“Faithful Stewards, Part 1: How to Pray Like a Publican” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, October 26, 2025, Year C / Proper 25 (30) – Psalm 51:1-12 ¨ Luke 18:9-14 

THEME:  Humility and gratitude are the proper responses to God’s grace, and the foundation of faithful stewardship.

Do you have a favorite season?  Mine is fall. I was walking across our beautiful campus this week, admiring the gorgeous colors of the leaves. The setting sun lit them up in neon yellow, orange and red.  It was stunningly beautiful. I said a prayer of thanks to God. I also got a little wistful. I know that in another week or two, they will all be gone. But, a month from now, we will celebrate Thanksgiving. That is another thing I love about fall.

As I was thinking about Thanksgiving, I remembered that we have Abraham Lincoln to thank for that. Lincoln believed the Civil War was the result of sin on both sides, north and south. That is why he declared April 30^th, 1863 to be a day of national confession, humility, prayer, and fasting. Then came some of the darkest days of the war, including the Battle of Gettysburg. That October, Lincoln issued his famous Thanksgiving Day proclamation. He decreed that the last Thursday of November was to be a day of praise and gratitude to God. Many people found this odd, even tone deaf. Families everywhere were suffering, including his own. His son had died the year before, and his wife was sinking into a deep depression. Meanwhile, the war showed no sign of letting up. In his proclamation, he wanted Americans to remember all God’s blessings, precisely because we are so prone to forget them.  He wrote that Americans should “reverently humble themselves in the dust before our Heavenly Father, and give him thanks for the deliverances and blessings with which He has favored us.”

Today, as we begin the Season of Commitment with a 4-part sermon series on Faithful Stewardship, we take this call for humility and gratitude to heart. We start with this parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector praying in the Temple. Sometimes, Jesus tells a parable and then lets people draw their own conclusion. Not this time. This time he tells us exactly what it means.  In God’s eyes, all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Seems clear enough, right? But let’s read a little closer. To whom is this parable directed? The introduction says that it is addressed to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt. On first reading, it seems obvious.  It is directed to the Pharisee. But that is not what the introduction says. It does not name any particular group of people. That means that Jesus wants us to ask ourselves where do I see myself in this parable?  I daresay none of us identifies entirely with either the Pharisee or the Tax collector. Yet, each one of them has characteristics that Jesus wants us to emulate. 

Take the Pharisee. He prays.  He tithes. He fasts. He is neither a thief, a robber, nor an adulterer. Nor is he a cog in the violent machine of Roman rule that oppresses the people. All of this Jesus would applaud. The very nature of his role as a pharisee is also a source of righteousness. The pharisee helps the people keep the law at home in their daily living, when they cannot get to the Temple. This, too, would make Jesus happy. Where the Pharisee goes wrong, is his attitude. He pretends to pray out of gratitude. His real purpose, however, is to congratulate himself and to condemn others. He says, “God, thank you that I am not like those other people … especially this repugnant tax collector making such a fuss in the back.”  

In condemning the Tax Collector, the Pharisee is betraying his own worst sin. His self-righteous pride blinds him to his dependence on God.  He thinks he makes his own righteousness. Lacking humility, he condemns others without realizing that he is the one who stands condemned. But what about this Tax Collector? By virtue of his profession, he is already an arch sinner. Tax collectors were agents of Rome.  They were legally permitted to prey on their own neighbors.  They enriched themselves by providing funds for their Roman oppressors.  This Tax Collector, however, has realized the error of his ways.  His purpose in praying is repentance. His remorse is real. He beats his chest and throws himself on God’s mercy, pleading for forgiveness. He understands full well that, on his own merits, he deserves any punishment God sees fit to impose. His deep humility and complete dependence on God, are exemplary in Jesus’ eyes. Jesus wants that for you and me, too. In the end, both the Pharisee and the Tax Collector have things to teach us. 

Like the Pharisee, from time to time, we are all guilty of self-righteous pride.  Who among us, after a mission trip or a good Sunday worship experience, has not returned home feeling holier, sure that God is as pleased with us as we are with ourselves. Which of us has not fallen into the temptation to look down our nose at others, even our fellow Christians.  Surely, we tell ourselves, they are not real Christians. God must hate how they are living.  On the other hand, like the Tax Collector, we are all guilty of behaving in our public lives in ways that defy God’s justice and violate Christ’s law of love. Jesus’ point in telling this parable is to avoid these pitfalls, and to emulate the righteous work of the Pharisee and the righteous humility of the Tax Collector.  God is pleased when humility leads us to acknowledge our sin, our dependence on him, and our constant need for his grace. But he wants more than that. He wants us to share that grace, by loving our neighbors at home, at work, and in the public square. God is sovereign over all of life and he expects us to be faithful Christians in every part of our lives.

This was one of the central insights of the Protestant Reformation that we celebrate today. 500 years ago, a German priest and professor named Martin Luther set out to live a sinless life.  He quickly realized, however, that it was impossible. As someone who feared God’s judgment, this left him feeling much like the Tax Collector in our parable:  wracked with guilt, overcome with abject self-loathing, and fearing condemnation.  Then one day, he ran across a verse in the first Chapter of Romans.  It said, “The just shall live by faith.” A light bulb went off in his head.  Suddenly he realized that justification and salvation are not earned through good works.  They are the gift of God’s grace, received by faith, and faith alone. In other words, we can never earn our own salvation.

In that moment, his fear and self-loathing melted away. They were replaced by a sense of overwhelming relief and gratitude. Gratitude for God’s gracious, saving love in Jesus Christ. That experience is what convinced Martin Luther that gratitude is the essential characteristic of the Christian life. Gratitude gives rise to good works. And these good works are not limited to our personal lives, because God rules over all of life. That means that we all have a holy calling to share God’s gracious love in our public lives as well as our private lives. That was Luther’s next great insight.  He claimed that we are all priests, not just people like me who wear a collar on Sunday, but you, too. All of us, he said, have a holy calling.  Our calling is to share Christ’s love everywhere we are, and everywhere we go – at home, at church, at work, and in the public square. He called this the Priesthood of all Believers. 

Ever since, Reformed Christians like you and me have continued to trust that genuine faith leads to humility. Humility leads to gratitude, and gratitude leads to good works in all areas of our lives. We understand stewardship the same way. Humility and gratitude are the foundation of faithful stewardship. Like the Tax Collector, we realize that we are dependent on God. All that we are, and all that we have is from him. The older I get, the more convinced I am that this is true. Along the way, I have also discovered something else.  When our gratitude overflows in generous giving of time, skill, and money to carry God’s work forward, something also happens to our faith. Our relationship with God gets deeper, and stronger. 

Since I first began tithing years ago, my faith has never been stronger. This is why I am convinced that faithful stewardship, rooted in humility and gratitude, is one of the most important spiritual disciplines.  We may not be in the midst of a Civil War, but these are hard days, days of division and conflict, not unlike what Abraham Lincoln faced.

Let’s take his proclamation to heart. It is appropriate, good and right that, we, too, confess our sin, squash our pride, and give thanks to God for all his blessings and provision.       

May it be so.