The Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector
Luke 18:9-14
Before we read the Scripture today,
let’s say a prayer for illumination:
Lord, convict the hearts of all who are gathered here for all the ways they stumble and fall: for their narcissistic, self-centered, me-obsessed attitudes; for the way they always lust in their hearts when looking at one another; for the greed and gluttony with which they ravage the natural resources of your fine creation; for the deceit that is always on their lips.
Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to preach to this sorry lot. I know you have chosen me for this task because if anybody can get something through their thick skulls, it’s me. For when I tithe, I give not just 10% but 20%. When I pray, I speak not only in the tongues of men but of angels. When I witness, I, even I, turn the hearts of the reprobate back to you, their Lord. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that I’m like me and not like them. Amen.
Now
hear the word of God from Luke’s Gospel, chapter 18 beginning with verse nine:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but
beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that
this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be
humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.”
*****
You might have noticed some
differences in my opening prayer from my normal prayers. I trust (and fervently hope) it is perfectly
obvious that my prayer was spoken with tongue planted firmly in cheek. I was seeking to mirror the scandalous tone and
obnoxious content of the Pharisee’s prayer; by the look on some of your faces
after I said, “Amen,” I succeeded.
We have met this Pharisee before in
our study of the parables. Luke
explains the context of Jesus’ parable as spoken against those “confident of
their own righteousness” who “looked down on the others.” These are interesting turns of phrase. We have talked before about the habburim, the religious club of those men in an ancient
Israelite village who met together to talk about religion and the law. These habburim (literally, “friends”) would discuss such things as the meaning of
repentance or the requirements for being considered “clean” or “pure” before
God. The habburim considered themselves
the religious superiors to the am-haretz,
(literally, “people of the land”) whom Luke calls “the others.” Luke tells us
the habburim were confident of “their
own righteousness.”
Now, what does it mean to be
righteous? We used to have a saying in
our culture that defined righteousness as “Don’t smoke. Don’t drink. And don’t hang around with those who do.” I often joke about my work schedule that it
keeps me “off the streets and out of the gangs.” In other words, these phrases define righteousness in terms of
one’s behavior: “If one does the right things, then one can call oneself
righteous.” It is a simple, pervasive
moral syllogism common to almost all people in our society. The only problem with it is that it is wrong.
When Luke uses the term “righteous”
here, he uses the Greek word dikaiosune,
which is translated from the Hebrew word tzedekah. Now, these words have a very
specific meaning in their original languages; they mean “the person given
status in the presence of the king.”
You may remember the story of Queen Esther from Sunday School. Esther learned of Haman’s plot to commit
genocide against the Jews and so she entered the king’s presence without having
been summoned. According to ancient
law, the king could have had Esther killed.
Instead, the king held out his scepter toward her, thereby giving her
permission to be in his presence, giving her the status to stand before the
king. This is what is meant when the Bible uses the term
righteous.
So, listen again to Luke’s opening
words: “To some who were confident of their own righteousness….” The problem, in other words, is the haburrim believe – no, that’s not it at all – are confident
that they, of their own self, can create the means by which they give to
themselves permission to stand before the king, the Lord God Almighty. How arrogant! None of us can give ourselves this right! Do you know what would happen if the Lord
appeared in all his fullness right here, right now? We would be obliterated (c.f. Isaiah 6)! At the very least, we would drop to our
knees in reverence and awe, the fear of the Lord would be upon us. So it will be that when Jesus returns in
power and glory “every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth and under the
earth” (Philippians 2). The habburim, the friends, have a self-concept problem.
*****
In this parable, Jesus presents to
us two men, a Pharisee and a tax collector.
They are both in the Jerusalem Temple at one of the two daily services
of worship. We are told that they go to
the temple to “pray,” but we must remember that in Semitic languages the word
for “pray” means both to pray and to worship.
So a Muslim might say, “I’m going to the mosque Friday night to pray,”
and we know s/he is talking about worship.
So the two men are in worship.
It is evidently the time in the service when the priest leaves the
congregation to enter into the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifice for the
atonement of sins. We know this because
it is customary to pray while the priest is away, which both men do. Incidentally, we see this same order of
service in the Advent stories when Zechariah encounters the angel Gabriel while
in the Holy of Holies.
The Pharisee, we are told in the
Greek text, is standing apart to pray.
Evidently he does not want to become unclean, impure by touching one of
the great unwashed! He begins to pray
out loud, which was the common way to pray in those days, but he probably prays
a little louder than is customary because he wants to insult those around him,
especially the tax collector in the back of the temple:
I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers,
adulterers – or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.
Not only does the
Pharisee insult the tax collector, he uses his own life as a moral example of
how one should live. The law said one
should fast for five days before every feast, which works out to about once a
week. This character fasts for ten days
before every feast, or twice a week. The law said that one must tithe, give ten
percent of one’s income, on certain commodities: grain, oil, wine, meat and
vegetables. This character tithes not
only these things but everything. “Look
at me,” says the Pharisee, “for I, even I, of my own self have created the
right to stand before the king, the Lord Almighty.”
The tax collector is the Pharisee’s photographic negative. Whereas the Pharisees is confident in his
own goodness, the tax collector is sure of only one thing: his unworthiness to
stand before the king. Jesus tells us
the tax collector cannot even look up when he prays, up to where God is said to
dwell. And rather than having his hands
lifted in praise as was customary, the tax collector beat his own breast. Now this is highly, highly unusual.
In the Middle East, men don’t beat
their own breast. Women will beat their
breast. Not men. Women will beat their breast when they are
very angry; in fact, it is one of the ways women warn their men folk that they
had better sit down and shut up. When a
woman starts to beat her breast, literally hit her fist on her upper chest, it
is a warning that she is so angry she is about to attack. The only time a man
will beat his breast in the Middle East is when he is overwhelmed with
tremendous grief. Shiite Muslims, when
remembering the murder of their sects’ founder, Hussein, will beat their
breasts. At the end of Luke, after
watching Jesus crucified, it is said that “all those who saw what took place,
they beat their breasts…” (Luke 23:48).
So here is this tax collector beating his breast at prayer. What’s up with that?
The tax collector was overwhelmed
with grief. The grief of his own sin –
that he, a son of Abraham, had become a conspirator with Rome, an oppressor, a
thug who routinely cheated and scammed his own people. The grief of his own
loss – that he, one of the chosen people, knew not the community of his own
kind nor the love of the Lord his God.
The grief of his life – who he was, what he had become, what little hope
there was for one such as him. And in
the midst of his grief he beats his breast and prays: “God, have mercy on me, a
sinner.” Jesus says the tax
collector, and not the Pharisee, left the temple “righteous” before God that
day.
*****
Let me be
clear. I am not against good
behavior. I teach my children to be
good. I try to be good myself, even if
that means I have to stay “off the streets and out of the gangs.” Goodness has its place. But one place goodness has no place in being
is in our thinking that we earn our standing before God. Our ability to stand before God is a gift;
it is grace.
The differences between the Pharisee
and the tax collector could not be more stark.
The Pharisee thought he could earn his righteousness; the tax collector
knew he could not. The Pharisee thought
his goodness obligated God to love him; the tax collector thought his badness
obligated God to hate him. The Pharisee
thought he could work his way into God’s good graces; the tax collector knew
his only hope was God’s good, grace.
The Pharisee’s pride went before his fall; the tax collector’s humility
led to his exaltation. For
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be
exalted.
There is a story circulating the
internet, probably apocryphal but certainly poignant. It speaks to the Pharisee within each of us and the hope we might
find if there were but a little more tax collector. The story is about a homeless man who enters a coffee shop; his
clothes are soiled, alcohol is on his breath.
Much to the horror of a set of parents, their baby begins to make googly
eyes with the man, who, in turn, plays peek-a-boo with the child. Other patrons are watching. The parents are “embarrassed.” No one knows what to do, what to say.
As the parents leave the coffee
shop, the homeless man pays for his cup of coffee. As the man passes by, the baby propels himself away from his
mother with outstretched “pick me up” arms.
The homeless man obliges. Unsure
what to do, the mother watches as a very smelly man and a very young baby hold
each other, and the baby’s tiny head cradles upon the man’s shoulder. The man holds the baby close and with tears
in his eyes commands the mother, “You take care of this baby.” Then the man pries the baby away from his
chest, handing the baby back to his mother, saying, “God bless you, ma’am, you’ve
given me my Christmas gift.”
The mother says she felt convicted
by the whole situation: her attitude at first, her fear of the man, her
judgment of someone like him. She says,
“I saw the love of Christ through the innocence of a tiny child who saw no sin,
who made no judgment, a child who saw a soul while his mother saw a suit of
clothes.” How often, I wonder, do we
see the tax collector in our midst and think to ourselves, “God, I thank you
that I am not like other men…not like this tax collector”? How often do we leave even this sanctuary not
finding the righteousness God so desperately wants to give us? Please pray with me:
Lord, I thank you that I am like every other person
in this room: a sinner redeemed of your grace, a child restored to our
God. There is nothing exceptional in us
except this one thing: we are your beloved.
And so we say, “Thank you.”
Give to us the grace to lift up the humble, to reach out to those in poverty or desperation, to show by our love of others that we have been privileged to stand before you, our King. Amen.