As I read the Gospel text for the 20^th Sunday after Pentecost, the word that grabs my attention is humble, or humbled. Jesus concludes the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector by declaring that all who exalt themselves will be humbled and all who humble themselves will be exalted. These words from Mary’s Magnificat come to mind:

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53).

This is not the only instance in the year of Luke where the Magnificat continues to echo in the teaching of Jesus.  In Luke 4:14-21, the first part of Jesus’s sermon at his hometown synagogue in Nazareth, we notice the similarities between the words from Isaiah Jesus reads and his mother’s song:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19). 

Indeed, Mary’s song sets the stage for her son’s ministry, of dramatic reversals and flipped tables, in what we think we know about our world, what we think we know about ourselves,  our neighbors, human and more than human. From dining with “sinners” to comparing the kingdom of heaven to a “weed” like the mustard plant, to true greatness found not in the great and powerful but the smallest and least powerful, Jesus challenges us to look at the world and the people around us with new eyes. In this parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Jesus challenges us to see ourselves in both places; as self-assured of our own knowledge and accomplishments and also acknowledging our own brokenness and need of divine grace. Saint and sinner.  

With whom do you identity with in this parable, and why? Can we be too quick to judge the Pharisee, while separating ourselves from others like he does, yet reluctant to see ourselves as the tax collector, acknowledging our own flaws and sins? Do we place too much faith in our own knowledge, abilities and accomplishments, without remembering our dependence on the overflowing grace of God, such that all we are, all we do, all we have are gifts from God? Can we receive the dramatic reversal that the Reformation celebrates, of justification by grace alone through faith alone?  Can we stand together using the gifts and talents God has given us in faithful service to neighbor and Creation?    

In a recent children’s sermon, I talked about how we each are given gifts and talents from God, and that each gift, each talent, is valuable to God. Each of them, each of us, is precious in God’s sight and valued members of the church, the Body of Christ. Can this parable teach us such humility, that we are all equal recipients of the grace of God, and all serve a vital function?  Rather like an ecosystem where each lifeform is vital for the health of all life in the system. The loss of one will affect all. 

In fact, is our “we all” too small?

How thoughtlessly we human beings exalt ourselves not only over each other, but over other creatures, the plant and animal creatures, the sea and land creatures, the ocean and earth creatures, even the creature that is the atmosphere we breathe! Look around and see the price that we are paying for our blind sense of human superiority.  Then fall down on our knees with the tax collector in anguish for the harm we are doing to the Earth.  So humbled, cast down from our thrones, we begin to discover all we can learn when we begin looking up at the rest of Creation. When we do, even the tiny pollinators will teach us what it means to live in God’s economy of grace.

This Sunday many congregations will celebrate Reformation Sunday. This Gospel text can challenge us to see how, just as the church is always reforming, our care for God’s Creation must always be reforming as well. With the growing threats of climate change and political polarization, we must reexamine and reform our work of caring for Creation to respond to growing changes and challenges. May the gospel create in us the humility to accept that we do not have the answers on our own, but with one another and with the whole community of Creation we may discern a new way forward!