Two Men Went to the Temple
This is the sermon I preached at St. Timothy and St. Mark Lutheran Churches on Sunday, Oct. 23. The text was Luke 18:9-14. At first glance, this is one of the shortest, most straightforward and easy to understand parables of Jesus. It's about two men and prayer. One man is the good guy and the other anything but. The gist of this parable is about how to pray, isn't it?-----or is it? We don't understand this parable as those of the first century did. Because we know how the parable ends, we assume that the Pharisee must represent the one who put his trust in himself, that he was righteous and the one who despised others. The first century listeners would have had opposite impressions of these two men. Pharisees often prayed, went to the temple and did all the right religious things--so it would seem they must be trusting God, not themselves. Tax collectors were traitors to their fellow Jews--so it stands to reason that they must be ...