Pentecost 21

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Pentecost 21
PROPER: 25C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: October 25,1998

TEXT: Luke 18:9-14 - The Pharisee & The Tax Collector
"But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast saying, 'God be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you this man went down to his home justified rather than the other . . . ."

ISSUE: The issue of this parable is that we are justified by our faith, our complete trust in God, and not by any of our works of righteousness. It has little to do with humility. There is no health in us. The story of the Tax Collector & Pharisee is very similar to the Prodigal Son & the Righteous Brother. It is God who justifies and save us and seeks to save them from their ways, not themselves. We can only turn to God in trust. Here is another one of the great reversals in Luke and in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Today's gospel reading from Luke is another one of those Great Reversals. Jesus tells the story of two men who go to the Temple to say their prayers. It must have really created a sense of rage among many of the people who first heard this story that challenged the very heart of their very basic religious concepts. Jesus says that there were tow men who went to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.
Now first a little background on Pharisees. Usually in the New Testament, the Pharisees get a bad rap. Pharisaism began as a group of religious men who in the face of evil persecutors who stood up for their faith. When conquerors tried desperately to destroy the faith of Israel, the Pharisees stood firm in the face of great danger and put their lives on the line declaring to be faithful and stringently committed to keeping God's law in the face of evil and danger. Apparently some of Jesus' friends were Pharisees. Nicodemus was reportedly close to Jesus, and Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus himself was thought to have possibly been a Pharisee himself. He was invited into the homes of Pharisees for dinner, and that in itself is indicative that he was considered a Pharisee. While Pharasaism began with the best of intentions as the movement aged, there were those who were more external in terms of their adherence to the law, than they were internally religious. Jesus attempted to reform that aspect and challenged some of them, and for that reason came to be seen as an enemy of the pharisees which is not completely true. Jesus was a reformer in this sense, and people don't usually like reformers, especially if you are the one to be reformed.
In any event, Jesus tells of a good Pharisee who goes to the Temple to pray. He stands in the Temple which was the prayerful stance and custom of the time. He thanks God that he is not like some others. He is not a thief and has not participated in embezzlement. He is not a rogue: not mischievous, a scoundrel, a wandering vagabond like the shepherds were, and other disenfranchised lost characters., and didn't cheat like the poorer tax collecting agents did. He is not like the tax collector standing over there in the corner. He fasted twice a week, which was more than was required. Once a week was sufficient. And, he did in fact give a tenth or tithe of his income, which was quite generous and a requirement of the law.
Over in the other corner stands the tax collector. Tax collectors were the guys who pretty much sold out to the Romans. They could not find work so they resorted to being tax collectors. Most of these agents did not make much money. They were in constant argument with the merchants over the cost of the tax. They were inclined, but not always, to try to collect more than the actual cost of the tax to survive. They were also considered ritually, ceremonially, unclean. They touched unclean things as they examined cargo, and were thereby unwelcomed guests in Jewish homes, and were thought to be highly resented by earlier wealthy Christians in Luke's time. The tax collector in question comes into the Temple to pray. The difference is that he does not look up to heaven, and makes no claim of righteousness or thanksgiving. He beats his breast, which was sign when men beat their breast of great desperation. He says only and with great pathos, "God, be merciful to me a Sinner!" He is likely the rogue, the cheat, the thief, and maybe even an adulterer.
Now my good friends, which one of these persons do you want to serve on the Vestry of your church? Be honest. Of course we want the righteous good man and/or woman to serve on the Vestry, most especially if they are tithers. Which one of these persons do you think would clear the examining board, and the Vestry for that matter to be the priest of your congregation? Which one would get selected for ordination, and who would be most likely eliminated. Which one of these guys would you want your daughter to marry? Which one would most of us desire to associate with? Which one in our sight would be the more acceptable in our society?
Well of course, since this is another one of Jesus' parables of Great Reversal, Jesus says that it is the tax collector the sinner that goes home more justified than rather than the upright abiding by the rules Pharisee. This conclusion on Jesus' part made his listeners likely to have been mad as hell. It makes many of us mad too. We want and expect a reward for being good and righteous. Jesus says, "No way . . . . . for all who exalt themselves will be humbled but all who humble themselves will be exalted."
This parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is very similar to the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Loving Father. It's wonderful that the prodigal son who abandons his father, squanders his life, ending up in the pig sty, and comes to his father for forgiveness. He gets it before he asks: ring, shoes, and fatted calf. We are however very sympathetic with the older son who stayed at home and behaved himself. We like the forgiveness idea, but we can't quite get over having to earn rewards by being good and following all the rules. The Pharisees hated what Jesus said, and many of us do too. The good guys should win.
What is Jesus up to when he told these parable, especially this one of the good pharisee and the tax collector? Both of them had a relationship with God, both went to the Temple to pray. To help answer this question we have to keep in mind what the very heart of the Gospel is about. Essentially it is about death and resurrection, isn't it? The larger part of the Gospels, the part that takes up most of the room is the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. We believe and trust and are to be loyal that the God of Love will raise up that which is fallen. In the story the two men have a relationship with God. The tax collector sees himself as totally fallen in need of being raised up, made righteous, which he cannot do by himself. He's dead. the Pharisee is dead too, but he refuses to accept it. He spends his time telling God how great he is and thanks God he is not a sinner, and the more he runs at the mouth the more we see that in all of his moralism and good deeds, he is a discompassionate unloving contemptuous bastard. As good as he is, he cannot see that he too is in need of redemption and being raised up.
People like to glory in their achievements. We are pleased that we worked real hard and got our educations and come to land in Kingsville. We glory in being the self-made people and with that goes our sense of blessing and righteousness. On thanksgiving we thank God for all the good stuff we have. But is it all a result of our being good and great achievers? Some of it is luck. We were luck to be born where we were and have the background into which we were born. Many of us are the products and have the status of life we are in by having had an inheritance, not by our own achievements. Some of us who are weathy achieved it through scandalouls family backgrounds that robbed the poor and had slaves. Many of us who claim to be righteous and such do gooders are sometimes miserably unhappy people who hate their lives. There is such enormous pressure in having to be winners, good guy, achievers, and hot shots. We feel we have to please and be pleasing to retain the reward. We cling to the accumulated junk of our lives like it was our hope, security, and salvation.
What of the children who grow up in the projects who all they have ever known is lousy diets, poor health, violence, unstable family life, that has been an ongoing cycle in their families and in their communities from generation to generation. We are often inclined to look down on that and say, "They just don't work hard enough. If they just worked harder then they wouldn't be like that. We thank you God that we are not like that."
Another one of the things we sometimes are inclined to latch on to is moralism. We like to think, and pray, I suppose, and to offer to God, and to others our satisfaction with our great moral principals. One dear soul I once knew was so adamant about declaring that all you have to do is keep the Ten Commandments. No lust, no dishonesty, no bearing false witness. He was hard on those fags. Moral as he was he died a miserable dreadful alcoholic who had ruined his health and his family creating a generation or two of hate and guilt. When we become moralistic without recognizing that all any of us can really say is, "God be merciful to me a sinner." We a no more really than bags of wind. It's alot like being a man who works and works and works and works. He's intent upon building his home, having a big bank account, and wants his children to have music lessons, and horseback riding, learn gymnasitics and go to college. Only to find he wears himself out and dies the victim of a wife who hates him, and father of children who never know who he really is, and he never gets to know them. He's a lost winner, and is too dumb to see it.
All any of us can really say is, inspite of all the good stuff we think we've acheived, is "God be merciful to me a sinner. . . . God raise up in me that which is fallen." And that is all pretty much what we can ever say. I know we would like to think that the Tax collector in the story should be improved. This week he is in the Temple and confesses to being a sinner: "God have mercy." By next week we think he should return to the Temple having given up tax collecting or at least be a little more honest. Then he would be a good achiever and start being a winner, like us. Oh that that were possible, but again that is not even what God wants. He does not want our goodness and our morality. He wants our loyalty, trust, and faith, complete devotion that without God we cannot survive. We are losers in need of redemption; we can only die, lose our lives to be lifted up, resurrected by God's grace.
Now I know we all ask then, is being good unimportant? Do we just give up on morality? Of course not. Jesus did not come to throw out the law. But he did say that it is not our salvation. We break the law and we are sinners. We need God's grace to be raised up, to be resurrected. In the case of the older good son of the Loving Father, the Father says please come in and join the party. It is not your works that are all that important, it is your love of me and my love of you. Please come to the party.
Next week we are going to celebrate All Saints' Day, and there will be three baptisms. What's going to happen. Well if we understand the theology and the ritual, we are going to bear witness to three drownings and by the grace of God three resurrections. Three children who have absolutely no merit of their own will die to separation from God and be lifeted up as God's children in brotherhood and sisterhood with Jesus Christ. Likewise all of us who were baptized were not baptized because we were good, because we knew all the Bible stories, but because God's love embraces us inspite of ourselves. That's the Good News that is sometimes it seems too good to be true. Sometimes it even makes us mad.