Sermon: "When Righteousness Misses God"-October 26, 2025

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Luke 18:9-14

The Rev'd Ezgi Saribay Perkins, Rector 

Transcript

In Turkish families, competition and comparison are practically national pastimes. Pride in achievement is woven into our cultural DNA. From the time we’re children, we hear stories of Turkish excellence: our athletes, authors, and musicians, our sharp wit, our clever minds. Don’t believe me? Just ask me in the greeting line after church about Turkish Airlines, Turkish coffee, or baklava, and I will go on and on about their superiority to all their counterparts. 

I say that with humor, of course, but it’s true that I grew up surrounded by the language of comparison. “So-and-so plays the viola concerto better.” “So-and-so scored higher on the math exam.” “So-and-so is thinner, faster, and studies more.” My father never had to lecture me about achievement. All he had to do was mention another child’s success and wink at me, and I understood: work harder, do more, be better to be accepted by him. 

I think many of us are formed, by the quiet conviction that our worth depends on winning the comparison game. It’s an endless race. Because no matter how well we perform, there’s always someone faster, thinner, smarter, or holier. And when that mindset seeps into our faith, we begin to pray like the Pharisee in today’s gospel, not seeking mercy but affirmation. 

Jesus knew this tendency well. He saw how comparison corrodes both community and the soul, and so he told a story about two men who went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. Both believed they were seeking God. But only one left the temple actually found by Him. 

Our text is clear in getting this message across: when we measure our worth before God by comparison to others, we risk cutting ourselves off from grace. 

The first thing I encourage us to think about this morning is this: comparing ourselves to others in relation to where we stand with God is a slippery slope. 

Comparison is such an easy habit to slip into. We look at someone else’s choices or shortcomings and think, Well, at least I’m not like that. It feels harmless, even holy. Maybe we are healthier, thinner, smarter, or more privileged. Maybe we spend laborious hours at the gym, whereas the lady in the grocery store with a cart full of Little Debbies is just lazy. But comparison can be a subtle poison. It gives us a sense of control while quietly draining our relationship with our neighbor. 

That’s exactly what happens in the parable. The Pharisee stands in the temple, proud of his record, listing all the things he’s done right: fasting, tithing, keeping the law. But listen to his prayer. It begins, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” His words are intended for heaven but never reach it, because he’s not praying to God anymore; he’s praying about other people. 

Luke tells us he “prayed by himself.” What a haunting phrase. His prayer never leaves the echo chamber of his own ego. He is talking about God but not to God. 

We’ve all been there. We might never say it aloud, but you’ve felt it, the quiet satisfaction of thinking, At least my life turned out better than theirs. At least I’m more faithful than he is. At least I’ve kept the rules. It feels like reassurance, but it’s really separative force. 

Theologically, this is what happens when we mistake achievement for justification. The Pharisee believes that what he does earns God’s brownie points. 

C. S. Lewis once said, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next person.” That’s the tragedy of the Pharisee. His joy depends on someone else being worse. 

And as Lewis wrote elsewhere, “Pride leads to every other vice; it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” Pride looks around to others instead of up to God for divine virtues. 

The Pharisee’s problem wasn’t that he prayed too much, but that he prayed as though God were keeping score. He left the temple certain of his goodness, yet untouched by grace in an anti-God state of mind. That was the slipper slope for him. And it is for us too. 

The second thing the text communicates so clearly is this: we might be doing everything right in the eyes of the world and worldly insiders and still be outsiders to God. 

If the first danger is comparison, the second is over- confidence in our own performance. The Pharisee in Jesus’ story wasn’t immoral or corrupt. He wasn’t dishonest, unkind, or faithless. In fact, he’s the kind of man any religious community would be happy to have. He prayed faithfully, fasted regularly, and gave generously. By all accounts, he was a model believer. 

But Jesus tells this story to show that even a life filled with good deeds can still be empty. 

In the law of Moses, fasting was required only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, when the people humbled themselves before God to seek forgiveness. But by Jesus’ day, the devout had expanded that to twice a week, usually on Mondays and Thursdays. This Pharisee wasn’t merely obedient; he was exceptional. He went beyond what was required, turning one annual fast into more than a hundred days a year of self-denial. 

Likewise, the law commanded the people to tithe certain crops and animals, just a portion of what they produced. But the Pharisee took no chances. He tithed on everything, even the herbs from his garden, even the smallest earnings. His generosity exceeded the Mosaic law’s expectation. 

And yet, that’s precisely what makes Jesus’ verdict so unsettling. The man who exceeds every religious standard still walks away unjustified. 

The problem isn’t his fasting or tithing; it’s what those things have become for him. They are no longer expressions of gratitude but badges of insider identity. He uses devotion as evidence, sacrifice as status, obedience as a way to prove he deserves God’s approval. He’s doing everything right, but for the wrong reason. 

It’s easy to fall into that same rhythm. We may never speak the Pharisee’s words, but our hearts sometimes echo them. We think, I serve on committees. I give faithfully. I show up most Sundays. I try to live right. And we hope that somewhere, all of that adds up to enough. But the gospel says the opposite. Grace begins where our “enough” ends. 

I used to take communion to an elderly man in St. Louis who’d been in church nearly every Sunday for sixty years. When we talked about faith during one visit, he said hesitantly, “Mother, I just hope I’ve done enough for God to accept me.” I could tell he carried the weight of a lifetime of trying to earn what had already been given. He had spent years doing everything right and yet still lived as though he could not rest in the love and acceptance of Jesus. 

The tragedy of the Pharisee is the exact opposite. He stands in the very temple where sacrifices are made for sin, yet he believes no sacrifice is needed for him. He doesn’t realize that his careful obedience, without humility, has turned into a wall that keeps even God out. He has confused proximity to holiness with intimacy with God. 

Let me let you in on a secret, it is possible to be very close to the altar and still far from the heart of the One it represents.  

Sometimes the most dangerous place to lose our sense of need is in the sanctuary itself, when our prayers are dignified, our service dependable, and our hearts can be quietly untouched. 

God delights in obedience, yes, but not when it becomes a substitute for love. The Pharisee’s fasting and tithing were impressive, but they had become a mirror reflecting his own virtue rather than a window through which he could see God’s mercy. 

In the end, he went up to the temple full of himself and came down empty. The tax collector went up empty and came down full. 

It’s a sobering reminder that righteousness isn’t earned by exceeding the law but by accepting grace. The world applauds performance; God responds to tax collector’s authentic honesty. 

Lastly, this type of honest look at our soul and admission of our sins is the place where we step onto the right path of humility. God uses that humility to justify us. 

While the Pharisee stood tall, the tax collector could barely lift his eyes from the ground. He stood at a distance, as though he didn’t deserve to be near the altar. His hands, instead of being raised in prayer, beat against his chest. He had no record to present, no résumé to offer, no list of accomplishments to read aloud before God. His prayer is only seven words long: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” 

But in those few words, something changed. Jesus says, “This man went down to his home justified.” Notice the tense; it’s immediate. Justification didn’t wait for improvement or performance in the story.  The tax collector didn’t go home to fix himself before God accepted him. He went home already forgiven. His humility became the doorway for mercy to enter. 

Friends, True humility isn’t thinking less of ourselves. It’s seeing ourselves truthfully before a holy and merciful God. Notice, The tax collector doesn’t wallow in shame; he simply tells the truth about his soul. 

There’s a saying that “confession is not about convincing God to forgive us; it’s about letting God show us that He already has.” That’s what happens in this parable. The moment the tax collector stops pretending, forgiveness and justification enters the scene. 

The church fathers saw this clearly. They said the tax collector shows us that repentance is not an act of despair but an act of courage, the courage to come before God with nothing but honesty. One early preacher put it this way: “The one who humbles himself before God shows his wounds to the Physician and is healed.” 

Our Humility, then, is not a weakness. It’s the posture that allows God to act. The proud stand tall and leave unchanged; the humble kneel and go home restored. The Pharisee prays like a lawyer before a judge, while the tax collector prays like someone facing his own reflection. 

We live in a world that prizes confidence and strength, where admitting weakness feels like humiliation. But Jesus works in the opposite direction. By showing us in this story, the soil where grace grows best is the one full of honest humility. 

I once met a woman in recovery who told me, “The hardest prayer I ever prayed was the first one I meant—‘Help me.’” That’s the prayer the tax collector prays. It’s the simplest and most powerful one we can ever offer. When we bring our brokenness instead of our credentials, God meets us with mercy instead of measurement. 

And that’s the heart of the gospel. It isn’t our self-assurance that makes us right with God; it’s His compassion. The same God who heard the tax collector’s cry still listens for that prayer today, not from the strong, but from the honest. 

Jesus tells us that The kingdom of God is full of reversals. The first become last, and the last become first. The self-assured walk away empty, and the penitent go home full. In the end, He makes it plain: “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” This is not a threat for us; it’s a promise and a challenge to live each day.  

Conclusion: In the end, two men went up to the temple to pray, but only one went home changed. The difference wasn’t in their virtue or vocabulary; it was in their posture before God. One measured himself against others and left unchanged; the other measured himself against mercy and found forgiveness. 

The truth is simple yet searching: when we measure our worth by comparison, we quickly cut ourselves off from God. But when we come with empty hands and honest hearts, God fills them with his mercy. 

Friends, true righteousness is not found in our comparisons, but in our confession, in the honest admission of our need and the recognition of Jesus as Lord and Saviour of all. It is there, in the quiet surrender of humility, when we raise the white flag, that God meets us. And it is there, in that meeting, that all is made right in the world. It is there, there is need and room for Jesus to save. 

If I met you on the street and asked, “What makes a person right with God?” what would you tell me? Would you list the things I must do? Or would you tell me that the answer lies not in my performance, but in how I see myself, how I see others, and how I see Jesus, honestly, humbly, and without the comparison game of pride? What would you tell me about what I must to do to be right with God if I just asked you? Is the answer in doing things to be saved, or is it in being that results in right doing? Can our righteousness really miss God if we are not careful?  AMEN.