The lowly will be lifted up

Or, those who lift themselves up will be humiliated*


Reflections for the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost; Luke 18:9-14.


The title and subtitle are meant to dynamically interact.

I am trying to emphasize that while it might be easy to focus on the lifting up, there is this difficult sentiment about those who exalt themselves…


*I choose to use the word humiliate because that captures “tapeinohn,”(participle, present, active).



This week my research will be focused on the fact that the Pharisee “standing by himself.”

I am also interested in researching the role of the Pharisee in the community, and dwelling on the piety of the Pharisee.


While I research about the Pharisee there is a question I want to keep in mind: What kind of God would humiliate anyone?



In regard to the troublesome sentiment I found a sentiment from Michael Hardin & Jeff Krantz (of the website Preaching Peace): “…we might say that each one gets the god in whom he believes. Alas for the Christian who believes in a violent retributive God.”

This post no longer exists, Preaching Peace is revamping their website. The Girardian Lectionary is now hosting that sentiment. The post is about the failure of theology that simply flips justifies the tax-collector and in the process condemns the Pharisee.



Can Christian theology be more dynamic, less dualistic?

We’ll see.


Comments

  1. SarahOctober 7, 2010 at 7:29 AM

    I like your subtitle a lot. It seems to articulate clearly and succinctly that grace is not something we can give ourselves and plays on many ancient notions about self-reliance--hubris, the wheel of fate, pride before the fall, etc.

    ReplyDelete

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