This week we come to the famous parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. Jesus tells a story with a good guy and a bad guy. We hear both of their prayers, but Jesus stuns his hearers when it is actually the bad guy who receives God's approval. For those of us overly familiar with this parable, we tend to gloss over the very thing that made this so stunning for Jesus' original hearers - namely, how genuinely good the Pharisee is, especially by our modern standards. Yet if we don't wrestle with that, we miss the very joy Jesus intends here. How can our goodness be a barrier to our joy? Let's talk about why Jesus so often seems to have a bigger beef with the good guys than the bad guys: "The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly" (Luke 18:9-14).
