Luke 18:9-14 · The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Amazing Grace
Luke 18:9-14
Sermon
by Will Willimon
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''My son is a good kid. He's quite a remarkable, wonderful young man," the mother said to me on your first day here.

''I'll be the judge of that," I thought to myself.

Yet she is probably right. After all, he got in Duke. And our Office of Admissions makes certain that no slouch gets in Southgate. 1300 on your SAT, 198 of you were number one in your high school class. God I thank thee that I don't have to teach at a school where the students are only average!

And of course, one reason why your above average children come to a place like Duke is that we have an above average faculty. Out APT Committee makes certain that no intellectual sluggards get loose in a Duke classroom. God I thank thee that my list of publications is long, my degrees earned, not like a faculty member at some commu…

Duke University, Duke Chapel Sermons, by Will Willimon