No Concept

Dr. Bran Potter, Geology Professor at Sewanee, resplendent in light in the summer of 2006.

This sermon was preached at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video of the sermon may be found here. The readings which inspired this sermon are as follows:

Joel 2:23-32
Psalm 65
2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18
Luke 18:9-14

©2022-2025 The Rev. Seth Olson

Holy God, let my words be your words, and when they are not your words, let your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen. 

Have you ever—perhaps spurred on by social media—used your phone’s autofill feature to finish a sentence? Recently, I typed: “The Book of Common Prayer…” and let AI finish it. Here’s what Siri formulated: “The Book of Common Prayer is the most comprehensive and powerful book on the topic of religious belief.” Not entirely true or elegant, but not far off!

 

Now, what if you were to autofill this line, not with your phone but with your mind:

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people: ________, ________, and ________.”

Who came to mind? I’ll go first.

• The man who still doesn’t know there’s a turn signal on his car.
• The minister more concerned with being seen at the country club than seeing those in need.
• The CEO who makes hundreds of times what the average worker earns.

Thank you, God, for not making me like these brainless, hypocritical, greedy ones! I always use my turn signals, love others, and give generously. I’m so much better than these offensive people! Of course, I’m joking—but only slightly. It’s easy to fall into the Pharisee’s trap: measuring our goodness by who we’re not.

 

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people…” We can almost hear the smugness in his voice. Yet Jesus’ listeners wouldn’t have heard a villain. They’d have seen a model citizen—prayerful, generous, disciplined. A good churchgoer.

 

But something subtle gets lost in translation. The original language suggests the Pharisee “prayed toward himself.” Imagine that: standing in a house of prayer but facing toward one’s ego, as if the point of prayer were himself. It’s a haunting image—praying to himself about himself while God becomes a silent audience. 

But, I’ll raise my hand and state that sometimes my prayers are all about me—what I want, what I need God to do, instead of listening to what God is asking me to do. 

 

In contrast to both the Pharisee and your priest, the tax collector stands far off, eyes lowered, chest beating—a gesture of grief and confession. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

 

That word mercy means more than pity. It means, “God, make things right between us.” It’s mercy that restores relationship and evaporates shame. He’s not bargaining, comparing, or promising to do better. He simply trusts that God’s heart is bigger than his failure.

 

And here’s the turn-everything-on-its-head twist that Our Lord is so fond of producing: Jesus says this man—the one everyone thought was lost—goes home justified.

 

“Justified” sounds abstract, but it means “set right.” The tax collector leaves the Temple right with God because he stopped trying to make himself right on his own. Meanwhile, the Pharisee—still clutching his spiritual résumé—leaves just as he came in: impressive, but untouched.

 

His problem isn’t that he’s good at religion; it’s that his goodness has become a mirror instead of a window. His prayer begins in gratitude but ends in comparison. He thanks God for not making him like others—and in doing so, forgets the God who made him at all.

 

When I think about this parable, I’m reminded of a story about a snowball and my college geology professor, Dr. Bran Potter.

 

We were on a three-week geology trip through the Western U.S. One snowy morning on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, a student thought it would be funny to throw a snowball at Dr. Potter. It narrowly missed, exploding against the side-view mirror.

 

Dr. Potter stopped, looked at the student, and in his stately New England accent said, “You have no concept.” It was such an elegant rebuke that no one dared respond, but I’ve thought of it often. 

 

The snowball-wielding student had no concept that Dr. Potter who had been leading that early summer trip for decades had never dealt with snow and in those freezing temperatures was attempting to get our trailer hitched to the lead van so we could travel to a motel—something he had never had to do in all the years of the trip. The student had no concept of what was going on, he didn’t take a moment to look around and observe the challenges at hand.

 

I think about that line whenever I feel myself sliding into throwing a snowball of judgment—when I assume I know why someone drives the way they do, ministers the way they do, or makes executive decisions the way they do. When I assume I know why someone votes the way they do, struggles with what I don’t struggle with, or even prays as they do. Because most of the time, I have no concept.

 

I don’t know the stories that have shaped them, the pain they carry, the fears that drive them. And when I forget that, I start praying like the Pharisee—talking to myself about myself, thanking God that I’m not like them.

 

The irony, of course, is that the tax collector, who “stood far off,” ends up closer to God than the one who stood proudly in the center.

Humility in Scripture isn’t about thinking less of ourselves; it’s about thinking more about God and others. It’s about finally seeing truth—about God and about us. We are not the center of the universe.

 

When we pray from that place, our prayers stop bouncing off the ceiling. They shift from our wants to the world’s needs. They connect because they’re real. Saint Augustine once wrote, “God sees a low place to fill, not a high place to topple.” That’s the heart of this parable. God’s grace rushes into any space left open for it. The problem isn’t that the Pharisee is too righteous—it’s that he’s too full of himself to make room for grace.

And grace often works through surprising reversals. Luke loves reversals: the proud brought low, the lowly lifted up. This parable is Mary’s song all over again—“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” The tax collector goes home justified not because humility earns salvation but because humility receives it. When life brings us low—through our failures or the world’s pain—it’s easier to receive the freedom Christ offers.

 

Faith, at its core, isn’t transaction; it’s trust—the courage to believe that God’s mercy is for me even when I don’t deserve it, and for them—whoever “them” happens to be—even when I wish it weren’t.

 

It’s tempting to think this story is about two kinds of people: the humble and the proud. But maybe both live in us. Some days we pray like Pharisees—confident, polished, maybe a little too certain. Other days we pray like tax collectors—barely holding it together, hoping mercy is real.

 

The good news is that Jesus tells this story for both. He tells it to the Pharisee in us who needs to stop praying at our own reflection. He tells it to the tax collector in us who needs to know that God hears even the simplest cry for mercy. And he tells it to the Church—to remind us that righteousness isn’t about comparison but communion.

 

A few weeks ago, I watched two kids on a soccer field bump into each other. One looked up and said, “Sorry.” The other said, “It’s okay.” And then they just kept playing. No lingering guilt, no keeping score—just restored relationship. That’s what the tax collector discovers in the Temple: God’s “It’s okay” that sends him home free. And that’s what Jesus still offers—to everyone standing far off, to everyone praying toward themselves, to everyone caught between pride and shame.

 

Mercy is the bridge back home. Let’s walk it together—with Christ. Amen.