Different Types of Pray-ers

October 26, 2025 Luke 18:9-14 Different types of pray-ers 20th Sunday after Pentecost Year C Prelude Greetings Call to Worship (inspired by Psalm 65) Leader: From the east and from the west, we come to praise God! People: Today we celebrate the ways God is at work in our world. Leader: From the fields ready for harvest to the majesty of the mountains, People: from the abundance of gentle rains to the blazing color of fall leaves Leader: God crowns the year with good blessings! People: And today we gather to praise God, Creator and Sustainer of life! (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Opening Prayer Bring us to deep silence, God, as we give thanks for the gifts you pour out on us and on all creation. Help us focus on you, and on the ways you sustain us in this life, even as we offer you our praise. AMEN. (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Song Lord I Want to be a Christian UMH 402 A Sermon for all Ages The Problem with Keeping all of the Rules Object: Picture of a camel Good morning, boys and girls. What is this picture I have in my hand? That's right, it's a picture of a camel. Today, I'm going to tell you a story by Rudyard Kipling about the problem of pride and how the camel got its hump. When God first created the earth and all the animals, He gave each of the animals a different job. All of the animals did their work, except the camel. Whenever the other animals asked the camel to do some work, the camel just said, "Humph!" and walked away. Whenever the other animals asked the camel to play with them, the camel just said, "Humph!" and walked away. You see, the camel thought that he was better than all the other animals. He had too much pride. So whenever the other animals talked to the camel, he just said, "Humph!" and walked away. Well, God didn't like for the camel to have so much pride. Because of his pride, the camel was not nice to the other animals. So God put a heavy hump on the camel's back to remind him of the time when he had too much pride and said, "Humph!" to all the animals instead of being nice. Of course, this is just make-believe. That is not really how the camel got its hump, is it? But it makes an important point. Our Bible story today is about two men who go to church to pray. The first man says his prayer very loudly. He acts like he is better than everybody else. He has too much pride. The second man prays quietly and asks God to forgive him of his sins. God listens to the prayer of the second man, because this man is not proud. God wants us to be like the second man. When we go to pray, we shouldn't act like we are better than others, and we shouldn't be a show-off about our religion. God likes us to be humble, and to glorify Him, not ourselves. Dynamic Preaching, Collected Sermons, by King Duncan Call to Reconciliation When we pray to God, do we do so with pride in what wonderful people we are, or with that humble hope which recognizes how we have not lived as God’s children, and how we need God’s forgiveness and grace in our lives? Join me as we pray to our God, saying, (Lectionary Liturgies, Thom Shuman) Unison Prayer for Forgiveness Watching God, like the Pharisee, we think we can stick our thumbs into life, pull out a prayer, and congratulate ourselves for being such good Christians. Then, we remember the harsh words we have spoken this week, the hurt we have inflicted on someone we loved, the lack of compassion we failed to offer to someone who needed our help. Forgive us, God of Grace, and deal gently with us. May we become more like the tax collector - humble, penitent, acknowledging our faulty lives to you. Then, may we receive the mercy promised to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. Amen. (Lectionary Liturgies, Thom Shuman) Silence is kept Assurance of Pardon Forgiven and healed, we open ourselves to the grace, the peace, the hope offered to us through our loving God. This is the good news we have received! Graced and blessed, we are able to live our lives for others, taking them by the hand to reach that finish line called the Kingdom. Thanks be to God. Amen. (Lectionary Liturgies, Thom Shuman) Passing of the Peace Scripture Luke 18:9-14 Sermon Different types of Pray-ers Are You Really Listening? In his book Directions, author James Hamilton shares this insight about listening to God: "Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses, and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer. One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch. Amazed, the men asked him how he found it. I closed the door,'' the boy replied, “lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking.'' Often the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough, and quiet enough, to hear. Yes, Jesus assures us that our heavenly Father always listens to us, but do we really listen to God? Do we follow the instructions of Psalm 46, "Be still, and know that I am God"? Eric S. Ritz, The Ritz Collection,www.Sermons.com Prayer is listening for God’s voice in our lives. When we pray we are connecting our lives to the source of all life. Prayer is at the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship is connecting our lives and the world to the God. Prayer also lies at the heart of the gospel of Luke. Luke is intended to be a training manual for disciples. Luke demonstrates the power of prayer in all 24 chapters, from the birth of Christ to the resurrection – Luke shows the power of prayer, he tells us stories of Jesus praying, he models what prayer looks like, shoe shows ordinary persons praying, and he even shows how God answers prayer. In chapter 18, he gives us examples of three types of prayer in the mouths of three different lay persons. We didn’t look at the first part of chapter 18 – but it is the story of a faithful widow praying for justice and God hears her prayer. Our text for today is about 2 very different men with 2 very different prayers. When our children were small and we were trying to teach them to pray, we had three kinds of prayer: "Please prayers," Thank you prayers," and "Sorry prayers." S. Briscoe, Getting into God, p. 55. So the widow’s prayer was a please prayer, the pharisee’s prayer was a thank you prayer, and the tax collectors prayer was a sorry prayer. Actually in spiritual life there are five kinds of prayer. The five major types of prayer, intercession on behalf of others, adoration, confession, petition and thanksgiving. Luke gives models of all of them.As a matter of fact, there are 3 models of prayer in chapter 18. Last week we heard of the woman persistent in her prayer. – prayers of petition. You could say that the Pharisee was praying a prayer of adoration – even if it was adoration of his own faith. And the tax collector prayed a prayer of confession. Which is a better prayer? Which is better for us to pray? There is no comparison. There are times in our lives when we need to pray all five prayers. The comparison is not with the widow, the Pharisee and the tax collector. The comparison is with Jesus Christ – does the prayer draw us closer to Jesus. Luke gives us an example of all 5 types of prayer and I would encourage you to use them all at some point in your daily life. So when Jesus tells this parable, it is probably not based on a real story – Jesus is just using examples of people that he knows are in the crowd that day. Another major them of Luke is bridging the gap between insiders and outsiders. Jesus wanted to encourage the beloved community to understand those that they didn’t know so that they could open the door of acceptance. Tax collectors would have flocked to Jesus, because they didn’t feel accepted by the community. Tax collectors were nothing like IRS agents of today. They were considered traiters, because they would take money from their own people. Some time it made it to the government, most of the time it did not. They pocketed it. In a crowded room people would have felt uncomfortable around a tax collector. They were outsiders On the other hand, the pharisees were considered the ultimate insider. They were well respected and were looked up to as leaders. The pharisees were haters, they were in the crowd just to stalk Jesus and find something to criticize. Not only were they insiders, they were the authority for who was in, and who was out. When Jesus uses them in his parable, he is actually giving them a compliment. He is helping his followers understand their role in religious society. Pharisees were the first lay leaders – they studied the bible constantly, they did all that they could to support the congregation, they prayed for themselves and for others, they were expected to always go above and beyond. They were supposed to be better than anyone else. When he says thank you God that I am not like the other people, he is actually praying • Pharisee prays Psalm 17:3-5 “If you try my heart, if you visit me by night, if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress. As for what others do, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.” His prayers are sincere – yet Jesus points out that prayer is not just words, it is also attitude and actions. The pharisees words were close to God, his attitudes and actions were not. Being a better Christian is about connecting to others – reaching out, not looking down on people. C. S. Lewis once said, "A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down, you can't see something that's above you." • The tax collector on the other hand prayed Psalm 51 - Tax Collector prays Psalm 51:1 "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions” In Jesus eyes, the pharisee’s prayer wasn’t wrong, and the tax collectors prayer was not right. Both are equal in God’s eyes. They are both children of God. The pharisee is a model of faith, and the tax collector is closer to the ordinary guy. Jesus knows that in our minds, we tend to look for the good guy and the bad guy. Jesus is counting on us finding good and bad in the story. We like to stalk out the bad, the wrong, the problem. There is a story of a famous well liked knight who was a dragon hunter. He took is task very seriously. Everything that he did during his day, was geared toward making him a better dragon hunter. He thought about dragons night and day. He spent every available minute practicing hunting dragons. For him, in order to catch a dragon, you have to think like a dragon, you had to understand their motivation. His every thought was directed toward hunting dragons. One day, after years of discipline, he happened to see his reflection while looking at a river, and he was horrified at what he had seen. After years of focusing on hunting dragons, he discovered that he had become the thing that he hated the most – he has become a dragon. If we leave the sanctuary this morning focusing on the faults of the pharisee – thinking that he is the bad guy – then the lessons of Jesus has failed you. Jesus wants you to see the self- righteousness in yourself. Our text actually stars out by saying – there were certain people in the audience who had become self righteous. Those people he is talking about is you and me. As soon as we start to draw the line between us and them, between right and wrong, between good and bad, between insider and outsider – Jesus can automatically be found on the other side than us. Humanity is constantly trying to order ourselves regarding power and worth. The challenge of the Gospel is all people are beloved and that challenge is lived out in the Beloved Community (& the Kingdom of Heaven). In what ways are we humbling and exalting others or ourselves in appropriate (leveling) ways and inappropriate ways? Sometimes our greatest gifts, can become our greatest burden to listening to God clearly. The pharisee prayed a genuine prayer of thankfulness, but he focused on his gifts, and didn’t mention his faults. Discipleship is seeing others as beloved children of God- balancing love of God and love of other That is why prayer is so much a part of our discipleship. All 5 types of prayer ( intercession on behalf of others, adoration for God’s grace, confession of our sins, thankfulness and petition) need to be a part of our daily life. God hears the prayers of both the saints and the sinners. Our prayer life shapes our attitudes and our actions. May the grace that we receive from God be the grace that we pass on to others. Let us pray……. Song Leaning on the Everlasting Arms UMH 133 Pastoral Prayer We know that you listen to the prayers of the faithful, looking in our lives, and looking upon the world. Ask that you be with each and every person here and their concerns. Many things for us to pray about. • Pray for peace within the wars and disagreements in the world • Pray for the tensions in our country. We pray for people who are demonstrating and that you hear their concerns. • Pray for people in danger, and separated form families • Pray for many people and places that have been affected by hurricanes and horrible weather • People who are dealing with loss help in their grief • People who are dealing with illness of themselves and family members • Farmers who are working in the field, keep safe and not let labor be in vain • Violence and crimes unsolved. • Grace, peace, mercy Lord’s Prayer Stewardship Moment So the question still remains, who do you see yourself as in the story of the pharisee and the tax collector. Are we the model of what it means to be faithful to God, or are we just the ordinary person just trying to be faithful. Most of us are probably somewhere in between. And the next question is which of these two people would Jesus want us to model on our own faith journey? Does Jesus really want us to cheat those around us, and to hoard money for ourselves, and then ask for forgiveness without any thought of repentance. Jesus would probably want us to be more like the pharisee – the pharisee studied the bible, he served his church, he reached out to others, he was in constant communication with God, and he was very intentional about tithing. He took what he gave to God very seriously. If the bible called for him to give 10% of everything to God, he did that. Those are all of the lessons that we are reminded of during our stewardship campaign – giving our gifts, our prayers, our talents, our service and our witness. Jesus wants us to be like the pharisee - like a pharisee who has a little humility and an awareness of the prayers of others. Jesus does not discourage giving 10% of our income back to God. But the good news for us is that Jesus gives us grace. In today’s economy, when we look at our income. 10% may be way too much to give on a regular basis. He encourages us to pray and consider the cost and to give in a way that helps us to feel good about our gift. If 10% is too much, then perhaps we can consider 5%, or 2% or 1%. In a few weeks, we will be asked to consider our gifts to the church. I hope that we can all use our skill in prayer and connection to God as we commit our pledge for the year. God loves a cheerful giver, which is why we usually ask for a pledge and not a straight tithe. Jesus also stressed that when we give, that we consider the mission – what needs to be done and how much does it cost to do it. If each of us gives what we can – we can fulfill that mission. The mission of our church is to grow as disciples of Christ and to create a space for others to have a relationship with God, whether they are a pharisee or a tax collector. As we come to a time of sharing our tithes, offerings and gifts, Today, I invite you to look deep within your own self. What can you offer? What WILL you offer in gratitude for the ways Jesus lifts you up in his love, and God’s Spirit draws you close? Prayer of Thanksgiving God, we want to know, deep down, how we can live into the person you’ve created each of us to be. Receive the gifts we’ve offered here: the finances, the time, and the talents of each of our lives, but also the vulnerable recognition of our individual souls. Today, send us from this time of worship eager to be true followers of Jesus, who ate with sinners; crossed racial, social, and gender restrictions; and called ordinary folk to be his disciples. AMEN (Disciples of Christ Center for Faith and Giving) Announcements Closing Prayer for Facebook May we leave this house of worship today, quick to listen, slow to speak, open to hearing and responding to God’s truth. May God bless you and keep you, be kind and gracious to you, may God look upon you with favor and bring you peace. Amen. (Presbyterian Outlook, Terri McDowell Ott) Community Time – Joys and Concerns Benediction What greater joy can we know that to go home justified because of our humility before God who redeems? Let us leave this place to live as we came in – openly and desiring to praise God and witness to a saving love. Go in humble grace. In Christ’s name. Amen. Derek Weber, March 2025 Additional Illustrations An Absolute Standard One rabbi said, "If there are only two righteous men in the world, I and my son are these two; if there is only one, I am he!" –Reminds me of two friends talking, one said, "We're the only two honest people left in the world, and sometimes I'm not so sure about you!" With a human measure, righteousness is relative, you can always find someone better and someone worse. Take the right point of comparison and you feel pretty good about yourself. A little boy announced to his mother, "I'm like Goliath. I'm 9 feet tall." "Why do you say that?" asked his mother. "Well, I made a little ruler and measured myself with it; I'm 9 feet tall!" Human standards don't count. The only evaluation that counts is by an absolute standard! The righteousness of God Himself; with that measuring stick, we all come up short! Lee Compson, Holier Than Who? ___________________________________ What Impresses God - Luke 18:9-14 There was a very lost, wicked, rebellious man who decided it would be good for business if he went down to the church and joined it. He was an adulterer, an alcoholic, and had never been a member of a church in his life. But when he went down to the altar to join the church, he gave public testimony to the church that there was no sin in his life, and that he had grown up in the church, and they readily accepted him as a member. When he went home he told his wife what he had done, and his wife, a very godly lady, exploded. She excoriated him for being such a hypocrite, and demanded that he go back to the church the next week and confess what he really was. Well, God used his wife to really break him, and he took it to heart. The next Sunday he went back to the church, walked down to the front again, and this time confessed to the church all of his sins. He told them he was dishonest, an alcoholic, an adulterer, and he was sorry. They revoked his membership on the spot. He walked out of the church that day scratching his head and muttered to himself: "These church folks are really strange. I told a lie and they took me in; and when I told the truth they kicked me out!" The Lord Jesus told a story of two men in a similar situation who had totally different results. One man tried to talk himself into God's kingdom, but he didn't make it. One man tried to talk himself out of God's kingdom and he did make it. Now Luke makes it plain who Jesus told this parable to. For he says in v.9, "Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others." I promise you, every one of you will find yourself somewhere in this story. Because at one time or another all of us are guilty of trying to impress God. You are going to learn, surprisingly, what does impress God, and what doesn't. I. The Pharisee Who Fooled Himself II. The Person Who Faulted Himself III. The Principle That Fulfills Itself _________________ Pride I heard about a fifth grader that came home from school so excited. She had been voted "prettiest girl in the class." The next day she was even more excited when she came home, for the class had voted her "the most likely to succeed." The next day she came home and told her mother she had won a third contest, being voted "the most popular." But the next day she came home extremely upset. The mother said, "What happened, did you lose this time?" She said, "Oh no, I won the vote again." The mother said, "What were you voted this time?" She said, "most stuck up." Well this Pharisee would have won that contest hands down. He had an "i" problem. Five times you will read the little pronoun "i" in these two verses. He was stoned on the drug of self. He suffered from two problems: inflation and deflation. He had an inflated view of who he was, and a deflated view of who God was. His pride had made him too big for his spiritual britches. James Merritt, Collected Sermons, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc. Can You Hear the Music - Luke 18:9-14 Who doesn’t like an “attaboy!” when they do something good? It’s why we have “honor society” in school. It is the reason we have scholarship awards as we head into college. “Attaboy!” stands behind all those accolades high achievers get throughout life — Rhode’s scholarships, purple hearts, Silver stars, gold statues, merit raises for school teachers, making partner in a big firm, getting re-elected (in any organization, at any level). “Attaboys!” reward the gracious, good, above-and-beyond behaviors we see in others. Good persons deserve good things. The problem is that our vision of “good behavior” can get extremely myopic, extremely near-sighted. We only are able to see the good in those who stand closest to us. Those far off become, if not “bad,” at least “other.” “Otherness” is perhaps the most insidious form of prejudice. Why? Because “otherness” makes close closed. “Otherness” disassociates our close family and other loved ones from outsiders and strangers. As soon as we identify some people as “others,” the game is over. We have drawn up “us” vs. “them” battle-lines. In this week’s gospel parable the good-living, well-meaning Pharisee and the ne’r-do-well tax collector are set up as ideal types of the “acceptable” vs. the “other.” The contrast could not be sharper. The Pharisee examines himself, and finds no fault with himself. The tax collector lets God examine him, and throws himself on the bar of God's justice (receiving mercy as God does).Ironically, the Pharisee treats God as a debt collector and the Tax collector, who IS a debt collector, treats God as a Savior…. The Best Treatment for Loneliness Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous American psychiatrist, once gave a lecture on mental health & was answering questions from the audience. One man asked, "What would you advise a person to do if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?" Everyone there expected him to answer, "Consult a psychiatrist." To their astonishment he replied: Leave your house, go across the railroad tracks, find someone who is in need, and do something to help that person. Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com Everything He Says Is True When you read the story about the Pharisee, a number of specific statements are made about his piety. Please note this. Everything the man says about himself is true. For instance, when he says, “I thank you that I am not like other men,” indeed he wasn’t like other men. He had a standard of morality that was far above the standard of that day. When he said, “I fast twice a week;” it happens to be literally true. The Pharisees fasted on Monday and Thursday of every week. When he says, “I give tithes of all I possess,” he means he tithes on the gross and not on the net. He went beyond the Law of Moses. That’s no big deal; all the Pharisees did that. And when he says, “I am not a crook,” he really isn’t a crook. When he says, “I am not like this filthy tax collector,” he’s really not like that guy. When he says, “I do not commit adultery,” he really doesn’t commit adultery. He is faithful to his wife. When he says, “I am honest, I am faithful, I am zealous for my religion,” he means it and every word of it is true. He truly is a genuinely good man. When I read his prayer, I am reminded of that country song that says, “Oh, Lord, it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way.” What we are to understand is this. When he prayed he was telling the truth. When he said, “Lord, you’re lucky to have a guy like me, because I’m one of the best guys I know,” it was really true. He really was a wonderful guy. While he prayed, people would be standing around watching. And they would say, “He’s a fine man.” While he prayed, they probably applauded. He was the kind of guy you’d want living next door to you. A good citizen. A law-abiding man. A good, religious kind of person. If he were to come to this church today we’d love him because he would be faithful, loyal, and give us a lot of money. We’d probably make him an elder or a deacon. He’s just that kind of guy. He looks really good on the outside. Everything he says about himself is absolutely true. Ray Pritchard, How to Be Right with God ___________________________________ The Cunning Craftsman In her play, "The Zeal of Thy House," Dorothy Sayers imagines a stonemason working on an intricate carving for the chancel of Canterbury Cathedral, who clumsily lets his tool slip and spoils the whole great piece of stone assigned to him. It is a sad moment as the valuable and custom-cut stone stands misshapen. The architect, however, takes the tool out of the artisan's hand and although he remonstrates with him for his clumsiness, begins to enact forgiveness. He redesigns out of the spoiled carving a new and different figure which has its own part to play in the ensemble of the Cathedral, and then permits the blundering mason to complete it in all its glory. "So works with us," concludes Dorothy Sayers, "the cunning craftsman, God." On reading it, I could not shake the phrase from my mind: "The cunning craftsman, God." As used, the word cunning does not mean some kind of craftiness which might be our modern interpretation. But taken in its pure sense it indicates skill, wisdom and ability. The phrase then really means that the Master artist God can take our blundering efforts and still make something useful out of them. He takes our mismanaged lives, our failed efforts, our missed marks, our shameful deeds, our alien attitudes, our sinful lives and out of his divine resourcefulness he saves the day by creating something new, worthy and wonderful that still has usefulness and beauty in the divine plan of things. It is a reassurance that we desperately need, but one on which we cannot presume. Allan J. Weenink, Only The Wounded Can Serve, CSS Publishing Co., Inc. ________________ What Kind of Sinners Can Be Members Samuel Colgate, the founder of the Colgate business empire, was a devout Christian, and he told of an incident that took place in the church he attended. During an evangelistic service, an invitation was given at the close of the sermon for all those who wished to turn their lives over to Christ and be forgiven. One of the first persons to walk down the aisle and kneel at the altar was a well-known prostitute. She knelt in very real repentance, she wept, she asked God to forgive her, and meanwhile the rest of the congregation looked on approvingly at what she was doing. Then she stood and testified that she believed God had forgiven her for her past life, and she now wanted to become a member of the church. For a few moments, the silence was deafening. Finally, Samuel Colgate arose and said, "I guess we blundered when we prayed that the Lord would save sinners. We forgot to specify what kind of sinners. We'd better ask him to forgive us for this oversight. The Holy Spirit has touched this woman and made her truly repentant, but the Lord apparently doesn't understand that she's not the type we want him to rescue. We'd better spell it out for him just which sinners we had in mind." Immediately, a motion was made and unanimously approved that the woman be accepted into membership in the congregation. God accepts us as we are. There's not a sin too black, not a deed too awful, not a thought too horrible for him to forgive. Larry R. Kalajainen, Extraordinary Faith for Ordinary Time, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. I Used to Be an Intellectual Albert Schweitzer was laboring one day, under the hot African sun, building his hospital at Lambarene. A large timber had to be raised into place, and try as he might, Schweitzer couldn't manage it. He looked up and saw a well-dressed African man standing in the shade of a tree, and asked him to lend a hand. "O, no," the man said, "I don't do that kind of work. I am an intellectual." And Albert Schweitzer, with five earned doctor's degrees, said, "I used to be an intellectual, but I couldn't live up to it." When we are Christians we don't have anything to live up to, no pretenses to maintain, no privileges to guard. We can't be too low in the eyes of the world. We can't be losers enough. There is a wonderful peace and freedom in that. William R. Boyer, Sorry, Thank You, Please _________________ Bent to the Ground A city boy visited his cousin who lived on a farm in the country for the first time. The city boy had never seen wheat growing in a field. It was an impressive sight for him, the wheat golden brown and ready for harvesting. He noticed that some of the wheat stood tall in the field, whereas some of it was bent low, touching the ground. The city boy said to his cousin, "I bet the ones standing tall are the best ones, aren't they?" His cousin smiled knowingly and reached over and plucked the head of one of the tall-standing wheat stalks and one that was bent to the ground. He rubbed each of them and the city boy saw that the tall one was almost empty of seeds. But the one bent to the ground was full of the promise of a rich harvest. R. Curtis Fussell, Deadly Sins and Living Virtues, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. Learn To Empty Yourself A martial arts student was meeting with his master and teacher at a table, having tea. The student said to his master, "I've learned all you have to teach me about defending myself. I want to learn one thing more now. Please teach me about the ways of God." The master took the teakettle and starting pouring the student's cup full of tea. Soon the cup was full and began to spill over onto the saucer. But the master continued to pour the tea until it spilled over the saucer and then onto the floor. The student finally said, "Stop, stop, the tea is spilling over. The cup can't take any more." The master then looked at the student and said, "You are so full of yourself that there is no room in your life for God. It is not possible for you to learn the ways of God until you learn to empty yourself." R. Curtis Fussell, Deadly Sins and Living Virtues, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. Worshipping Who She Used To Be Girolamo Savonarola was one of the great preachers of the fifteenth century. He preached in the great cathedral of Florence, Italy, which contained a magnificent marble statue of the blessed virgin Mary. When Savonarola started preaching at this great cathedral, he noticed one day an elderly woman praying before this statue of Mary. He then began to notice that it was her habit to come every day and pray before the statue. Savonarola remarked one day to an elderly priest who had been serving in the cathedral for many years, "Look how devoted and earnest this woman is. Every day she comes and offers prayers to the blessed Mother of Jesus. What a marvelous act of faith." But the elderly priest replied, "Do not be deceived by what you see. Many years ago when the sculptor needed a model to pose for this statue of the blessed Mother, he hired a beautiful young woman to sit for him. This devout worshiper you see here everyday is that young woman. She is worshiping who she used to be." The first and perhaps the deadliest of the seven deadly sins is pride. R. Curtis Fussell, Deadly Sins and Living Virtues, CSS Publishing Company, Inc. ____________________ They Only Ironed The Parts That Showed Mike Cope, in his article "Righteousness Inside Out," tells of inviting a college student and his girlfriend back to his home after church, to have lunch with him and his wife. "When we got to the house, I took off my suit coat and invited him to do the same. The boy hemmed and hawed for a long time until he could pull me aside, and what he whispered to me then reminded me of the way I used to live when I was in college." It seemed he had only ironed the cuffs and collar of his shirt. If he took off his jacket, his girl would see the rest of his shirt and know what a slob he was. He had only ironed the parts that showed. That was one of the major, ongoing complaints Jesus brought against the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day. That they were phony. That they were not what they seemed to be. That they were hypocrites. That they only ironed the parts that showed. William R. Boyer, Sorry, Thank You, Please ______________________ Our Own Vices Dwight L. Moody and Charles Spurgeon were great preachers of the nineteenth century. Moody admired Spurgeon from a distance and looked forward to the opportunity of meeting him in London. On that historic day, Spurgeon answered the door with a cigar in his mouth. Moody was aghast. "How could you, a man of God, smoke that?" Spurgeon took the cigar from his mouth, put his finger on Moody's rather inflated stomach, smiled and said, "The same way you, a man of God, could be that fat." Because we are usually blind to our own vices, we are hardly qualified to judge others. Eric S. Ritz, The Ritz Collection,www.Sermons.com ____________________________ • Ask your congregation who they are- the tax collector or the Pharisee? Why do they think that? Who do they view as the other? Why? Do they feel they deserve to be exalted or humbled? In some ways this could be thought of as a modern day version of the old parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
A Pharisee was a lay person, who committed to following the law to the letter. He did what was right all of the time. He tithed, the prayed, he studied the scripture, he lived right. The tax collector of Jesus day, was not the IRS man of today. The tax collector was thought of as a thief and a traitor. He stole from his own to give it to the government. Sometimes the money made it to the government, most of the time it did not. He kept it in his pocket. Jesus understood the plight of the tax collector very well – he had lunch with them all of the time. Jesus did not get along real well with the Pharisee.