9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18
That was the sermon text for this past weekend. Our pastor is doing a 5 week sermon on the Office of the Keys. Fun stuff, after the series is finished, I’ll blog a bit about it.
But for this particular story, that’s not so important. Pastor began preaching about all of the accolade this Pharisee heaped on himself. He claimed the moral high ground, sure of his own righteousness through his own goodness. He boasted of his self-sacrifice and even gave himself an award for his boundless generousity…
At this point in the sermon, I leaned over to my roommate… “not to mention 3 Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star.”
Kind of like claiming to be an average guy - “one of you” - after owning a professional baseball team, attending the most elite of east coast schools (Andover, Yale, and Harvard), and inheriting the wealth necessary to “succeed” in the oil industry.
Average person my butt - quit offering policy that hurts average people like my parents. What a hypocrite.
www.socialgospel.blogspot.com
“You see, I actually voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it.”
Posted with : The Way, Bare with Me
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You tickle me pink!
We miss you!
Steph