican. Let me read it to you in English. "He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and they despised others. 'Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. 'God. I think we that I am not like other people - extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven. He beat on his breasts saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner.' 'I tell you this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For every one who exults himself will be humbled, but he humbles himself will be exalted." Now to get into this story, first, let's get out of the way any notion that this Pharisee and Publican story of Jesus is a story about the virtue of humility. As Robert Capon says, it's not a parable about the virtue of humility. Rather it is a parable about religious futility. It is not a story about how we are to adapt a humble religious stance, as opposed to a proud one, but rather it is an exhortation to let go of all religious posturing. And so, to get into this story, I want you to give all the credit that you possibly can to this Pharisee. Now I know the Pharisees get a bad press in the Gospels, but I want to, you to just put out of your mind this morning any unattractive things you have ever heard about Pharisees because Jesus points out that here we have a good Pharisee, a really good man. Here is a man who never cheated on his church or his wife, he never raised his voice to his kids, he's never sold timesharing condominiums in Charlotte, he did his time as president on the PTA without grumbling, he does work with Habitat for Humanity on the weekends, and even though he won the Congressional Medal of Honor in the big war, he told President Bush to ease up on aid to the Contras - here is a good man, not like that tax collector. This tax collector who has collaborated with the Roman occupation forces to oppress his very own people. How do you think he, he bought that stretch limo? And why he's able to spend winters in Palm Beach and summers in Newport? Why he only drinks the best Scotch? Bought with money that he has squeezed out of the meager earnings of widows and orphans. The publican, the tax collector, is a bad man. Not only is this Pharisee good, but the really attractive thing about him is that he thanks God for his goodness. He refuses to take any personal credit for his high moral tone as if this were somehow his personal achievement. Earlier that week, when he was tutoring some inner city kids in math as he does every week, he slipped up and said something like "Boys, I'm glad to say that I have never in my whole life stolen anything from anybody." Well, on the way home, he got to thinking bad about that remark as if it somehow implied that his goodness were of his own creation. And so he's at the chapel this morning to make clear to God that if he is good, it is because God has made him that way. "God, I thank thee. God I thank thee that, that I'm not like other people." Here is a good prayer from a very good man. And what does Jesus tell you about this good - good - good, very good man. He tells you that he was worse off when he came to church than that sleazy good-for-nothing tax collector who just waltzes in to the chapel, and he doesn't sing the hymns because he doesn't know the words. And when it comes time to prayer he can only get out a few halting, mumbling phrases "God," or "I mean, like God, uh, uh, be merciful, uh, like to me, a sinner. Amen." And Jesus tells you that this sleazy tax collector, staring down at the tips of his eelskins, and mumbling, was justified by God, but not our Citizen of the Year Pharisee. I'm sorry that your mother had to hear this, because I know full well that she has told you otherwise. But here it is in the Bible. Just because you happen to be good at being good or good at religion, even if you were a good little girl or boy, that when it comes down to your basic relationship with God, all that is really quite irrelevant, even sometimes, surprise, detrimental. As far as God is concerned, both the Pharisee and the Publican are losers. But we say, wait a minute, isn't Jesus at least trying to make a little distinction between these two people. Isn't this proud Pharisee, okay, we know we're all sinners, but isn't this proud Pharisee, somehow, a little bigger sinner than this humble Publican? You see, you're making the same mistake that the Pharisee made, assuming that there is something within the behavior of this tax collector, maybe his humility or his penitence, that somehow weasels him in on God's good graces, it somehow earns him God's love. But you can forget it, because, look, we're talking God here - pure love, complete truth, utter honesty, pure righteousness - God.  We're not talking sorority rush, we're talking eternal life here and no human goodness, even the, even of the very good Pharisee variety is good enough for God's goodness. So here we come Sunday morning, trudging up to God, like at Pharisee, dragging along behind us in our Sunday school attendance pins and our confirmation certificate and our record of giving to the United Way, only to find out that God really isn't impressed with all that stuff.  " Cool it," says God. Look, save all that baggage for your application to law school. We're talking justification here. We're, we're talking the right to stand face to face, toe-to-toe with God almighty, not nomination to Alpha Phi Omega. The Pharisee is condemned because he's trying to slip through that narrow needle's eye that Jesus spoke of. Slipping in the needle's eye into God's kingdom while still clutching, clutching all that works and righteousness baggage. Whereas the tax collector gets welcomed because he's not holding on to anything. He's got nothing to hold onto, his hands are empty. He's got nothing, and what is more, he knows he's got nothing. He is a complete moral, social, religious loser, a dead duck, so far as his relationship to God is concerned. But fortunately, we know from a lot of other stories, here is a savior who just loves to raise the dead and just lives to seek and to save the lost and likes nothing better than to party with sinners. Now, let's be honest here. At this point, you may be thinking to yourself, what a fool this Pharise is for thinking that somehow he can get in with good with God through his good works. But don't be so quick to judge. Even now, I would bet you that even now, in the back of our minds we are anxiously rearranging ourselves in ways that are shockingly similar to that Pharisee. Come on now, isn't somebody out there thinking God, I thank thee that, well I'm not the best person in the world, I'm certainly better than that self-righteous bible-beating, priggish, literalist religious fanatic Pharisee. I don't make a big show out of my religion! You see, see? It's just, it's right back down the ole works-righteousnesss path we go. This time we're carrying different baggage, but we're still carrying baggage. And if you don't believe me, Robert Capon suggested we try this little experiment. Try this. Let's say that Jesus' parable does not end with just the two people going back home after Sunday morning justified. One of them justified, and one not. Let's say the story goes on. Now, okay, the the tax collector has gone back home and he's made right with God and, okay, the fellow's been forgiven. He's been accepted by loving infinitely forgiving and gracious God. Okay, now let's say it's next Friday night, and you're on your way with a family and you're driving through a seedy section of town and you happen to see coming out of the Kit Kat Club, peroxided blonde on each arm, ten dollar cigar in his mouth, getting into his pale pink limo. Now do you find this a little shocking, after all that grace and forgiveness that was given out on Sunday morning by God? But let me tell you, your shock at seeing him on Friday night is nothing compared to the shock you feel on the coming Sunday morning. Say you've settled into your seat here in the chapel and, it's, the service has begun and it's the opening prayer of confession and you're praying and suddenly you hear someone mumbling over to the side, it catches your attention and right there, down front, in front of the cameras, the blondes and the cigar gone but you can still tell, it's him, mumbling of the cameras, the blondes and the cigar gone but you can still tell, it's him, mumbling out once again, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner". And this is too much. Okay, grace is amazing but, I mean, aren't there limits? Okay, grace is amazing but, I mean, aren't there limits? And And what about God in all this? At the end of the service, when the benediction is done and there is God sending this guy back down to his house, forgiven, made righteous, there is God sending this guy back down to his house, forgiven, made righteous, If the tax collector isn't going to change his ways, just a little, can't we expect God to If the tax collector isn't going to change his ways, just a little, can't we expect God to ways, just a little? ways, just a little? We gag at the injustice of the story. This little rat is getting But, but, what, what do we want? Now, what -what do we but, what, what do we want? Now, what -what do we the tax collector should again show up at church, but this time driving a Toyota and drinking cheaper scotch and giving the difference to Bread for the World? Toyota and drinking cheaper scotch and giving the difference to Bread for the World? Do we really think that if God gagged on that decidedly long list of good deeds of the Pharisee that God is going to somehow be more impressed by this short List of this allegedly better tax collector? No. What do we want? Do we want to mess up Jesus' perfectly outrageous story by sending the tax collector back to church next week Yeah, that's what I want! We We spend our lives before the mirror of other people's opinions of us, hoping that we can order our little lives in such a way, that somehow our points will measure up in their eyes, that they will total We just hate to stand naked before the gaze of God. We just hate to come We just hate to stand naked before the gaze of God. We just hate to come before God's altar empty handed with its consequence. That God must take us, losers that we God must take us, losers that we are, or we're not going to be taken at all. God's grace is a shock. That's why we grumble at the party that the old man threw for the returning prodigal son. "is this any way to run a family?" And we murmured mightily when the Lord of the harvest paid those people who showed up at the And And then later when he went off arm in arm to another tax collector's house, this stood in the crowd and said, "he's gone to have lunch at the home of a man who is a sinner!" man who is a sinner!" But who do we expect to have for Jesus to have lunch with? Sinners, be they of the good Pharisee variety or of the bad Publican variety - sinners, losers. We just hate to see ourselves as losers who need God to love us, to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Now my earlier point was that some of you think I have it easy here just cause I only work one day a week. But you think it's easy to preach this parable here? I mean, parents, let's face it. Your kids are here because they're good. Lots of other parents have raised Publicans rather than Pharisees. A daughter at Duke no less, oh well, good for you! You must've been quite a parent. My, you must've done a very good job. And let's face it, they're good. I know they're good. Oh, there was a little matter about the late night call from the cops the night of her junior senior prom, but look, basically she's a good kid. Very good, very successful at being good and getting accepted and being successful. And yet here is a story that Jesus told about a loser who, while you were burning the midnight oil and hitting the books and getting into the college of your choice, cruised down the boulevard in a souped up Chevrolet and hid the six-pack in his gym locker and cheated his way through remedial math. And Jesus said, "God took him blessed him, justified him." I told you, it's an embarrassing story.