The Pharisee, The Tax Collector

             “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:10-14)

We began a Bible study on generosity in my Sunday School class, and today’s passage was the teaching text. It’s a story of two men who went to the temple to pray. Two men who both stood apart from others, the pharisee because he didn’t want to associate with sinners, and the tax collector because no one wanted to associate with him. In some translations, the pharisee is described as praying  to himself instead of by himself, but when Jesus told it, the shock to the listener would have been that the tax collector, who would have been seen as a traitor because he collected money for Rome and would have been seen as extorting money for himself. Good stuff.

Now, the passage isn’t really about generosity, it’s about self-righteousness, but the pharisee’s self-righteousness included the area of giving. I should also point out that Americans (on average) give about 3% of their income to charity, so the pharisee was being a good guy.  He was being more generous than a lot of people in society now.

The video teacher discussed all this and went on to describe money as just one sort of currency. Anything you can give or withhold is a kind of currency: yourself, your home, your time, your attention, your praise, your emotional support, physical support/assistance, … feel free to add to the list. This is where I started struggling. I have been thinking about some of this, though not in terms of generosity (and not for the first time.)

For years while spending winters in Florida, I tried to figure out how the park I was in felt like a community and why where I live up north doesn’t. I came to the conclusion that a big part of it was that we had two clubhouses- what one might consider a huge, shared space where we could come together. The neighborhoods in Erie don’t tend to have lots of community centers – at least not my neighborhood. We have churches, but the church I attend draws people from probably 20 miles away, and it’s seven miles from my house.

Now that I’m in Erie full-time, I’ve been chewing on the question of community building in terms of hospitality and involvement at church (among others.) First, the good news. I’m finding that being in Erie only 6 months per year is part of the problem. In Florida, most people were only there for six months (at most.) But, a yellow alert sounded. It’s not that I give X, Y, and Z, look how good I am. It’s a combination of other ideas: My house isn’t in good enough condition, clean enough, etc. I don’t have time to give because I’m trying to write a book, homestead, find a job, make crafts (partly to donate to others!), etc. I’m no good as a host. No one will like me – for any number of reasons. I’m not hording, I don’t have the currency to share.

And a good question comes to mind:

Who told you that you were naked? (Genesis 3:11b)