Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
July 14, 2024

Remember Who You Are Talking To

Tom Are Jr.
Interim Pastor

Micah 6:6–8
Luke 18:9–14

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Jim Lowry is a friend and mentor, a retired Presbyterian pastor. He’s a fine preacher. I asked him what he had learned about preaching over the years. He said, “Tom, just remember, with everything else God has to do on Sunday, she is still going to stop by to listen to what you have to say.”

Sometimes I wish he hadn’t said that. Preaching to you is intimidating enough, but remembering that God is in the room — well, it makes me want to stop right now. Not that I am going to, so don’t get your hopes up.

There are two men at prayer. I don’t know many people of faith who would say prayer is unimportant. At the same time I don’t know many who feel particularly good at prayer. Maybe you do. But prayer raises lots of questions. How are we to pray? What do we say? All these questions make prayer a playground for doubt.

What raises these questions is the inconsistent experience of prayer.

My friend Bill called me and said his twelve-year-old daughter was just diagnosed with leukemia. Bill said, “Get here now. We need you to pray.” I arrived at the children’s hospital, and I prayed. Bill found my prayer too polite, and he began to scream at God, “You are going to fix my baby. You are going to make this right.” In time, Julia was fine, and she is a mother of her own children now.

I was also called by Marshall and Charlene, who said the same prayers over the same disease over their daughter Maggie. We gathered in the hospital ICU, and with tear-stained faces we pleaded, “God heal this little girl.” But for reasons of mystery our prayers were not answered with healing. Maggie joined the church triumphant when she was only seventeen.

The experience of prayer is inconsistent.

Some experience prayer like Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof. For them, God “walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own.” But many more find prayer like my son.

Nathan was going into first grade, and his older sister, a veteran of the first grade, knew what was at stake. Sarah advised him, “You need to get Ms. Taylor for first grade. She is the best first-grade teacher. Nathan, you need to pray that you get Ms. Taylor.” To which my five-year-old son responded, “Sarah, I’ve been praying all my life and God doesn’t do nothing.”

Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Teach us to pray.” Jesus didn’t give them a lesson in theology. He gave them a prayer. He said, “Pray ‘Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” It’s a guide. There are other prayers that are models for us.

We vacationed in New York several years ago and were walking through Central Park, which is part park, part athletic gym, part flea market, and part circus. There was a moment when I watched a mom helping her son learn to ride a bike. You’ve seen that moment before. She would run alongside of her son, her hand on the back of the seat. He is pedaling. She is running. Then she lets go. He notices she’s not holding on anymore: Crash!

They do it again. Crash. Until that moment the fragile balance is gained, and she is left just to clap and say, “You are doing great. Keep pedaling. Keep peddling. You are doing great.”

Some prayers are like the hands on the seat of the bike, helping us find our balance.

Prayers like — do you know this one?

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Or this one?

God is great.
God is good.
Let us thank him for our food.

Do you know that one?

Some prayers we sprinkle through our lives, and they are like hands on the bicycle seat helping us find our balance.

Anne Lamott once said that there are only two prayers, really: “Thank you, thank you, thank you. And help, me help, me help me” (Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, p. 82).

Jesus said two men went into the temple to pray. And if I understand this parable, it illustrates the most important thing about prayer.

As if the Pharisee and tax collector had read Anne Lamott, the Pharisee prays, “Thank you.” The Tax Collector prays, “Help me.”

Our Pharisee has much for which to be grateful. His spiritual practices justify him within the community. He fasts and tithes and prays. His spiritual practice exceeds the requirements of the law. He is the kind of member most churches would love to have.

I have to confess that when I compare myself to this Pharisee, he seems like a more faithful person than I am. Who among us could come into the presence of God boasting such faithfulness?

The tax collector, on the other hand, is a person no one would want to be. The Pharisee’s prayer was a common assessment: Thank God I am not like this tax collector. Tax collectors were hated. Collecting taxes was identified as a profession that no observant Jew would hold (“Tax Collector,” Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 6, p. 337). Often tax collectors cheated the people because the tax collector had the power to demand more tax than was owed and pocket the difference for themselves. But more than crooked, they were viewed as collaborating with the occupying Roman Empire. They were traitors. The Pharisee is not alone in being grateful not to be like the tax collector.

However, when Jesus is telling a story, you better have your seat belt on, because this story is not going to end up like you expect. So, what is it about these prayers that causes Jesus to say not the Pharisee but the tax collector should be our example?

If I understand the text, there is a hint in a small detail. Jesus tells us where these folks stood. Literally stood. The Pharisee stood “by himself,” and the tax collector stood “far off.” Stood by himself; stood far off. That’s the whole story.

The Pharisee “stood by himself,” meaning he does not stand with others. Why should he? He’s so much better than everyone else. However, standing by himself he still prays with what biblical Scholar Luke Timothy Johnson calls “peripheral vision” (Luke Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, p. 272). “I thank God I am not like other people.” That’s where his prayer begins. The Pharisee doesn’t know where to stand unless he knows where you are. His prayer is a comparative prayer. As one scholar has put it, “The Pharisee had enough religion to be virtuous, but not enough to be humble” (Alan Culpepper, The Gospel of Luke: New Interpreter’s Bible, p. 343).

But the Pharisee’s isolation is more than just standing apart from others. He stands by himself, meaning not even God is present, or so he assumes. You can tell by the arrogance of his prayer. It can happen when we forget that God is in the room.

When I lived in Florida, my baby brother and I would play golf together. When we did, the round was littered with some trash-talking. If you will keep this just between us, I will tell you that he is a better golfer than I am. But don’t tell him; it wouldn’t be good for him.

When we played, we were always talking big. He would hit a tee shot down the middle and long and start making the music for ESPN, like he’s going to be on Sports Center. He would sink a putt and tip his cap to the invisible crowds.

One Thanksgiving, our stepbrother Billy invited us to play the TPC course at Sawgrass, where they play the Players Championship. It was a most uncommon day, because there was not one word of trash talk from us. I didn’t mention, our stepbrother is Billy Andrade, and he is a professional golfer, having four wins on the PGA tour. So, no music from ESPN or fist-pumping after we eventually sunk a putt. All afternoon we just said, “Nice shot, Billy.”

When I was comparing myself to my brother, I could find room to boast. I can always find those who are less virtuous than I am. But if I understand the text, Jesus says we are not defined by our comparison to our neighbor, but in relationship to God. When we pray, that’s where our eyes need to be. When we pray we need to remember, with everything else God has to do, she will still stop by to hear what we have to say.

The tax collector prays like that. The tax collector stands far off. If I understand the text, this indicates the tax collector’s awareness that he stands far off from God. Not as in distant but as in knowing that his geography is defined by his closeness to God, and because God is God, there is no swagger in our tax collector. With humility he prays, “Help me.”

I learned this from Charlie. I met her when I was in seminary, doing an internship in the mountains of Virginia. The doctors told Charlie that her heart was weak. My testimony is that was anything but true. Still, she died that summer of my seminary internship. She was my first funeral service. A few weeks before, I visited her in the hospital. As I began to leave, she said, “Tom, would you pray for me?” “Yes, mam, I will,” I said. It was then that I realized she meant right now. Oh. I had prayed before but never at the spur of the moment for a woman who was dying.

“Mrs. Charlie, I don’t know what to pray.” “That’s alright, son. Just sit here with me for a while and remind yourself amidst the tubes and the beeping machines and the fading sunlight that God is right here in this room. Just sit here by me long enough to remember that we are not alone. When you have remembered that, then say whatever you want to say. It will be fine, and it will be a help to me.”

Remember God is in the room, she said.

When you pray, don’t make it hard.

Just say

God is great.
God is good.
Let us thank him for our food.

When you wish to pray, don’t make it too hard, just pray

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

It will help you find your balance.

When you pray, just remember, with everything else God has to do, God will stop by to listen. When you trust that, just say whatever is on your mind. It will be enough. And it will be a help.

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Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church