Introduction
I know, I know – the assigned reading for Reformation Sunday is John 8:31–36. But you have the option to choose the 20th Sunday after Pentecost text and still celebrate Reformation. And honestly, I think you should. And do the same next week. This week, take Luke 18:9–14. And next week, for All Saints, choose Luke 19:1–10 and the story of Zacchaeus.
Together, these two passages offer abundant fodder for preaching on our distinctive Lutheran theology: simul iustus et peccator (saint and sinner), justification by grace, and the ongoing reformation of our hearts.
If you don’t think you can move away from John 8, I understand. But see what I’m saying and decide from there.
Narrative Context
Luke situates this parable within a series of teachings on prayer and faith (see last week’s Luke 18:1–8), continuing the Gospel’s recurring theme that God’s mercy upends conventional expectations. Earlier in Luke 15, the parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son celebrated joy in heaven over “one sinner who repents.” Here, repentance becomes not just moral turning but a relational posture of humility before God.
The parable contrasts a Pharisee and a tax collector at prayer.
Historically, Pharisees in Jesus’ time were respected religious leaders who sought to interpret the scriptures faithfully, helping the ordinary people of Israel live in holiness amid Roman occupation. They were reformers of Judaism in their own right. Teachers striving to make faith livable, not the villains later Christian tradition made them out to be.
However, Luke is writing several decades later, likely to a decently Gentile audience in the Greco-Roman world, after tensions had grown between emerging Christian communities and other Jewish movements. By then, “Pharisee” had become shorthand for hypocrisy and legalism, a literary type rather than a historical description. Luke uses that type rhetorically to warn against trusting in one’s own righteousness. Recognizing this helps preachers avoid anti-Jewish interpretations. Luke’s contrast is not meant to vilify Pharisees as a group, but to expose how easily anyone can trust in their own virtue and look down on others.
But this is also a double move that is the parable’s genius. The Pharisee’s prayer (“God, I thank you that I am not like other people”) may not have sounded outrageous to Luke’s first hearers. His practices of fasting and tithing were admirable acts of piety. In fact, to many of Luke’s audience, the Pharisee might have sounded like the model believer. Additionally, if you read any of Paul’s letters, boasting would have been culturally appropriate for the Greco-Roman world. What he’s doing is not so outlandish. But… he’s a Pharisee.
By contrast, the tax collector was despised in both eras, a collaborator with Roman occupiers who often exploited neighbors (especially the most vulnerable) for profit. (We’ll meet another one next week in Zacchaeus.)
The Pharisee seems righteous; the tax collector is corrupt. Yet the parable ends with a low level shock: “This man went down to his home justified rather than the other.” Of course the Pharisee would be wrong. Even though what he’s doing is not so ridiculous (for Luke’s time or for ours), we know the trope that Luke is illustrating, and so we know the right answer.
Simple Interpretation or a Trap?
Traditional preaching has told us to “be like the tax collector.”
Knowing we are sinners, we should confess our need and avoid the Pharisee’s arrogance. After all, Jesus already said there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who need no repentance.
Be like the tax collector. Not the Pharisee.
But that’s where Jesus and Luke set us up perfectly. The parable is introduced with these words: “[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.”
If we hold up the tax collector but distance ourselves from the Pharisee, are we not doing the very thing that the Pharisee does in this parable? And that is the brilliant trap of this parable that helps us to learn more deeply what Jesus is trying to teach us.
Luke knows how his community feels about Pharisees. He knows that they will immediately jump to blame the Pharisee and side with the tax collector. This parable seems simple. You should pick the tax collector over the Pharisee.
But there’s the trap. In doing so we find ourselves claiming moral superiority and thus holding contempt for Pharisee. We fall into the very thing that Jesus is warning against. Boasting our own superiority in contrast to those “sinners” around us.
That’s the genius of this parable. It exposes the recursive nature of self-justification. Even our humility can become a source of pride. We cannot escape the need for grace, not even by confessing it eloquently.
Theological Reflection
In Lutheran terms, this parable is a snapshot of justification by grace through faith.
The tax collector brings nothing but his need for mercy. His justification is not earned by humility; it is received as gift. The Pharisee’s problem is not his moral effort, but his misplaced trust, his assumption that his piety earns God’s favor.
Faith, Jesus reminds us, is not the confident possession of the righteous but the open-handed plea of those who know their need for God. We are saint and sinner.
Preaching Possibilities
Thank God I’m Not Like Those Other People
This parable lands powerfully in our present moment.
I live in Maryland, where political ads are rare this year, but recently I crossed the Pennsylvania line for a conference and was immediately inundated. Every ad blamed another group for the world’s problems. Every ad claimed moral superiority. Every ad leaned into division.
It’s not new. For nearly two decades, that’s been our political landscape, only growing louder and more divisive.
Ultimately, we’ve become a people standing on opposite sides of the room, each “thanking God that we are not like those other people.”
That’s exactly what Jesus and Luke are warning against. “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
We are the ones holding contempt, about politics, wealth, ideology, even theology.
I’ve heard that contempt in our ELCA circles, and I’ve heard it from my own lips.
In times of fear or frustration, it’s easy to blame someone else, someone different, someone unknown. It removes accountability from us and places it on some “other.” That group. That party. That faction.
But that never brings change. It only deepens the division and drives us further into echo chambers that confirm our bias. “Thank God I’m not like those people.”
A Call to Humility
To humble ourselves does not mean performatively groveling before God or pretending false modesty. It means letting go of contempt and moral superiority so that we can see others as beloved children of God. It means entering into honest relationship with those we disagree with, acknowledging our shared humanity and our shared need for grace.
This is not a call to abandon conviction or seek a false unity.
Jesus never did that. He held firmly that all people should know the love of God, that the sick and the poor should be cared for, that the hungry should be fed, and that every person should have a place at the table. He held firmly to those beliefs. He died for them.
But this parable cautions us: if we hold so tightly to ideology that we lose sight of the humanity of others, we walk a dangerous road, a road of dehumanization and contempt from which it’s hard to return.
Two people come to the temple to pray. One trusts in his righteousness, the other in God’s mercy.
May our trust and faith be in mercy, in grace, in love. For ourselves, our opponents, for all.
Micah Krey 
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