The Parables of Jesus: The Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector

The Parables of Jesus: The Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector - Pastor Hannah Witte - a2vc.org. Like us on fb.com/vineyardannarboror watch our livestream Sundays @ 11:00am - vimeo.com/annarborvineyard 

Summary:

Pastor Hannah continues our fall journey through Jesus’ harder parables by inviting the church to “rest our whole weight on God” and to take Jesus at his word. Teaching from Luke 18:9–14, she frames the parable for a mixed crowd—newcomers and long-timers alike—reminding us that we are becoming a people transformed by Jesus, learning to belong across differences with joy, freedom, and boundless generosity. In this story, a respected Pharisee and a despised tax collector both come to pray; one trusts his resume, the other pleads for mercy. Jesus’ punchline overturns expectations: it is the humbled tax collector—not the exemplary religious figure—who goes home justified.

To hear the scandal of the story, Pastor Hannah explains who Pharisees and tax collectors were in their world: the admired guardians of religious life versus the socially ostracized collaborators with Rome. She names the pain of spiritual contempt in the Pharisee’s prayer (“God, I thank you that I am not like…”) and gently asks us to notice who fills that blank in our own hearts—an enemy, a political group, a person who has harmed us. Holding together truth and mercy, she recalls Saul’s transformation into Paul as proof that even oppressors are not beyond God’s interrupting grace. God hates evil, not people; the kingdom exposes pride and exalts humility.

Pastor Hannah’s invitation is simple and searching: trade merit for mercy. Like the tax collector, we come home to God not by performance or pedigree but by asking, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” She offers concrete responses—receive prayer, come to the Table, and even let communion become a two-fold prayer: mercy for ourselves as we take the bread, mercy for those in our “blank” as we drink the cup. In God’s economy there is no earning—only giving and receiving—and those who humble themselves will be lifted up.