Homily For The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity 2026
Our Gospel is the second of a pair of two parables of Our Lord about the theme of prayer in which humility is the posture of the supplicant. Truly as St. Augustine says of these passages that the two together “build us up unto the duty of praying and believing and of not putting our trust in ourselves, but in the Lord.” The first addresses humility in listening, trusting, and believing what Jesus says by persisting in prayer - in other words, expressing faith in God through continuing in prayer, while the second parable is about the humility to speak properly about one’s merits before God. It illustrates that comparative righteousness before God is insufficient, while God delights when we humbly admit our need for mercy.
In the first of the two parables in Luke 18 - Jesus gives us the rationale for the parable. And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint. This is in contrast to the instruction of the Rabbis, who said one should only pray three times a day so as to not tire God or wear out men. Jesus presents a different picture of prayer - one of prayer being accompanied by discouragement and opposition. Prayer for our Lord and for the Christian is not some half-hearted exercise. Rather, prayer “is an existential battle, ongoing and ever present, “hope against hope,” as Paul would characterize Abraham’s desperate prayer for a son (Rom 4:18), imploring God for the realization of his kingdom on earth as in heaven (11:2).”
In the parable, Jesus speaks about a judge - a person of great power and influence.
One who we are told neither feared God or respected men. Completely self-interested without any concern for justice or the weakness of others. In other words, his decisions were not because of his concern for the Law and his duties as an Israelite; his verdicts were not shaped by fear of men.
On the other hand, the widow lacks anyone to plead her case. She is dependent on God and subject to the whims of men. For a woman’s support in broader society depended on some male family member - husband or son to make her case for her. This widow, from the posture of the parable, lacks both. Objectively, she is especially defenseless and vulnerable.
Of course, the widow in our parable doesn’t pack it in when she considers her state in society. She is so focused on her needs that she has no problem asking over and over again. She may be disadvantaged, but she is determined.
Indeed, she asks with such regularity, so consistently, she asks and she asks, with such regularity that we hear of the judge’s response. Jesus lets us know a bit of the internal dialogue of the judge where we read “Though I fear not God, nor regard man; 5 yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.” The matter that the widow is bringing repeatedly is of utmost importance, she is not asking some trivial matter. She needs justice for a great offense. In her consistency, she is wearing out the judge. One commentator notes “The widow’s incessant pleas interrupt his life and exhaust him, tax his patience, and bruise his reputation. Her effect on him is registered in a punishing metaphor: The Greek verb hypōpiazein, a boxing term, depicts a face swollen and discolored by blows. literally, she “is beating me black and blue and will be the end of me” (v. 5). Jesus says that God will hear those who cry out to him with consistency, intensity.
This call to persevere in prayer can be understood to say, if the unjust judge who is disinterested in the petitioner’s wellbeing will eventually relent, how much more will God, who is interested and can never be wearied answer those who persist in prayer? God loves his children and is not disinterested or self-seeking like the judge in the parable. He wants his children, his elect, to cry out to Him in prayer knowing that he wants the best for them. For the widow, in the parable, represents God’s elect, those characterized by perseverance in faith and prayer even when there are innumerable distractions and obstacles.
After wrapping up a parable about persevering in faithful prayer, we are given our Gospel for today in which Jesus directs his attention, his teaching, toward the self-righteous. “Those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.”
We read that two men, one a Pharisee and the other a Publican went into the temple to pray. Within the prevailing culture of that day, the Pharisees were eager to comply with the law - indeed to exceed what they believed the Law required. The ancient historian, Josephus, described the “Pharisees as ‘a class of Jews who consider themselves the godliest of the nation and the most rigorous followers of the law’”
Publicans were tax collectors who colluded with the Romans and with a well-founded reputation for loving money. They had in fact purchased the right to tax their fellow Jews with an understanding from the Roman state that they could keep any excess taxes collected as part of their fee. These Jews were Roman collaborators who were willing to sell out their Jewish neighbors for money. Both appear in the Temple to pray.
You will recall Solomon prayed that God would hear prayers directed toward the Temple; how much more of an expectation of God’s response would come from someone being in the Temple itself for it was the center of Israelite life. This parable addresses the temptation to view the gifts of God’s grace as the result of some sort of innate superiority rather than as the work of God on our behalf. For true righteousness is a matter of confidence in God, expressed earlier through fervent prayer, rather than in anything that we can do. We find our confidence in Christ’s forgiveness and not our performance; We find true righteousness in turning to Christ day by day rather than any obedience that may flow from that fundamental truth. The Pharisee is morally upright but proud. He sees himself as the proper measure of all things. We see this in the prevalence of the first person pronoun - “I”.
Under the disguise of giving thanks to God, the Pharisee lists all the reasons why God should be pleased to have him as a follower. He is not like other men, cataloging all the ways in which men fail to obey their creator. As he does so, he looks around and notices the Publican who may or may not have overcharged him for his taxes. The Pharisee despises, rejects someone else who is dependent on the same mercy and grace that the Pharisee, himself, needs. Instead, he lists his comparative virtues - he fasts more than what is required by the law and he gives more than what the law requires. At this point, Jesus introduces us to the inner dialogue, prays of the Publican, this great sinner. Standing, the posture of the Pharisee, was a common posture of prayer in the temple. By contrast, the publican refuses to come near to the crowds of the praying faithful but stands afar off. He does not look up to heaven because his eyes are cast down, for he knows the truth of his sin. The conviction, the awareness of his sin, causes him to strike his breast, expressing contrition, remorse and repentance.
This conviction is why priests oftentimes, although most of you can’t see it, will close their fists and strike their breasts ceremonially at the part of the service when we speak the words, “although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto Thee any sacrifice.” The Publican pleads mercy. He acknowledges himself to be a sinner and Yahweh to be the true God. Knowing himself to be truly who he is and declaring with a lively faith who God is, the Publican can only make one plea - mercy. Have mercy on me. Save me, dear Lord. My sins are great; your holiness is infinitely greater. May your lovingkindness, your mercy be greater than all the abundance of my sin; known and unknown.
This brings us to the final verdict according to our Lord Jesus Christ. He declares that the Publican returned to his home justified. that is declared righteous. For in humility the publican asked for mercy. God delights in those who acknowledge their sin, their need for mercy.
Christ came to be our righteousness so that we might live and move and have our being in Him so that the acts of outward righteousness that naturally flow from a proper relationship with God might be a benefit to the world around the Christian rather than a reason for them to trust in themselves and look down in judgment others who they deem to be deficient. By contrast, the Publican goes away justified only in his own eyes, perhaps still burdened by the sin he couldn’t see in himself.
The teaching that our Lord would have us remember is that we as his people, his beloved, members of His body, should have confidence in our Christian prayer lives because He is faithful. He wants us to bring all matters to Him; to cultivate a life of prayerful dependence that is as constant as breathing. We practice reliance, trust, true delight in our relationship with Him by constant abiding prayer, believing that God is good and hears and will give us what is truly helpful to us.
As we receive the fruits of his goodness, given by grace and mercy, we must not despise those around us who are either not as far along in the Christian journey or haven’t yet started. God is pleased with those who turn to him in faith, in those who seek his mercy and know themselves to be completely dependent on God’s work for them. God would have us turn our energy toward laboring in prayer rather than scrutinizing those around us. In prayer, we practice faith in believing that God will do what is best. That he hears us.
How often are we guilty of comparative righteousness? Do we measure ourselves by others - and despise those whom we judge to have less apparent virtue than we possess? The problem is that we don’t know what is truly going on in the hearts of others. We may find our own attitude resembles sometimes the Pharisee and sometimes the Publican. One moment we are hardened by our sin and think we have righteous standing;
the next, because of God’s divine intervention, we rightfully acknowledge ourselves to be sinners in need of mercy and cry out for it so that receiving it in abundance we can go home justified and declared righteous before almighty God.
The practical takeaway this morning is to labor in prayer and self-examination. Being constant in season and out of season, being committed to a prayer life that confesses our own sins, prays for the needs of others and asks that God’s kingdom might be expanded. Let us despise self-righteousness in our own hearts rather than despise another person created in the image of God. God is calling us to account for ourselves by ourselves. Let us take a harder look at where we need help, where we need the work of God to transform us and plead for God’s mercy to change - whatever the change may need to be.
Let us be more prayerful, more consistent knowing that God desires to answer, that he actually delights in us and may we be more scrutinizing of our own motives, our own sins, pleading for the mercy of God that we need moment by moment rather than spending our energy evaluating, comparing, scrutinizing others. Amen.
