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SPECTACLES OF GLORY
"Am I a Pharisee"
Isaiah 6:1-8 & Luke 18:9-14
Leo Wideman
Though this parable is relatively well-known, it is perhaps the least taken to heart by Christians, because we tend to see ourselves as good people compared to the rest of the world. It’s so easy to recite our religious deeds and steps we’ve take to avoid obvious sins. Far from seeing our own present need for mercy, we come to church thinking God must be pretty impressed with us, and instead of focusing on His forgiveness and support, we rehearse our own little self-justifications. In the process, we never connect with God. But the broken sinner, humbly aware that he has nothing to boast about and no right to be in God’s presence, cries for mercy from a distance. The self-righteous remain imprisoned in their suffocating world of inward focus; the broken penitents are set free to life with God by their turning away from themselves to God’s gift of love.
