There are some questions that are not really questions. They are traps. We know them when we hear them. Someone asks a question not because they are curious, not because they want to understand, but because they have already decided that whatever answer you give will be used against you. That is what happens to […]

Jesus is walking along when he sees a man named Matthew sitting at the tax booth. That is how the story begins: with a man sitting. Matthew is not sitting in a neutral place. He is sitting at the tax booth, a place where money is taken, where empire reaches into ordinary households, where the […]

The parable of the self-righteous Pharisee and the repentant tax collector. At face value this is how we would tend to title and interpret the parable from our Gospel reading for this morning. Luke has told this parable in a way that encourages us to identify with the tax collector who demonstrates the positive Christian […]