Luke 18:9-14
Revised Common Lectionary
20th Sunday after Pentecost
October 26, 2025
In Jesus’ day, people literally went up to the Temple. Perched at Jerusalem’s highest point, the Temple drew worshippers who walked uphill – sometimes for miles – to reach it. Worship was not a casual stop between errands but a pilgrimage of body and soul.
We may drive to church now instead of climbing steep hills, but we still exert effort to show up. Yet Jesus hints that showing up is only the beginning. Worship, he suggests in Luke 18: 9-14, requires more than physical effort; it calls for spiritual effort — an open heart, a humble stance. We can move our bodies to the pew, but if our hearts are barricaded, our minds distracted, or our spirits armored, what will we gain by being here? And what will God gain from our presence?
In Luke 18: 9-14, Jesus places two characters before us. The first, a Pharisee, prays standing apart. His prayer begins with gratitude but slides into comparison: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” It’s a sidelong-glance prayer — one eye on heaven, one eye on his neighbors. Life is a competition in which he names himself the winner.
Yet this Pharisee is devout, disciplined, generous. He fasts twice a week, gives a tenth of his income, and shows gratitude to God. By any religious metric he’s exemplary — except for the subtle line he crosses between gratitude and elitism. We cross that line, too, when our prayers shift from “thank you” to “thank you that I’m better.”
Speaking for Luther Seminary’s “In the Company of Preachers” audio series, New Testament scholar Mary Hinkle Shore describes skipping communion because she was deeply irritated by a fellow congregant. “Hard to believe, I know,” she writes, “but occasionally this happens.” She knew she couldn’t stand in Jesus’ presence while so full of ill will and righteous indignation; Jesus might ask something of her she wasn’t ready to give. That honesty resonates with this parable. The Pharisee, so full of himself, is unavailable for God’s transforming grace. His self-congratulation blocks his blessing.
The second character is a tax collector — a man despised for collaborating with Rome, enriching himself by exploiting his own people. No wonder his head is bowed, his prayer stripped to the bare essentials: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He has nothing to boast about, no moral résumé to display. Only need.
Yet we should be careful not to romanticize him. He’s complicit in injustice; his repentance may be real but unfinished. Will his prayer change him, or merely soothe him? Will he leave the Temple different from how he arrived?
Those questions hover over our own worship. In her book Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for this Urgent Time, Marva Dawn writes that worship should not simply comfort or entertain, but transform us. It ought to “kill” our self-centeredness so that Christ can rise within us. The Apostle Paul testified to this dying and rising: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). True worship invites this kind of surrender. It shakes us awake, dismantles our illusions, and calls us into new life.
That’s why Jesus ends the parable with a reversal: “This man [the tax collector] went down to his home justified rather than the other.” Not because the tax collector is more virtuous, but because he’s more open. God can transform someone who knows they need mercy. God can work with humility.
The Pharisee and the tax collector both trudged uphill to pray. But only one of them left changed. The other returned home stuffed with self-satisfaction but empty of grace.
How do we come to the Temple?
Do we come with sidelong glances, measuring our moral standing against others, ready for a spiritual pat-on-the-back? Or do we come willing to be changed — ready to release our defenses, to let God’s word cut us open and heal us?
God is here, waiting to fill us, challenge us, and make us right with God and one another. We do not have to be perfect to enter. We only have to be honest — about our need, our sin, our hopes, and our desire to be made new. The uphill journey of faith begins with humility, but it ends in grace.
Questions for reflection on Luke 18:9-14
- When have you “gone up to the temple” to worship with your body but not your heart? What helps you move from simply showing up to truly opening yourself to God’s presence?
- The Pharisee’s prayer begins with gratitude but slips into comparison. Where do you notice that temptation in your own life or community — and how might humility reshape your prayer?
- The tax collector leaves justified, in right relationship to God, but Jesus leaves us wondering how his life might change. After encountering God’s mercy, what shifts – small or large – might God be inviting you to make in your life, relationships, or work?
View the corresponding Order of Worship for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost.
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