An Antidote for our Self-Righteousness

Pentecost 20, Year C, Proper 25               

Sermon for October 26, 2025

Grace to you and peace from our God of extravagant mercy, and Christ Jesus, who names and challenges our self-righteous inclinations. Amen.

Please be seated.

Pastor Martin Hauser described an encounter he had while working overnight at a major medical center in New York City. He was a chaplain in that place. He found the overnight shift to be significant because after friends and relatives and physicians had departed, patients were alone with their fear. They were alone with their weakness and pain. He often extended ministries of conversation and prayer late into the night.

One night, Hauser heard a voice coming from a darkened room. “Hello, chaplain!” the voice cried. Peering into the darkened room, he saw a very dignified older woman sitting up straight in bed as if ready to hold court. “I'm always glad to see a man of God,” she began, extending her hand. He took her hand.

“So, you're a person of faith, then,” the chaplain ventured.

“Yes, indeed,” she replied.

“I'm against all of this wickedness that goes on in our society today. I'm against all of this sex before marriage and changing spouses whenever the urge overtakes you,” she continued. And she wasn't done yet. “I'm against all this abortion and pornography and drugs and drinking. I'm against men acting like women and the other way around,” she said. “I tell you, I'm against all of it.”

Taken aback by her diatribe and not wanting to debate her, it struck Chaplain Houser that if he were sitting up in the middle of the night in her room, there would be other things on his mind besides society's thus named immorality. He tried to encourage the woman to lift up some of the things that she was in favor of as a person of faith.

But when she received that prompt, she looked puzzled. And she began again.

“Well, it's like I said before,” she went on. “I'm against all this lawlessness and immorality, all this vice and depravity.... It's not right. It's not God's will. And I don't believe in it.”

Chaplain Hauser persisted in trying to find a way to share thoughts about the God who does want for us frail and fragile human beings, children of God, everyone, created in the divine image and yet so prone to weakness and helplessness and sickness and pain and death, he tried to find a way to share what we did believe in as people of faith without entering into an argument with the old woman in the room.

And once again, he was presented with a litany of sins that God and his patient were unanimously against.

So, in our gospel text this morning, Luke testifies that Jesus told a parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt, it reads. So this parable, as Jesus addresses it, is not so much about a Pharisee and a tax collector as it is about Jesus' audience. It's about us. Jesus is telling a parable to us. To help us self-correct.

Let's be clear about that confession. For, my siblings in Christ, when we feel we must advertise our righteousness, it quickly becomes self-righteousness, doesn't it?

“Lord, I thank you that I'm not like other people,” the Pharisee cried, announcing his moral high ground, while demonstrating his disgust with others, kind of like the woman in the hospital room.

The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable takes the stance that relates to a phenomenon in our day that's called virtue signaling. Have you heard of this? Virtue signaling. In a bid for praise, often disguised beneath expressions of indignation and moral outrage, virtue signalers seek to indicate how kind and decent they are, how right and just they are.

Does that sound familiar? Social media fosters this particular kind of vanity. Broadcasting personal virtue is right at home on such platforms. But smug posturing doesn't need social media to thrive. Our political leaders boast to their bases with abandon. And each of us can individually confess our own daily desire to be viewed favorably by others. Self-righteousness, virtue signaling, strikes close to home.

And now I have to say, I love this congregation and its ministry. But we have a tendency here at the Church of the Epiphany to announce to ourselves and whoever might be listening, just what a remarkable community we are. Just how we seem to get it. Just how kind and decent and invitational and justice seeking we are.

Have you noticed this?

Again, friends in Christ, when we advertise our righteousness, it quickly becomes self-righteousness. So let us consider that we who assemble here on a Sunday morning are both the Pharisee, people who trust that our religious practices are God-pleasing enough, and likewise, we are the tax collector, people who recognize our sinfulness and plead for God's mercy.

Martin Luther employed a Latin phrase, “simul justus et peccator,” that we are simultaneously saint and sinner, all of us. Pharisee and tax collector, saint and sinner.

We are made right by God, and we are deeply in need of a forgiveness that we do not deserve. We're forgiven and in desperate need of forgiveness. When we do cry out for mercy, here's the good news: we cry out to a God who defaults to extending mercy.

And in that spiritual context, we baptize.

For salvation is God's work to do, not ours.

It's wonderful in our tradition that we baptize children. Those who know as foundational the love of a parent as a starting point, the ground upon which they stand. Those who know the beauty of a parent's love as the liberating context for their work and play.

This day we baptize two such young ones.

Take note that in the verses that follow today's parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, the very next verses are Luke's parable of the account of Jesus blessing the little children. Right after the tax collector and the Pharisee, Jesus blesses the little children, and he says, let the little children come to me and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.

It is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Not we self-righteous people. No announcement of righteousness, no virtue signaling is required to be welcomed into the arms of Jesus. “Like a child,” he says.

Jesus continues, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” It is as if Jesus says, “Let go of your all too adult, all too serious attempts at self-justification. Become like a little child, become like God's child, receiving God's love and care.”

We're invited to let go of pretense and receive God's kingdom as Jason and Timothy receive it today: A delightful, undeserved gift, a blessing and an invitation.

For the good news of the Gospel is that salvation is not your work to do. It is God's. And God loves you, as a parent loves their children, at least on a parent's best day.

Take note that when we offer our baptism liturgy in a few minutes, it serves as an affirmation of baptism for all the rest of us. For we too receive that delightful and undeserved gift, that blessing and invitation. And there is nothing in that baptismal promise that we can take credit for.

Perhaps baptism can be perceived as an antidote for our self-righteousness. Like the tax collector, we all cry out for mercy, and we're welcomed into the life-giving waters.

(Don't worry, I'm almost done.)

Friends in Christ, we are living in a time when immigrants and refugees are vilified, even though scripture teaches us very clearly and commands us to welcome the stranger.

We live in a time when people of color continue to bear the devastating weight of racism that is woven into the fabric of our society. We live in a time when transgender people, beloved by God, are being targeted with laws and rhetoric that deny their dignity and even their right to exist.

The self-righteous woman in the late-night hospital room is pointing her finger at all of these. All of those who are outside her exalted sphere are regarded with contempt.

But friends in Christ, these assaults on our siblings are not abstractions. They're not part of a clever little story. These are vulnerable communities that are being scapegoated and attacked. And there are, we need to say, deep wounds in the body of Christ. And we who have received mercy are to face division and fear with the love of Christ Jesus, crucified and risen.

That love does not announce its righteousness, but it does break down barriers, and it does confront hatred, and it does transform hearts. That love insists on the dignity of every human being. That love insists on justice for the marginalized and oppressed. That love insists that we listen and speak and act with respect, even in disagreement.

In baptism, we are marked with the cross of Christ forever. And that cross is not only a sign of our hope, it's also a summons to follow Jesus into solidarity with all of those who suffer.

Let us not announce our righteousness. But in the power of the Spirit, let us be bold in faithfulness. Our humble discipleship will be exalted if it's humble.

In baptism, we are marked with the cross of Christ forever.

Amen.