Leveling Social Terrain (Lk 18:9-14)

And Honoring Two Departed Saints; 20^th Sunday after Pentecost, 2025

My comments will be much briefer this week, and are followed by an invitation to commemorate two important milestones.

The setting in Luke 18:10, like that of the impoverished widow in 21:1–4, is the Temple Court, possibly during the afternoon offering. Both characters separate themselves from the crowd: the Pharisee “stands by himself” in order not to be contaminated by contact with anyone impure; the toll collector “stands far off” because of his despised status in the community (18:11, 13a).
These two contrasting characters form an interesting and complicated conundrum, because they are both representatives of the same oppressive tax system. The Pharisee is an elite official who interprets religious obligation—which included three major annual tithes and offerings required by the Temple cultus—thus enforcing “directives” for extraction. The tax collector, on the other hand, is a working class, street level representative of the system, extracting both direct and a vast array of indirect taxes (tolls, duties, tariffs) demanded by the Roman economy and occupation. Both are implicated, yet the religious leader is honored, while the collector is shunned because he cheats the public on behalf of his superiors. Luke again twins characters to illustrate a social contradiction.

could also be interpreted to refer to the toll collector, thus humiliating him while accentuating his own piety. Belittled, the toll collector’s prayer is short—“God, be merciful to me, a sinner”—accompanied by gestures of extreme remorse (18:13). He audaciously dares to consider himself worthy of redemption despite his complicity in an unjust system and his public degradation by the Pharisee.

voice). This resonates with the judicial context of the previous parable, and with Jesus’s earlier censure of Pharisees who “justify themselves before people” (dikaiountes heautous, 16:15; also used of the lawyer in 10:29).
These back-to-back parables indict powerful figures operating from a deep sense of entitlement, and contrast them with two marginalized individuals battling for their dignity. Jesus concludes this twinned teaching by reiterating his pronouncement from 14:11: “The exalted (hupsoō) will be brought down, and the humbled lifted up” (18:14b). This reminds us of the original persistent woman: Jesus’s mama, who taught him to hope for just such social leveling (1:52). And this vision will soon be realized in the story of Zacchaeus the rich man and a poor beggar, as we’ll see on the 21^st Sunday of Pentecost.

Note: I will post these blogs on Lukan lections during Year C for three more weeks. I’ve tried to popularize and summarize my more detailed study of texts in HARP. We hope you will buy and engage the book—and we need your partnership in getting word about it into “seminaries, sanctuaries and streets.” In the publishing industry now, corporate profits take precedence over promoting books. So it is up to authors and their readers to spread the word about volumes that matter. None of us are professional vendors, but together we can build capacity to heal Affluenza and resist Plutocracy.  Thanks, Ched

underappreciated in our churches. But this Triduum has become for us at BCM the most important liturgical time of the year—which is why I want to make here two acknowledgments, anticipating our All Saints edition of our Enews.

First, earlier this week Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia passed into the Cloud of Witnesses. Just a week earlier, I participated in honoring him as one of the great teachers and enactors of scripture on his 92^nd birthday, only days after he had entered hospice. Here’s some of what I said to him:

I first met you in the early 90s, when I studied Torah with you at Ghost Ranch in N.M. Each time our paths have crossed since has been edifying, particularly the few times we’ve collaborated on publications. I’ve considered you a North Star in the often fraught and fractured journey of faith-rooted activism.

struggle in this country, in which you were my “connection” to the revered Rabbi Abraham Heschel and other heroes of that era. From then until now, you have worked and prayed hard, offering faith-filled leadership and vision and not shrinking from risk-taking. You helped construct paths we have trod, and narratives that help us make sense of why. Above: Waskow is arrested in Washington DC in a 2004 sit-down protest against a federal tax bill that enriched  “the hyperwealthy” and imposed more burdens on the poor. 
You are one of our great elders in the faith and justice community. We have watched how you have journeyed resolutely into your 90s as activist, theologian and rabbi. You serve as a rare example of “third act” engagement, and with Phyllis have gracefully partnered in different and similar roles in this work, something Elaine and I also seek to do over. So dear Arthur, accept our gratitude and praise for your life of service to the divine Way, which offers light even in this darkening hour.

I am consoled that Reb Waskow was surrounded at home by a devoted and mindful community to walk with him toward Jordan’s banks. May he now be dancing with angels. (Read more about Waskow at his official obituary here.)

organizer against the death penalty; and a trenchant critic of how the public healthcare system treats the poor—a system she endured through her own quarter-century battle with cancer. We invite you to join us in commemorating Murphy’s “Feast Day” today by learning about her memoir, which you can obtain through the Open Door website (which also includes remembrances of Murphy’s life and witness).
Murphy and Arthur, ¡Presente!

Finally, below is an announcement of an online class on Healing Haunted Histories, facilitated by our BCM colleague Steve Taylor and Dr. Lynne Caldwell. Register HERE before Dec 15^th!