Sermon for September 30, 2007

Have you noticed that there are some difficult expectations in Scripture about how we should live, act, etc.? Expectations that we do not like to read or hear. We are somewhat like the Queen in the story of Snow White with her magic mirror. She believes that she is the fairest in the land but the mirror does not lie – yes, she may be good looking and fair but there is one who is even fairer. It is the mirror that she is confronted with the truth – something we face every morning! That I am not Tom Selleck is a reality every morning!! In this parable Jesus is dealing with us when we sometimes feel that we are worthy of God's love, blessings and have earned our salvation. It is a reality check – and one that we find not always easy to hear. The Bible serves as our reality check mirror.

Here Jesus tells a simple parable with the introduction "He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt" (Luke 18:9). He tells the story of two men praying in a public worship experience. These are public, not private, prayers and take place in the Temple following the time of sacrifice. The design of Temple worship was for sacrifices in the morning and in the evening. It would be at this time as the incense filled the Temple that the men would stand and pray their personal prayers out loud. Kenneth Bailey writes, "The smoke from the sacrifice arose over the altar and the temple area. Any believer offering private prayers in the temple any time between the two services stood in the presence of this altar with its burning sacrifice. He knew that it was possible for him to address God with his private needs only because the atonement sacrifice had taken place. Any private prayers were, as it were, sandwiched between the two daily atonement sacrifices."ⁱ The men would stand and pray together out loud. The sound of men praying would fill the temple along with the incense. This is a parable taking place at a public worship.

Both of the men stand away from the rest of the worshippers—for different reasons. The Pharisee is worried about being made unclean. There is a specific type of uncleanness that comes from touching the "people of the land" – the common every day folk who labored for a living. He could be made unclean simply by sitting where they had sat or by accidentally rubbing up against them. He was keeping the strict law and thus would make sure there was no one near him who might accidentally make him unclean. Standing apart, he indicates that he is better than they are.

The tax-collector also stands apart from the crowd, not afraid of becoming unclean – he is already according to the Pharisee – but because he does not feel that he is worthy to come before the Living God. He does not feel able to be in the very presence of God as the incense fills the Temple. He only hopes his prayers will be heard, his sins atoned for. Standing apart, further away than the Pharisees, he prays humbly before God.

As they stand apart from the crowd and from each other their prayers take on remarkably different tones. The Pharisee stands and without a hint of humility thanks God that he is not like these other men gathered here. He has made his judgment of the type of characters that are gathered there: scoundrels, rogues, adulterers, sinners – all unworthy to be where he is. And, he is especially thankful that he is not like that tax-collector standing over there praying. (Can you imagine how the tax-collector felt, if he heard this Pharisee praying? He was feeling unworthy as it was, but now here is one of the leaders of Israel's religious community telling the whole gathering how unworthy he his.) Not only does he thank God for what he is not, he then goes on to brag, not to God but to those assembled, about how good he is. "I tithe, I fast, I give more than is required. See me, look at me and see how worthy I am to be in this place." Again, Bailey gives us some insights into the Pharisee, "The Pharisee is thus preaching to the 'less fortunate unwashed' around him. They have little chance to get a good look at a truly 'righteous' man like himself, and he is 'graciously' offering them a few words of judgment along with some instructions in righteousness."ⁱⁱ

The tax-collector standing afar off does not even lift his head to the heavens. He is looking down at the ground and is beating his chest in remorse. This is unusual because men seldom beat their chest. This is what women do when they are in anguish or grief, but something that a man never does. He is in intense grief and anguish and pounds on his heart, the source of evil thoughts. His prayer is that the atonement sacrifice will cover his sins. He acknowledges that he cannot do it alone and that he stands in need of the atonement sacrifice burning on the altar. If he was singing perhaps he would be singing the spiritual, "It's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer." He longs for the atonement/forgiveness that the sacrifice will bring.

Now the Pharisee would never pray such a prayer. He has already done more than is required of a good man and has earned his righteousness. We have a friend who will not sing the song "Amazing Grace" because it has the words, "saved a wretch like me" and he says that he is not now nor has ever been a wretch. Not all would agree with him! But this is somewhat the attitude of the Pharisee – he does not see salvation and forgiveness and grace as a gift from God but rather something he deserves. And because he is better than the rest of them he holds them in contempt.

Jesus is again pointing out that the grace of God is a gift of God. The writer of Hebrews puts it plainly in Hebrews 10:3-4, 11: "But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bull and goats to take away sins…And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins." Every year the scapegoat was sent into the wilderness with the sins of the people—again and again and again. No one has been able to achieve the righteousness necessary to stop the yearly, daily atonement sacrifices. That is, until Christ. Again in Hebrews 10:12, "But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice, ‘he sat down at the right hand of God’" The single sacrifice of Christ did what the countless sacrifices of bulls and goats could not, it removed our sins once and for all.

We still have those today who put themselves on pedestals, showing off their righteousness. Have we listened to any presidential candidates debate? That should be enough said! And we often put them up there and all, no matter how good or how great, fall. We cannot, as we have discovered in other parables, earn our salvation. We will never be good enough.

Now let's turn our attention to the crowd. As Jesus is telling this parable they are expecting Jesus to acknowledge the righteousness of the Pharisees. After all, this is what they have been taught all their lives. He certainly is the one who should be honored and emulated and who has received God's blessing. But Jesus turns their world upside-down again and tells them that it is the tax-collector who has been justified and blessed before God. He has come humbly before his God, sought out the grace of God and has left the service justified. Jesus has just silenced the crowd, angered the Pharisees and lifted high the one the world would put down. The prayer of the tax-collector is an unexpected prayer. Maybe he would not be there in the first place. There was a tradition that "At this particular point in the service the delegation of Israel was responsible for making the unclean stand at the eastern gate. This Pharisee is maybe wondering why this publican was not ushered out."ⁱⁱⁱ Jesus is saying that the one the world would exclude is the one whose prayers were heard and answered.

Again, Jesus has taken the acceptable rules of society/religion and turned them upside-down. It is not the privileged Pharisee who knows the way to the Kingdom of God but the humble tax-collector. It not the one who comes with his righteousness but the one who comes humbly seeking forgiveness who finds the heart of God. God sees the heart when we see only the externals. May God forgive us when we judge by what we see rather than by the heart of those around us.

ⁱ Bailey, Kenneth, Through Peasant Eyes, Eerdmans, p.147
ⁱⁱ Ibid, p. 149
ⁱⁱⁱ Ibid, p. 149


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