In Unmasking for Life psychologist Devon Price offers strategies and tools to help neurodivergent people get free from societal norms that are harming them, and really, harming all of us. His chapter on friendship particularly speaks to me as the parent of an autistic kiddo (I share this with Nyix’s permission). One thing I’ve heard from my kid many times is that unpredictability in social interactions is stressful and draining. Price has this to say: “When I was masking, I used to write entire conversations out in my mind and practice all my social gestures and mannerisms in advance. Everything I did and said was meticulously gamed out—and most people hated it because what they picked up on was the gaming. They got a premeditated, distant energy from me, and that made them wary. People could sense I was uncomfortable, and they didn’t want to bother me or intrude, so they gave me a wide berth.”

“Like so many autistics,” Price continues, “I used to believe the purpose of a conversation was to exchange information. I did not understand that many non-autistic people talk simply to establish rapport, show affiliation, or share their emotional energy. Chitchatting about the weather while waiting for the bus, I realized, was less like a news report and more like two birds chirping to each other across the trees. When a friend asked me how my day was going, I didn’t need to compose a perfectly sensible answer. I could just be emotionally honest and present, and let the conversation flow from there. I stutter and begin sentences I don’t know how to finish a lot more often these days, yet people actually find me more charming and better at communication. […] Instead of working to seem normal, we get a genuine moment of human interaction. By asking questions I honestly want the answers to, showing enthusiasm, and letting my own freak flag fly, I’ve made countless friends and acquaintances as I move through my neighborhood.”¹

Today’s parable portrays two people who are also seeking to be their authentic selves in community and before God. Though the Pharisee sounds arrogant to us, his own community would have likely viewed him with respect, as a religious leader of integrity and virtue. He did everything that was expected of a good person, and more. As for the tax collector, he had reasons to be sad and sorry. He was a traitor to his own people, collaborating with the Roman colonizers. Tax collectors in those days were given license to exploit the process for their own gain, and most of them did. This guy was involved in some bad business. He was violating the Jewish law with its clear call to avoid economic exploitation and actively care for others.

It’s important to note that the beginning and ending lines of this passage, the “framing” around the parable, clearly offer Luke’s interpretation, and may in fact be in tension with Jesus’ own perspective. Luke says that this is a story directed toward those “who trusted in themselves and thought they were better than others,” and that the moral of the tale is that “the ones who think too highly of themselves will be brought down low. The ones who humble themselves will be lifted up.” And yet, Jesus was known for telling open-ended stories: ambiguous, provocative, and surprising. He taught in the style of the rabbis who created commentaries which were basically a record of a robust argument, with no attempt to resolve contradictions. The rabbis took delight in dialogue that probed deep unanswerable questions.

Amy Jill Levine is a Jewish scholar of the New Testament. She specializes in analyzing how Christian readings of scripture often portray Judaism inaccurately and with profound prejudice. One way this bias shows up is that the word “Pharisee” (even in popular culture outside the church) has come to be a code term for someone who is judgmental and narrow minded. In Jesus’ time, Pharisees were simply one group of Jews among others; they were learned and devout people who took the law seriously. In her book on Jesus’ parables, Levine offers her own translations. In her reading of this story, the tale ends differently. She translates it this way: “To you I say, descending to his house, this one [the tax collector] is justified, alongside that one [the Pharisee].”² It’s possible, in other words, that they were both “justified”. It’s a matter of one tiny preposition that has a wide range of meanings that must be inferred from context. “Para” can mean “instead of” and it can also mean “alongside.” The usual interpretation of this parable just doesn’t ring true for me; it doesn’t align with the creative, challenging teacher I know Jesus to be. Levine points out that the way Luke frames the story essentially invites us to simply reverse the Pharisee’s original prayer: I thank you God that I am not like this Pharisee. “Once we negatively judge one character and promote the other,” she remarks, “the parable traps.” Instead, Levine suggests that, “Jesus and his fellow Jews were not bound in their thinking by the social-science insistence upon limited good; they knew that the God of Israel was generous. In their view, there is enough grace for the Pharisee and the tax collector both.”³

This parable speaks to me about our work of cultivating a community of belonging. It suggests that following Jesus means tending a space of both compassion and accountability, in which we can reveal our true selves to each other and to God. Prayer, this story suggests, is a practice of vulnerability as opposed to one of competency. It is a communal exercise in which we risk showing up authentically, as we are. Sometimes in prayer, we speak up with confidence, genuinely proud of ourselves. And sometimes our self-satisfaction goes a bit too far and turns into contempt for others. Sometimes we wail our prayers, with grief and regret. We hang our heads as a sign of how broken our hearts feel by our own failings and complicity in evil. And sometimes this genuine humility crosses the line into something toxic—shame and self-hatred.

Now—it’s trendy to talk about the importance of being vulnerable. I also want to reflect on how hard it is, and how complicated. We need to be real about the fact that even a community that is actively and genuinely cultivating safe and bold spaces for connection requires boundaries. We will always have to take care to discern when and how and to whom we share something that makes us vulnerable. We have to continually tend the structures that offer support and build trust. And at the same time, even though this practice of vulnerability is risky, it’s worth it. It is what we are here to do as church.

In these times, powerful people want nothing more than to destroy our fabric of belonging. That is their secret weapon, their way of subduing and controlling us. They aim to separate us from each other through polarizing judgement and weaponized fear. I believe that in the face of this evil, resistance looks like an open hand rather than a clenched fist. That is why our family gives and shares 10% of our yearly income with the church and other organizations that cultivate belonging. In this season of stewardship, as we make our pledges for the ministry of First Church in 2026, we can choose to give our life energy, our focus and attention, our creativity and material resources, to tend a sacred process of self-revelation and vulnerability that has the power to change us and change the world. What I hear in Jesus’ parable today is a clear affirmation that whatever our prayer is like, taking the risk to be in this space together with each other and God liberates us and connects us, confirms that we belong to the one whose loving heart is big enough, kind enough and strong enough to hold us all. Amen.

¹ Unmasking for Life: The Autistic Person’s Guide to Connecting, Loving, and Living Authentically by Devon Price; p. 64-65
² Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by Amy Jill Levine; p. 183
³ Ibid.; p. 208