Honesty and Trust in Our Dance to God

Homily for Sunday, October 26, 2025
The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost
Luke 18:9-14

I’m not of the TikTok generation, but my kids are.  The other day my kids showed the Gap denim ad that (apparently) is going viral on TikTok.  The ad features maybe three dozen dancers, clad in various outfits of Gap denim, all dancing to the 2003 hit “Milkshake,” by the singer Kelis.  If you haven’t seen the ad, I suggest later today googling it; the ad is called “Gap:  Better in Denim.”  It’s 90 seconds of pure, exuberant, dance-driven joy.  

The choreographer behind the saucy but sophisticated moves is a young 25-year-old from Cincinnati named Robbie Blue.  In a recent interview with the New York Times dance critic, Gina Kourlas, Blue spoke not only about how he came to dance – how as a boy he was inspired by Lady Gaga, how early on he couldn’t hear the beat to the music, and how even though he had dreams of wanting to be a dancer, “I was like, I live in Ohio…” – [in addition to speaking about how he came to dance,] Blue spoke also about having what he called a “spiritual awakening.”  After his career began to take off – after gigs with singers such as Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo; and after relocating to LA – “the pressure he faced – or placed on himself – led to addiction.  He was about to go on tour with Doja Cat when he decided to seek treatment.”

He moved back to Ohio, and “finally it clicked for me,” he said…  [He] was going to give up on dance altogether… [but] after rehab, outpatient therapy and “a lot of A.A.,” he said, he returned to LA to let go of his expectations.  Suddenly, requests started pouring in…

He hasn’t stopped working since.  “It’s a really wild thing,” he said.  “The best word I can use is surrender.  I just surrendered my obsession with this craft.”

Before, he said, his relationship to dance was selfish. “It was all about, what am I going to do next?” he said.  “I just let it go.  And then I feel like it came back tenfold.”

Blue’s life (as he tells it) is a study in contrast:  if before, his relationship to dance was selfish, and “it was all about, what am I going to do next?” now he has let go, “surrendered his obsession with the craft.”

This morning’s Gospel lesson is likewise a study in contrast.  On the one hand is the Pharisee who, to borrow from Luke’s words, “trusted in himself that he was righteous and regarded others with contempt.”  “God, I thank you that I am not like other people,” he prayed, “thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”  On the other hand is the tax collector, who “standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’”  

If last week Jesus told his disciples when to pray, which is always; in this morning’s parable Jesus tells his disciples how to pray, and – more specifically – what we might want the state of our heart to be when we pray. At first glance, we might call the tax collector’s stance one of humility – and we would not be wrong. But there is more to the tax collector’s stance than meets the eye.   More specifically,  the tax collector may be said to be humble because he is:  1) vulnerable, 2) honest and 3) trusts in God.  

First, vulnerable.  Unlike the Pharisee, the tax collector is emotionally open and willing to share with God his true, imperfect self:  “I am a sinner,” he admits.  Perhaps (as it was assumed of tax collectors)he had lined his pockets with a cut of the tax money he collected.  Perhaps he felt guilty for working a job that was basically a form of collaboration with the Roman occupiers.  Perhaps (similar to the Prodigal) he had spent his gains in “dissolute living” (Luke 15:13).  Whatever the reason, the tax collector asks for mercy and identifies himself as “a sinner:” “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” he prays.  If the Pharisee is closed in on himself, hiding behind and boasting about his pious living, the tax collector is vulnerable:  emotionally open and transparent about being a sinner.  The tax collector’s prayer reminds us that when we are open and vulnerable in our prayer, God can more readily work with us.

Second, the tax collector is honest.  Unlike the Pharisee, with his inflated sense of self, the tax collector is honest in his prayer.  We know he is honest not only because of his words, but also because of his actions:  he stood far off, Luke writes.  He beat his breast and would not even look up to heaven.  If the Pharisee is boastful in his prayer and thinks himself better than the tax collector, the tax collector’s prayer reminds us that when we are honest in our prayer – not boastful, not saying what we think God might want to hear, not trying to hide from God some perhaps unsavory aspect of ourselves – [when we are honest in our prayer,] God can more readily work with us.

Lastly, the tax collector trusts in God.   Jesus told this parable, Luke writes, “to some who trusted in themselves.”  The Pharisee trusted in himself, believing that by his fasting and almsgiving, he was righteous.  But the tax collector, not trusting in any merit of his own, trusted rather in God.  He trusted God enough to be vulnerable with God, enough to be honest in his prayer; and so the tax collector let go and surrendered to God.  The tax collector’s prayer reminds us of the importance of trusting, not in ourselves and in our own power, but in God and in God’s power.

So often in prayer, we can be like the Pharisee – we can close part of ourselves off from God, or we can censor our prayer by saying only what we think we “should” or “ought” to say, or we can think that our life with God is up to us and our efforts and refuse to let go and let God.  But this kind of prayer – sort of like Robbie Blue putting pressure on himself to perform – [this kind of performative prayer] will get us nowhere; in fact, it may even drive us further from God.  But when we in our prayer – like Robbie Blue after rehab – are able to let go and to surrender – when we are vulnerable, honest and trust in God – then God has room to work with us.

Luke writes that the result of the tax collector’s vulnerability with God, his honesty and his trust in God, is that “this man [the tax collector] went down to his home justified rather than the other.”  I have a hunch that the tax collector also went down to his home with joy rather than the other.  For vulnerability, honesty and trust are healthy “moves” in our “dance” with God.  Though it is not always easy to be vulnerable,honest and trusting, when we are able to let go and to surrender and can practice being vulnerable, honest and trusting with God, then we open ourselves to the possibility of a profound, strange, and quiet but exuberant joy that our hearts can experience only in God.