In Luke 18, Jesus tells a story about a Pharisee and a tax collector who both come into the temple to pray. The self-righteous Pharisee thanks God for all his power and influence. The tax collector begs for mercy. And Jesus uses the story to spin the difference between privilege and humility.

On the surface, we usually read this parable in the light of our own individual virtues and shortcomings. Will we be proud, like the Pharisee, or will we be humble, like the tax collector?

But, as usual, Jesus is painting on a larger canvas. His teachings are far more rarely about individual morality than they are about society and culture. The whole rather than the one.

Join us this Sunday, July 21, in the 167 Side Room of the Marietta Brewing Company as we dig a little deeper into this familiar parable. We’ll listen to it through a couple of different translations and a contemporary paraphrase to see where Jesus may be saying something even more significant than we’ve come to expect.

Happy half-hour at 6:30pm, conversation starts at 7:00pm