Last Sunday after Trinity: 26 October 2025
Readings: Joel 2.23–32; Psalm 65; 2 Timothy 4.6–8, 16–18; Luke 18.9–14
‘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!” ’
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Back in the 1670s, when Charles II was king,
the heir to the throne was his brother James.
An Italian princess, Mary of Modena,
was chosen to be his wife,
a Roman Catholic, like James.
But it seems that the pope was opposed to the marriage,
so they sought the help of Cardinal Barberini
and he persuaded them to marry immediately.
It would be, he advised,
“less difficult to obtain forgiveness for it after it was done,
than permission for doing it”.1
Cardinal Barberini’s advice
has become something of a proverb,
especially in recent years, hasn’t it?
It’s easier to ask forgiveness (after the event)
than to get permission (before).
And the tax collector in today’s gospel reading
certainly seems to have his eye on forgiveness, doesn’t he?
So what are we to make of this?
Jesus is telling a story about two characters,
one a Pharisee, and the other – a tax-collector.
Now if you’ve been hearing
bible readings and sermons for some time
you’ve probably already got some ideas,
some preconceptions,
about Pharisees, and about tax-collectors.
Pharisees –
well, they’re always arguing with Jesus, aren’t they?
And full of themselves and their strict rules.
And as for tax-collectors,
I suppose we know instinctively
that they’re not particularly nice people,
don’t we?
After all, who likes the taxman
even in our own society?
Most of us probably think we pay
at least a bit too much tax,
and the taxman
– not to mention Chancellors of the Exchequer –
often seems to be trying to take a bit more.
(But perhaps I’ll leave a discussion of
the British tax system for another occasion!
Back to first-century Judea.)
We can see in the gospels
that Jesus does seem to have
something of a soft spot for tax collectors.
We read about Levi or Matthew
being taken from the tax office to be a disciple,
and about little Zacchaeus climbing a tree
to see and hear Jesus,
and then hosting a banquet for him.
These are perhaps typical
of the attitudes we might bring
to a discussion of this parable.
But they are not, I suggest,
what Jesus’s immediate hearers would have thought.
Most likely they would have considered a Pharisee
to be a paragon of virtue,
instructed in the law,
the biblical law,
someone to be esteemed and copied.
And as for a tax-collector …
well, it wasn’t just that he took people’s money;
no, the real problem with tax collectors
was that they were collaborators,
collaborators with the Romans,
the hated occupying power.
If we think what the attitude was
to Nazi collaborators during the War, say in France –
after the War many were lynched,
killed by the mob or executed by the state.
That perhaps gives us an idea
of what the Judeans and Galileans listening to Jesus
might have thought about tax collectors!
And yet Jesus, in this parable,
says it is the tax collector who is closer to God.
Now, we’re coming towards the end
of a three-year cycle of bible readings
at our Sunday morning services,
and over that three years we have heard
a lot of Jesus’s parables.
And one thing that comes across to me
is Jesus’s skill at using just a few words
to conjure up in our imagination
a situation and some characters –
and then to turn it all on its head
and shock his listeners with a surprising outcome.
It’s one of his favourite devices,
a favourite way of teaching and telling stories.
And I’m sure he preached this way
in part to get his hearers to think for themselves.
And Jesus delights in challenging stereotypes,
both positive stereotypes and negative stereotypes.
So, a couple of weeks ago
we heard about the Samaritan leper,
a hated foreigner,
who was healed.
And in this reading today
it is the godly Pharisee who is roundly criticised,
and the hated tax collector
of whom Jesus speaks approvingly.
You can almost hear people in the crowd
muttering to one another
“What does he mean?
How can a tax collector, an enemy collaborator, be good?”
And if we look carefully at the passage in the gospel,
then one of the interesting things
is that actually Jesus does not condemn the Pharisee
for the things that he says he has done,
for his self-discipline and his charity.
He doesn’t condemn the Pharisee for that;
and nor does he condone the tax collector
for what he has done either.
Now in almost the next episode in Luke’s gospel,
we learn about another tax collector, Zacchaeus.
And Zacchaeus, hearing Jesus’s teaching,
declares that he will return overpayments with interest,
and give away half what he has to the poor.
But there is nothing like that here.
Jesus keeps this story
short, sharp and pointed.
Because today’s parable
is not primarily about
the ethics of either the Pharisee or the tax collector,
but about their attitudes:
their attitudes to themselves,
their attitudes to others,
and their attitudes, above all, to God.
Perhaps one of the key words we heard
was when Jesus says that
the tax collector returned home … “justified”.
“Justified”.
What on earth is that about?
Well, “being justified” and “justification”
are words that carry a lot of theological baggage.
They cause debate and division among Christians
and between sections of the Church.
But ultimately it’s about being fit and worthy,
being made fit and worthy,
fit and worthy to stand in the presence of the Almighty.
What Jesus seems to be saying
is that we do not earn that justification
by what we do.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
Elsewhere in the gospels,
Jesus spends a long time
teaching about right behaviour,
about caring for others,
about looking after the weak and the poor
and all who are in need,
regardless of who they are
or where they have come from,
or society’s attitude towards them —
the poor, the hungry, the homeless,
the sick or disabled,
the prisoner, the refugee,
the oppressed and the shunned.
That work is very clearly a gospel imperative,
and Jesus makes it abundantly clear
that in helping those in need
we are helping … Jesus,
we are helping … God.
Instead, in today’s reading,
Jesus reminds us
that in order to come close to God
we need to acknowledge
that we … are not gods,
that we … are not in control of the world:
that we need to stop and to be honest.
To be honest with my-self.
To confront my own faults, my own issues.
In the story,
the Pharisee’s problem
is that rather than recognising his own faults,
he prefers to see himself as better than someone else.
The tax collector, on the other hand,
does not compare himself to others,
but humbly recognises
that he has not done the right things.
And it is that recognition
which should be the start of a journey for him,
and which should be the start of a journey for each of us.
Perhaps the episode of the tax collector Zacchaeus,
just a few verses later,
indicates what should follow that initial recognition of fault –
a whole new way of life …
new life in the kingdom of God.
[short pause]
And a final thought or conundrum
for us to consider.
I wonder if you have spotted
the “Catch 22” in the parable.
Have you?
It’s all too easy, isn’t it,
to find ourselves thinking
“I thank you that I am not like … that Pharisee”?
Because when we do that
then we are being just like the Pharisee in the parable, aren’t we?
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
0 CommentsTrinity 16: 5 October 2025
Readings: Lamentations 1.1–6; Psalm 137; 2 Timothy 1.1–14; Luke 17.5–10.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“We are worthless slaves;
we have done only what we ought to have done!”
Some words from Jesus in the gospel reading we have just heard.
Well I was in London during the week,
and I happened to be walking from
Westminster Abbey to Lambeth Palace,
when I spotted an interesting monument
on the Embankment at Millbank
that I’d never noticed before.
It’s a 19th-century fountain,
a big covered drinking fountain,
decorated with polychromatic brick or stone,
and it’s called, as I discovered,
the Buxton Memorial.
The Buxton Memorial Fountain
[picture: Simon Kershaw October 2025]
It commemorates a number of Members of Parliament
who led the 19th-century campaigns
first
to abolish the slave trade
and then
to abolish slavery itself.
And our gospel reading today
presents us with an “interesting” situation,
don’t you agree?
In that second half, Jesus talks about slaves,
and perhaps you found it a bit uncomfortable.
So, hands up if the idea of slavery
makes you uncomfortable –
the idea … of being a slave,
the idea … of owning slaves,
the idea … of trading slaves.
Slaves – that’s … other human beings.
Most of us here – with a few exceptions –
probably don’t consider ourselves
to have any direct link with slavery –
we aren’t descended from slaves,
and we probably aren’t descended
from slave-owners either,
though of course
we might still have benefitted
from institutions and investments
that derive from slavery.
I guess there are one or two exceptions among us,
and plenty of others in our town
and elsewhere around us,
and we can’t talk about slavery
without being sensitive to that
and to the impact it has had
on our friends and their families.
I’m sure that that personal stake makes a difference
to how today’s gospel reading is heard,
and speaking for myself
perhaps I find it too easy
not to worry that much about it.
Nor should we forget that there are people in this country,
probably people here in St Ives,
who are involved in “modern slavery”:
people who are exploited and kept in bondage;
people who exploit others and keep them in bondage.
Having said all that, however,
I want to make two quick points – about Jesus.
First, let’s be absolutely clear:
there is no indication at all
from anything we read in the New Testament
that Jesus or his family
or any of his immediate associates
ever owned slaves.
There are no slaves at his birth in Bethlehem,
and no slaves tending to him in the gospels.
When Jesus visits his friends Mary and Martha,
it is famously Martha
who is busy with domestic chores,
not a slave.
And the second point
is that Jesus isn’t setting out
to overturn the institution of slavery
as it existed in the ancient Mediterranean world –
not in the short term anyway.
That was for later generations –
though he clearly envisaged
a different way of treating everyone,
regardless of whether they were slave or free.
So what are we to make of all this?
Well yesterday
I was licensed by the bishop
to be a lay reader,
a licensed lay minister
in this parish.
And being a minister is also about being a servant.
You see, the word minister comes to us from Latin
and its first use was in the second century
to refer to deacons.
That’s because the word deacon
comes from the Greek word διάκονος2,
which simply means “servant”,
perhaps especially someone
who waits at table.
It wasn’t long before “minister”
came to be used of all clergy –
not just deacons, but priests and bishops too,
(even archbishops-designate)
and also of the lesser orders
such as sub-deacons and readers,
all of whom are servants …
servants of God.
And Jesus makes this point several times, doesn’t he?
In one of the weekday readings
from Morning Prayer last week,3
Jesus reminds his disciples
that the rulers of the Gentiles
lord it over them
and that the great ones of the Gentiles are tyrants.
But his disciples, Jesus says,
his disciples are to be servants;
and he mixes the language of servants and slaves
saying that
“whoever wishes to become great among you
must be your servant4,
and whoever wishes to be first among you
must be slave5 of all”.6
This same story appears also in Luke’s gospel7
only there it has an extra punchline –
“who is greater,” asks Jesus,
“the one who is at the table
or the one who serves?
Is it not,” Jesus says, “is it not the one at the table?
But I,” he answers himself, “I
am among you as one who serves”.
And there’s a version in John’s gospel too8.
There Jesus concludes
by telling the disciples
that just as he has served them,
they are to serve one another.
Just as he has served them,
they are to serve one another.
So let’s come back
to the words in today’s gospel reading:
“We are worthless slaves;
we have done only what we ought to have done!”
In our context,
in the twenty-first century,
we might well see Jesus’s words
as a little harsh,
and for some
a painful reminder
of the slave trade.
But let’s paraphrase those words a bit;
how about this?
“Our role as Christians,
as followers of Jesus and his teaching,
our role is to serve others,
to look after others,
to help others.
That’s what God asks us to do.”
We may be able to serve a lot;
or we may only have the capacity at the moment
to serve a little;
or maybe right now
we are among the ones who need to be served.
But it is this humble service to others
which is at the heart of Jesus’s message
of compassion and reconciliation.
It is the role of ordained ministers
(even of an archbishop-designate);
it is the role of licensed lay ministers;
it is the role of all of us who hear the words of Jesus.
To serve … God;
to serve … each other;
to serve … the whole of creation.
Because we stand today at a crossroads.
Of course, we stand each day at a crossroads,
the junction between the past and the future;
the past behind us,
known, or partly known;
the future before us, largely unknown.
For me, right now,
that crossroads is defined by
my licensing yesterday in the Cathedral,
my licensing as a lay minister
to serve in this parish.
But we each of us stand at a crossroads.
We don’t know what the future will bring,
individually or collectively,
for us or for our parish.
But what we do know is that
every day
Jesus calls us, each one of us,
to serve.
To serve one another,
to serve our community,
to serve the world.
So, finally once again:
“We are worthless slaves;
we have done only what we ought to have done!”
Now Jesus is prone to hyperbole.
He loves to exaggerate for effect,
to grab attention.
And we can see that here.
Sometimes we need support and affirmation.
At other times we need taking down
a peg or two.
(Well I do anyway.)
But Jesus’s message is
a call to serve.
I am, he says, among you as one who serves.
So in the days ahead
I invite you
to take a few moments to think about
what you can do to serve;
what we as followers of Jesus
individually and collectively
can do to serve:
to serve God’s world
and to serve God’s people,
to serve them here in St Ives.
Amen.
Note: at the end of this service it was announced that the Vicar would be leaving in January. Some of the “unknown future” text was written with this in mind.
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