Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

This guide follows Sunday’s sermon.

Opening Prayer

Almighty God, who declarest thy power chiefly in showing mercy, gather us now about thy holy Word. We come with nothing in our hands and no case to plead. Open the ears of our understanding, and grant that what we hear this evening we may not merely admire, but receive. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Gathering

Sunday’s sermon began with a piece of furniture we walk past every week without a second look, so begin there tonight: what is one ordinary object, in this church or in your own house, that has quietly taught you something nobody ever sat you down and explained?

The Reading

On the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity the Church sets two men praying in the same temple on the same afternoon, and Sunday’s sermon asked us to notice that Luke says both of them stood, and then to watch how differently.

Gospel · St. Luke 18:9-14

AND he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Anyone who wishes to read further will find the other appointed texts for the day in Isaiah 26:12-16 and 19, in Psalms 124 and 125, and in Saint Paul’s account of the Gospel he received and delivered in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, which the sermon leaned on heavily.

Talking It Through

1. Luke says the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. Read his prayer again slowly. What does he tell God, and what does he never once ask for?
2. Sunday’s sermon insisted that nothing the Pharisee says about himself is false, that he really did fast twice in the week and tithe everything, and that nobody in the parable calls him a liar. If the trouble is not in his record, where in his prayer does it lie?
3. The publican’s whole prayer is seven words, and our Lord’s verdict is that he went down to his house justified. The sermon called that something done to him rather than something he accomplished, the way a man receives a ruling in a court where he has no case. What has changed for that man by the time he reaches his own door, and what has not?
4. Saint Paul writes that he laboured more abundantly than all the apostles, and in the same breath, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Both halves are meant. How does a person hold the two together without one of them quietly swallowing the other?
5. The Collect asks that we, running the way of God’s commandments, may obtain his gracious promises, and the sermon said that order cannot be reversed. What does the running look like across an ordinary week once it has stopped being the reason for the verdict?
6. The sermon named a trap: Jeremy Taylor’s warning that humility is the one virtue most easily added to the inventory, so that a man leaves church quietly grateful he is not the Pharisee. Where does that happen in a parish, and what is the way out of it if the cure is not more looking inward?

Bringing It Home

Sunday’s sermon put justification at the rail and sanctification in the kitchen: alms nobody ever finds out about, a confession that names the actual thing instead of sins in general, the sentence about a neighbor that one decides in the parking lot not to say. One might take that last one as the whole of the week’s work and simply count how often the occasion comes. There is also an old practice of praying the publican’s words, God be merciful to me a sinner, at the beginning of one’s prayers rather than at the end, before any account of the day has been rendered, and it is worth trying for seven mornings to see what it does to everything said after it.

Closing Prayer

O Lord, who didst send the publican down to his house justified, send us to ours by the same mercy and by no merit of our own. Grant that what we have heard this evening may follow us into the week, and that the works thou hast appointed for us may be wrought in us by thy grace. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.