No doubt things work differently in heaven but, on earth, if you want to get really good at something, you have to practice (a lot). If you want to write the great American novel, you have to put some words down on some paper – every day. If you want to be the next Yo Yo Ma, you have to rosin up the bow and play the scales every day. Tiger Woods doesn’t just play on tournament days. Every morning, he’s out on the fairway perfecting his swing. All talents, skills and endeavors improve with commitment and practice. 

So, if we want to deepen our spiritual lives, if we want to become more like Mother Teresa or Desmond Tutu or the grandmother everyone remembers as wise and compassionate and truly in tune with God, then we have to build up our spiritual muscles. We have to practice the spiritual disciplines. Wisdom and kindness and the light of Christ shines through our lives as a result of our prayers, our study and our action.

The good news for us is that there are many ways to pray. There are intentional orders of prayer. There are centering prayers, conversational prayer, iconic prayers. There are styles of prayer to fit every personality.

And there are a gazillion acts of service which call us into deeper relationship with God. Extending ourselves for our friends and family, bringing treats for Halloween on the Hill, signing up to deliver Thanksgiving meals, buying wreaths for mission work are fine ways we engage God through action.

And there are also vast and diverse courses of spiritual study. One can take an academic route and sign up for New Testament courses at a local college. Or you can begin the four year course meeting once a week at the church to study the Episcopal curriculum “Equipping for Ministry.” People can gather and discuss a faith-based best seller over coffee and baked goods. Or we can practice the exercise of theological reflection. 

Theological reflection is where we open up the Bible and read a passage looking for ourselves and for God’s call to us in the words. As an example, if we read the chapter where Jesus calms the sea – we would ask…Today, at this moment in my life, who am I in this story? Am I one of the apostles, scared and anxious being tossed around on the water? Am I Peter, full of faith and courage one moment and sinking in a sea of doubt the next? Am I Jesus – calm and purposeful, at ease in my call and place with God? Am I the boat – just trying to keep everything together, the people in and dry and the raging waters out? Who am I in this story and who is God calling me to be? 

The idea for doing theological reflections with Biblical passages is that this study serves as practice. The more accustomed we become in thinking this way, the easier it becomes to think theologically in the day to day events of our lives. So, when it’s time to pick up the kids from swim practice and the car battery is dead, we don’t default to frustration and blaming mode, but instead we think, “What purpose might God be working out here?” Of course, this state of calm detachment requires practice but you see how this response is an indication of a spiritually developed life. 

This is how people deeply connected to God react. This is why they come across as wise and calm, strong and compassionate. Every passage in the Bible can be used for theological reflection, but some stories seem written for this purpose. This morning’s Gospel passage from Luke is a good example. Here the action, message and characters are straightforward and predictable. We can identify with every aspect of the parable. At various times in our lives we can see ourselves as the tax collector, as the Pharisee, as Jesus. In the story, two men are in the temple praying to God. The tax collector represents humankind at our weakest. In this time, tax collectors were Jewish men hired by Roman officials to exact money from Jewish families to pay for their extravagant festivals in Rome and to finance the extensive Roman army. The taxes kept rising and the Jews became more and more financially strapped. They resented the tax collectors and felt they were traitors to their people. The tax collectors were despised by their people and dismissed by the Romans. They were social outcasts and they grew tired of their no man’s land existence. Often to compensate for their ill treatment, they would over collect from the Jews or withhold some money from the Romans. The tax collectors were not innocents put in an awkward position – they were schemers and double dealers. When the tax collector in the parable prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!,” we all identify with his feelings. All of us have done things which embarrass us before God. We say the sharp, mean, unnecessary comment. We react with impatience and let our disdain show. We take the tax deduction that is not exactly fully accurate. We wait a day to return the call to the aggravating friend. We just mess up in myriad, unfortunate ways! And sometimes our consciences bother us. Sometimes the weight of our bad actions presses so hard on us, we gasp for relief and say “God, I’m so sorry! Please forgive me! Please help me do better, be better tomorrow! God, please help me make this right!”

And God understands our predictament! He recognizes our broken and weak nature, our propensity to make poor choices and he also sees our innate goodness. He sees himself in us. He catches glimpses of his image that He wove into us at our creation. And so he claims us as His own and gives us another and another and another chance. When we humble ourselves to God, when we ask for his help and forgiveness, He raises us up. We are exalted! We know that feeling, too! We know the peace and lightness that comes when a relationship is made right, when guilt is lifted and acceptance is restored. 

Just as we can identify with the tax collector, we can also see ourselves in the Pharisee. Here is a man who lives a righteous life. He prays. He pays attention to God and God’s commandments. He gives to the church. He lives a moral life. The Pharisee is a good citizen and a good man of God. He’s someone we’d invite over for burgers and beer. Here he’s in the temple praying sincerely. “Thank you God for all the blessings in my life! Thank you for giving me the internal resources to live a faithful life. Thank you for blessing me and helping me avoid the pitfalls of the world. Thank you for keeping me strong so I haven’t become like some other weak souls…like that guy over there.

Ooooo, see…see how quickly his good prayer turns. See how easy he goes from thankfulness and humility to judgment and hardness of heart? Doesn’t it just hurt your soul to see how fast men turn. And why? Why does this blessed, faithful man feel compelled to put down his fellow man? Why does he need to scorn and deride his “brother.” They’re both God’s children. Why can’t he see God in the tax collector? Why doesn’t the Pharisee trust that God is in the tax collector’s life working and prospering good? And why are we just like that Pharisee? Why do all of us find some people in the world we feel superior to? We know smugness is wrong! We know we are all beloved in God’s eyes. We know, but we just can’t accept some people as our equals. It is a sad thing about our human condition. Prejudice, bias, imperfect judgment is a persistent struggle for us.

I don’t know where the bad turn comes for you. I’ve come to recognize a couple of trouble spots for me. For a long time, I’d get put out and judgmental about poor parenting skills! It seemed every time I’d run into Wal-mart to get Halloween glitter or Easter basket grass, I’d see a mother shaking her finger and shouting at her crying child. And I’d think, what’s the matter with you! You’re humiliating that little person. You’re not helping them get control of themselves. You’re not effecting positive thinking…I may not be the best cupcake baking, PTA Mom, but at least I’m not a finger-wagging, department store yelling, banshee mother! At some level I probably prayed “God, I thank you that I’m not like her!”

I don’t know when it happened, but some time this parable became real for me. At some point I heard what Jesus was saying. “Stop rushing to judgment!” Look beyond the behavior and consider the person. See God in that distressed, frustrated woman. Maybe she’s raised her voice because her husband’s lost his job and she doesn’t know how they’ll make the rent this month! Maybe she’s yelling because she knows it’s nap time but this is the only time a neighbor could give her a ride to the store and kids need notebook paper and pencils for school tomorrow. Maybe she’s so tired and so worried and the child wants a transformer action figure and she wants him to have one but there’s not enough money this week and there probably won’t be enough next week and how is this fair and how is it going to get any better? Maybe a loud voice is all she has left to bring to the situation.

And how does my judgment help? How does my superior attitude draw me closer to God or to my sister in Christ? Just how does my disdain for her behavior benefit her or her child? Does my opinion effect any positive change?

What if instead of pushing my cart down the aisle clothed in the righteousness of well-modulated parenting, I offered the woman some encouraging words. What if I said, “Shopping can be really stressful. Shopping with fussy kids is even harder. I hope your day gets better.! And, little one, I bet you’re big enough and smart enough to help your mom. I’m guessing you could be a terrific shopper. You could help her find what she needs to find.”

Words aren’t going to change hard realities of a life but words can make a difference. In the moment, words can convey care and initiate hope and create a space for peace and calm.

A shift in attitude, a shift in judgment can make a difference in another person’s life if only for a moment. That moment is important…because all a life is – is one moment built on another. A shift in attitude, a shift in judgment can make a huge, huge difference in our own lives. It’s this shift that pulls us deeper into our relationship with God. 

All of us are like the tax collector. We all do things we shouldn’t and, when we recognize our bad choices, we come to God and ask forgiveness in some fashion. We do know how to be humble.

All of us are like the Pharisee. We understand our better natures. We feel good about the times and places we make good and wise decisions. We give thanks for our blessings while, at the same time, we’re prone to smugness and to self-righteousness. We all have those worrisome biases and blind spots. 

But the good news for us is that all of us are also a bit like Jesus! We understand deep I our hearts what he’s calling us to. We get the concept of extending grace to all of God’s children, to all of our brothers and sisters in the human family. We understand the advantages giving the benefit of the doubt to those behaviors we don’t understand. We see how the world gets better when we assume the best rather than the worst motives. 

Seriously, think of all the saints you know – the ones with the big S and the ones with the little s. All the saints, the people who’ve made the world a better place through their love of God and their love of humanity. Now, are they filled with self-righteousness or are they filled with humility before God?

Do they judge and exalt themselves or do they accept and offer encouragement to God’s varied and diverse children?

We are the tax collector. We are the Pharisee. We can be the saint. We can be the wise, the kind, the deeply connected child of God, breathing in the creator’s goodness, breathing out peace and possibility. We can be honest-to-gosh forces for good in the world Saints do not arrive in this world fully formed. Saints practice.   Every day. Every day they pray a little bit, they study a little bit, they think about their life in theological terms. They ask, “Where is God in this situation. What is Christ calling me to do here?” Saints pray, think and then act in ways pleasing to God. They act in small, momentary ways, over and over until they establish a pattern of life, a pattern of living a transformed life. 

We can do that! We can pray and think and act in Godly ways. We can be Saint Sarah and Saint Brandon, Saint Millholland and Wilkens, Saint Marshall, Peters, Bella Grace and Olean, St. Wright, St. Maggie, St. Emma, St. Banker, teacher, St. stay-at-home mom.

Everyone of us has the capacity to be a saint of God. We just commit to the principle and then we practice. Tax collector, Pharisee, Saint…all three are part of us. Which skill set do we want to perfect.