A series of sermons on the parables of Jesus

Luke 18:10-14a; Isaiah 6:1-8

Two people came to Kingston and entered the Canberra Baptist Church for worship. One was a respected citizen of society; the other one was suspect.

Since God is a God who sees what we don’t see, who looks beyond the outward experience, and since they have come to worship God, we wonder how they fare in the presence of God.

Now, most of us have heard the story about the Pharisee and the publican before; we know the end, and we have successfully moralised the sting out of it. We have classified the respectable citizen, the Pharisee, as arrogant and self-righteous and selfish, and then taken our stand with the humble and contrite tax-collector. Not taking on board, of course, what made him suspicious in the eyes of society, but simply applying the virtue of humility to ourselves, and rejecting the vices of arrogance and self-righteousness.

But it is not as easy as that. Shall we be willing to listen anew?

“Pharisee”

The respected citizen who entered Canberra Baptist Church to worship, had a healthy balance of morality, spirituality and social concern. He – I don’t think there were female Pharisees, but please, all females, feel yourselves included! – had a structured spiritual life: he prayed and studied the Scriptures; he was eager to learn and he gave a significant parts of his income for the purposes of God.

He did not count his morality to be the result of his own achievements, but he thanked God, that God had given him the grace, not to disadvantage others, not to commit sexual infidelity and not to be dishonest in business. He kept his physical distance from that “other”, that tax-collector.

In Jesus’ day the Pharisees were like that. They were respected citizens.

For us that is a little difficult to appreciate, because the New Testament paints a fairly negative picture of the Pharisees. A Pharisee, so most Christians feel, was proud, self-righteous, hypocritical (Luke 12:1), legalistic, cold-hearted, cruel, elitist, materialistic, (Luke 16:14), and loveless. He despised the poor, unlearned and sick. He opposed John the Baptist (John 1:24ff.) and Jesus (Mark 2:15-17, 7:1ff., 12:13; Luke 15:2; John 8:13), and was a major force in bringing Jesus of Nazareth to be executed (Mark 3:6; Matt 21:45; John 7:32; 11:45ff.57).

Now, there are some good reasons why we have inherited such a negative picture of the Pharisees. The Jewish synagogues which opposed many of the earliest Christian communities were led by Pharisees. They gave Christians a hard time. So, when the early Christian writers wrote about Jesus and his time, their writings were of course coloured by their own negative experience of the Pharisees.

But for the people in the street and in the market place it was different. Pharisees were respected. A mother would pray that her son would become a Pharisee. It was the dream and vision of many a young Jewish man to become a Pharisee, and to serve God in that vocation.

The Pharisees was a lay movement that was started to bring Israel’s faith into the market places of life. They wanted to bring about the sanctification of all the people of Israel so that they could once again be the true people of God. They were committed, dedicated men of God, and many paid for their faith with their lives. In the century before Christ (93-88 B.C.) the Pharisees fought a six year civil and religious war against the Hasmonean Dynasty. At the end of that war 800 Pharisees were publicly crucified alive around Jerusalem, providing the scenery for the victory feast of their opponents. These Pharisees died for their faith in God!

Their religious devotion also included the emphasis on works of love, like feeding the poor and needy, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, burying the dead, consoling the sad, raising orphans, granting hospitality to strangers, and redeeming of prisoners.

Having all that in mind, was it not legitimate for the Pharisee, the respected citizen in our story, to thank God that he was “not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers or even like this tax collector!” (v.11) – but rather that he was saved from that, and that he spent his life in service for God? We must not forget that this is a prayer of thanksgiving directed to God. Can one not express certain things to God, where at the same time one would be hesitant to tell the same things to ones fellow humans?

The prayer of thanksgiving is continued with the public manifestation of his piety: “I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” Indeed, our friend gives outward expression of his inner devotion; fasting twice in a week and regular tithing of all his income was more than was required by his religious orders.

My friends, most of us don’t show that kind of devotion. If our “fasting” would be like that, we would not become weary in well doing, and if we all would give 10% of all our income, we would not run constantly behind the budget we agreed on.

So, if we are critical of the respected citizen who has entered the Canberra Baptist Church to worship, we better know why. But before we get a little deeper into this, we must become aware of the suspicious character who has also come to church to worship; we must try to gather who the tax collector is and how he fares in the presence of God.

“Toll collector”

So, there was this other person who entered Canberra Baptist Church on Sunday morning for worship. In society’s eyes, he was suspect. His standing in society was low because his profession made him do things that people did not like. One thing was that he was in a profession – perhaps it was the porn industry in Fyshwick – that rips people off. And the other thing was that she showed no respect for the religious convictions of the people; he used the word “God” in vain.

But this day he came to church. He feels quite strange – “standing afar off”. The word “God” does not come easily across his lips. Intuitively he knew that there is another reality beyond the world of corruption and disrespect of people’s feeling. But he wasn’t quite ready to face the reality “God” – “he would not even look up to heaven”. But then it overcame him: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

It has happened before and it can happen again. It can happen to you and me. What else can you do when God becomes God? What else can you do when the time thickens into the moment of truth? Do you remember the great prophet Isaiah. How does he respond when the temple became the dwelling of God?

“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa 6:5)

And do you recall Peter’s response (Luke 5) when Jesus became God’s word to him:

… he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8)

For a moment. time became God-time: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

The “tax collector” or “publican” in our story was really a toll collector. We had such people in the last century, before federation, in Australia. If you wanted to take your wool from South Australia to Victoria or to NSW you had to stop at the border and pay toll. In Jesus’ day, such toll-stations were out-sourced by the Roman occupation forces. The contract was given to the highest bidder, and your profit was what you could collect above that. That means, that “structurally” the toll-collector leant towards dishonesty, because the more toll he could collect, the more profit he would make – see John Laws and his peers.

But there was also a religious dimension to this deal. You see, the toll-collector, normally a Jew, got the contract from the Roman occupation forces, and some of the money that he got from the Jewish citizens who crossed the border, went to the Roman government. That for Jews was blasphemy. God had given them the land, and now they had to pay toll to the Gentiles. Those toll-collectors were not only ripping them off, but they were also blaspheming against YHWH, the God of Israel. The toll-collectors were not only getting their hands dirty, but they were also getting their souls dirty. It is no wonder that in Jewish society the toll-collector was considered to be a traitor, blasphemer, robber, thief and sorcerer. He took money from the soil which God had given his people for their own use and passed it on to a godless nation. Thus a toll collector was not only an offender against his own people but against the God of Israel.

Shock

Given all that, it was quite a shock, an unexpected shock when Jesus interprets their situation how God sees it: “I tell you, this man – the toll-collector – went down to his home justified rather than the other – the Pharisee.”

How do we deal with such a shock which on the surface does away with our moral and spiritual sensitivities? Why was the toll-collector in this story right and the Pharisee wrong? Does this not put all of us off the rails? Does this not make fun of our commitment to honesty, morality and spirituality? How can we digest such an interpretation of life?

Digesting the shock

What is wrong with the attitude of our respected and respectable citizen who came to the Canberra Baptist Church to worship? Obviously one cannot criticise him for trying to be better than others, nor can one scorn his religious devotion. Indeed: it is not a good sign for our religious devotion that Sunday by Sunday we run behind the budget that we all agreed on. If we would fast twice a week and give a tenth of all our income to the purposes of God then I would think that we would have no financial problems!

Perhaps we may approach an answer to Jesus’ shocking verdict if we ask what understanding of the nature of God the prayer of the respected citizen reveals.

Two aspects are important.

Firstly, the Pharisee’s prayer of thanksgiving implies that God would favour a division of people according to their moral obedience to a divine code of ethics. On one side the Pharisee with all his praiseworthy moral excellence, and on the other side the examples of immorality and blasphemy, including “that toll collector”. When a Pharisee had a dinner party he would not invite people who in religious knowledge and piety would be below him. He did not want to be dragged down.

Division between people is one of the major problems that the global community faces today. And it becomes blasphemy when such division is sanctioned by referring to God. God has been bothered to justify the division between blacks and whites in America and in South Africa; God is still being bothered to justify division between Christians and Muslims in Ambon and Aceh, between Christians and Hindus in India, between Christians and Jews and Israel. Yes even those who name the name of Christ as Lord do not invites each other to the “Lord’s table”. Division is rampant. The “other” is excluded rather than embraced.

Secondly, there is the Pharisee’s religious adoration of and disciplined obedience to God’s law – fasting and tithing – has become an end in itself. It determines the Pharisee’s image of God. God is no longer the personal, forgiving, liberating reality in his life. Giving sacrificially and fasting is no longer a joyous response to God’s grace. But it has become “God” – and as such an idol!

It happens to me all the time. I talk to people about God and they immediately switch to morality. “Is faith in God a meaningful part of your life,” I ask, and the answer comes: “Yes, I believe in Christian morality.”

You see, if morality and piety have replaced God, if they have become the sole focus of your devotion, then there is no room for a toll collector. Then one can only thank God that one is not a toll collector. As “judge”, God would have to declare the toll-collector guilty, and as “bookkeeper” God would have to declare him bankrupt.

Christ

In contrast to this respectable “Pharisaic” understanding of God, the Christian Gospel declares that God is primarily neither a judge nor a bookkeeper, but a Father, and that of all people – be they Pharisees, or be they toll collector, be they respectable or be they suspect! Jesus demonstrated this new understanding of God by ministering (in the name of God!) to the toll collectors, the sick, the poor and the outcasts. Paul maintains this new understanding of God by declaring that God is he “who justifies the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5).

If that is the case, then the toll-collector has a chance! He may now hear the good news: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion of the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15). “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people” (Titus 2:11). “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8)

And when God enters the scene, God is the creator of heaven and earth and as such resists all separation. God loves the world (John 3:16). He wants to heal what is broken and reconcile what is estranged.

Invitation

This parable of Jesus shocks us, but at the same time it gives up hope. It shocks, because it confronts us eloquently with the fact that in the presence of God even our best deeds melt away. There, if God encounters us, and if it is really God who encounters us, we can only say with Isaiah “‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!'” (Is. 6:5) and with Peter: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8b).

But it also consoles us because we are assured that where God’s ways are honoured,
no one is excluded. Even in our most sinful, estranged, frustrated and lost
moments, God’s heart keeps on beating for us. He who can do everything, cannot
close his heart when a sinner cries: “God be merciful to me…”!

Rev. Dr. Thorwald Lorenzen
http://www.canbap.org.au/parables.htm