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22. Sunday after Pentecost, 10/24/2010
Sermon on Luke 18:9-17, by Richard O. Johnson
18.9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
15 Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called them to him, saying, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 17 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." Luke 18.9-17 English Standard Version
Today we get still another parable from our gospel lesson, and we've had a lot of them these past few months as we've worked our way through the gospel of Luke. Today's parable will be the last for a while; next week is Reformation Day, and then All Saints, and not long after is the beginning of Advent. For most of the next year we turn to the gospel of Matthew, who is not so interested in parables as Luke, though occasionally one may crop up.
But today let's enjoy this last parable from Luke. It is a familiar one to most of us. Two men, Jesus says, went into the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee prayed, "I thank you, God, that I am not like other men"-and then he proceeded to tell God just which other people he wasn't like. The tax collector, on the other hand, beat his breast and said, "God be merciful to me, a sinner." Jesus tells his hearers that it was the tax collector who found favor with God that day, not the Pharisee. It is a straightforward story, or so it seems. But sometimes the deepest things in the parables can remain hidden to us precisely because they are so familiar. Today let's take a new look, and see what we might learn.
Pharisees aren't so bad
Perhaps we could begin by acknowledging that the Pharisee isn't nearly as bad as we would like to make him out to be. He is a respectable, religious man-not too different from you and me. It is easy to caricature him, easy perhaps because by doing so, we protect ourselves from seeing just how like him we are. So let's look for a moment on the more positive side. How are these two men in the Temple alike?
Well, both are very serious about God. The Pharisee is not a hypocrite in the usual sense. He is not someone who pretends to be something he isn't. He is a very devout man. His words suggest that he tries to keep the law of God, indeed, he goes beyond what the law requires. He is, after all, in the Temple-he's not out playing golf, or arguing that he can worship God just as well out in nature. He is a man committed to his religion as he understands it. And of course the tax collector is equally devout. His life is not what it should be, he knows that; and yet he hasn't used his sinfulness as an excuse to try to hide from God. He, too, stands in the Temple, even if off to the side. Both these men are serious about their faith.
While this may be surprising, both are also people who approach God with thanksgiving. In a sense that illustrates some spiritual maturity. Those who are immature in their faith usually approach God with what they want God to do for them. Those who have lived longer with the mystery of God find their prayers most often arising out of thanks. And that is true of both these two. The tax collector is, in effect, thanking God for his mercy and forgiveness. He is grateful that he can even come into God's presence, sinner that he is.
The Pharisee, on the other hand, is thanking God as well. I suspect we miss the point when we regard his gratitude as prideful hypocrisy. He is not as bad as all that! He's probably read his catechism. He knows that God has created him and all that exists, that God has given him and still preserves his body and soul with all their powers. His words don't have to be understood in the worst way. Who among us has not looked at someone in deep trouble, someone who has been trapped in poverty or crime or addiction or psychological illness, and spoken those wonderfully humble words, "There but for the grace of God go I." That's not so different from our Pharisee. We could, if we were keeping the 8th commandment in mind, "explain his actions in the kindest way" and say that what he does is to thank God for the grace that has preserved him and kept him in true faith. Couldn't we read him that way? He's not saying, "Thanks, God, that I'm so great," but "Thank you, God, for the many gifts of grace you have given me, and for preserving me from thievery and adultery and all the rest..
And in his own way, each man is also giving honor to God by his prayer. The tax collector honors God for accepting him and loving him, as sinful as he is. The Pharisee honors God for his justice and righteousness, for he knows that God asks a great deal of us, but that God's commandments are good and holy. To think that God doesn't really care whether we follow the commandments would be blasphemy to the Pharisee. The commandments are too important to assume that God lets anyone off the hook who disobeys them. The Pharisee is honoring God by regarding the commandments so highly.
The big difference
Yes, these two worshipers have a good bit in common, more than they would recognize; more than we like to admit. But there is also a big difference. Here's what it is: The Pharisee, when he comes before God, measures himself by looking downward. He picks the tax collector as his standard of comparison. When he compares himself to the tax collector, he himself looks pretty good. Let's assume that he is like us, and that he knows he has faults, that he knows, as Helmut Thielicke puts it, "the wolves that howl in the cellar of his soul, the thoughts and desires that frighten him. But he has controlled them." [Thielicke, p. 131] And so, when he looks downward at the tax collector, he feels relieved, off the hook. No matter what things may lurk in his soul, at least he's not as bad as this tax collector.
Now the Pharisee's problem takes on new meaning. We are sensitive enough to see that the kind of pride often understood in the Pharisee's words is wrong; but we point our finger at it so that we can keep from acknowledging it ourselves. As long as there is someone else to whom we can compare ourselves-doesn't much matter if that someone else is a tax collector or a Pharisee-as long as there is someone else, then we can feel OK.
Did you hear about the Amish couple riding home from church in their buggy? The husband remarked to his wife, "I believe we were just about the plainest that were there this morning." Whenever we compare ourselves to others, pride comes in. Even humility is not a virtue which is immune to the workings of pride.
Think about it this way. Why is it that we human beings get such satisfaction out of gossip? Isn't it because when we talk about what someone else did, or said, or didn't do, we can feel relieved that we, for all our faults, are at least not quite that bad? When we compare ourselves to others, pride comes in.
Looking up with downcast eyes
But what about the tax collector? His approach to God is very different, in this way. He stands before God alone, and makes no comparisons. It wouldn't have had to be that way; he could just as easily have said to himself-and with some justification-"at least I'm not a prideful arrogant hypocrite like that Pharisee." But he does not say that. It doesn't even occur to him. When he stands before God, he looks upward. I know it says he wouldn't even look up to heaven, but he is looking upward nonetheless, in a different sense. He is looking to God. He stands far off-and I suspect that means not so much that he was ashamed but simply that he was alone before God. No one else came into his view. He didn't measure himself against any other person, but he measured himself against God. And when you measure yourself in that way, you find no room for pride. You see only your own lowliness-and therefore you see God's great mercy.
You see, the eyes of God look into the heart and see what cannot be seen by human eyes. The Pharisee does not know that. He looks at the tax collector and he feels relieved, comfortable, acceptable. What he has not learned is that the only true relief, the only true comfort, the only true acceptance comes when we look not at other people, to compare ourselves against them, but when we look into those eyes which see us as we are and yet reflect a love that is beyond what we can imagine.
Two men went up to the Temple to pray. The one who looked only to God-he's the one who went home justified. May it be so with us.
Zusätzliche Medien:
Works cited: Thielicke, Helmut. The Waiting Father. Translated by John Doberstein. New York: Harper & Row, 1959.