"WHO'S THE GOOD GUY?!" If I were to choose a hymn to go with the Scripture today - Luke 18:9-14. in which the hated tax collector is shown mercy and the self righteousness religious leader is sent away without any, I would choose Amazing Grace. Growing up as we do in a tit for tat world, where the good should be rewarded and the bad should be condemned, we just don't understand the way God does things. God saves those we would damn, and sets free those we would capture. God restores those whom we might leave broken. While we set about to be righteous and look down upon those who have not climbed to our heights, God is busy blessing the unrighteous, and calling our self righteousness into question. God's Grace IS amazing and downright disgusting - depending upon where we placed ourselves in the Scripture. God's Mercy is unfathomable except perhaps to those who need it most. The wretched tax collector who collected from his fellow Jews what taxes Rome required and a lot more that he could get away with to keep for himself, finally had his guilt catch up with him, confessed that he was a wretched sinner - in contrast to a former member of our church who would not come to church if we sang Amazing Grace. "I am NOT a wretch!" He would vehemently declare - and he wasn't, he was a very good guy, but his name did rhyme with Warlock - which I believe is a male witch! (I threw that in, just so you'd know how seasonally relevant I am!) "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a WRETCH like me!" God seems a little prejudiced toward the sinner if the truth be told! In so many of the parables, the supposed "bad guy" is the good guy and the bad guy - the good - thus the sermon title, WHO'S THE GOOD GUY?! Today's Scripture Lesson from the Lectionary usually results in us looking down our noses (we Christians are VERY good at that!) - looking down our noses at the self-righteous Pharisee which puts us in the exact category we seek to disavow! Oh, ow! Is it possible only to be deemed "good" by being bad? Are we missing a real opportunity here to live it up? What IS going on with this Scripture? We're not the only ones to wonder. The early disciples who first heard the words couldn't believe what they were hearing. For them, it is utterly unseemly, almost laughable to think someone who does what the tax collector does would even dare to PRAY for mercy. They found it scandalous that grace is offered to such a scoundrel so easily. Where were the works of absolution? Where were the terrible nights of anguish that prove his remorse is not short-lived? Where were the years of going about righting wrongs, returning the extra fees collected that made him rich while he watched his neighbors struggle to survive? What we have to come to is the truth that mercy is at God's discretion, forgiveness is available to all who ask for it and righteousness is a gift, not an accomplishment. We are imbued with what the theologians call work righteousness. The Apostle Paul tried to warn us to clue us in: "For by grace are we saved though faith, not works, lest any person should boast." And, he asks a good question, "Shall we sin that grace may abound?!" Now THERE'S an idea! But we won't be practicing THAT any time soon. Essentially, this parable is about judging - or rather, not judging. Let's not cast aspersions on what God wants to do in the forgiving business. We may need some of that blanket forgiveness ourselves at some future date. But in the meantime, our job as Christians is not to judge but to join those who are recipients of God's Grace - to invite them to join us. They don't need our judgement - they don't need to see us looking down our noses at them - as all the "righteous" people of Jesus time looked at the tax collector. A few years ago, I decided to be in my office five days a week, not six as I had done for thirty years. Still, I wanted to be of service on that extra day I now had off - so I went to a Rotary Club - in Ft. Lauderdale, near my h