May only truth be
spoken and may only truth be heard. Amen.
Sometimes
life feels like a giant competition. We are always trying to one-up the other person
– better job, bigger house, faster car, cuter child, larger bank account. Social
media hasn’t helped one bit. We are constantly in a state of comparison and vying
for the most likes and shares. With people posting pictures of their lives, we only
ever see the best parts and the good days but none of the struggles or bad
days. The perfect family photo – but no sign of how long it took to get everyone
ready and looking at the camera. With digital photography, you know right away
if you need to keep taking more pictures until you have the perfect one for
social media posting. So, when you look at your friends’ Facebook post and see
perfect, smiling people, you can’t help but compare your life to theirs and
wonder why yours looks so different.
Today’s
parable also seems like a competition – the Pharisee against the tax collector,
each vying for God’s affection. These are two characters that couldn’t be more
opposite. The Pharisee was a highly religious man who knew all of the laws that
would have needed to be followed in order to be considered properly pious.
Based on what we read here, he was a good man. He isn’t a thief or an adulterer.
He fasted and he tithed more than what was required. He peeks over and sees the
tax collector, off in the corner with his eyes to the ground. The Pharisee
prays to God, which is what he was there to do, but he does so in such a way to
show people how good of a person he is. “Look at me,” he says, “I’m so glad I’m
not a tax collector. Look at all the good things I’ve done.” It’s almost as if
rather than giving thanks to God for all that he has in his life, the Pharisee is
giving God a run-down of his resume as proof of having earned his position in
heaven.
And
then we have the tax collector. A real scumbag. He harasses his fellow Jewish
community for money on behalf of the Roman empire and then skims a little off the
top for himself. He’s as dishonest as you can get and cruel to his fellow
countrymen. Compared to the Pharisee, a tax collector would never have been considered
good or pious. And yet, he also finds himself in temple each week, praying to
God with a simple declaration, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”, as his
beats his chest while keeping his eyes on the floor. This tax collector knows
that he’s a sinner and all he asks is that God forgives him. According to Jesus,
this tax collector would have been more justified than the Pharisee. In Paul’s
vernacular, this would have been justification by works versus justification by
faith.
And
the justification championship goes to – the tax collector! Hardly seems fair,
though, does it? The tax collector who does everything wrong during the week
that he possibly could receives God’s justification over the Pharisee who does
everything right by the law. There should have been no comparison. But as with social
media posts having more behind them than meets the eye, so does the comparison between
the Pharisee and the tax collector. God isn’t looking for the one who is
perfectly pious. God is looking for the one who is truly penitent. The new standard
is no longer the code of the law the Pharisee is following so closely, it’s the
love of God on which the tax collector threw himself.
The
Pharisee is showing off to God and to anyone in earshot, listing off all the
ways he is perfectly following the letter of the law which should put him
closer to God. The tax collector knows who he is and asks for God’s forgiveness,
week in and week out, casting himself onto the mercy of God. And week in and
week out, he gets the mercy and forgiveness he seeks. That’s called grace. Robert
Farrar Capon tells it this way. The Pharisee is like the perfect church member.
He does everything by the book. He gives everything he has to the church. He
gives thanks to God for everything that he has (or at least makes it seem like he
is). The Pharisee is the perfect candidate for vestry, and any church would be
lucky to have him on their parish list. But what about the guy who takes a
twenty from the plate as it passes by? The guy who spends Monday through Saturday
crossing off every deadly sin as if it were a checklist? The guy who comes in every
Sunday morning, staring down at his feet, and saying, “God be merciful to me a
sinner?” Probably not the first one you’d ask to join the vestry or any other
church committee, for that matter.
Between
the Pharisee and the tax collector, we can all admit to ourselves who we’d be
more likely to welcome through our door. But God does things differently. To God,
the Pharisee is no better off than the tax collector. In fact, the Pharisee is worse
off because at least the other guy can admit that he is a sinner. According to
Capon, “The fact is that they are both equally dead and therefore both alike receivers
of the gift of resurrection.”
And
this is good news for us! How many of us can claim that we had the perfect
week? A week where we committed no sin, or error, or mistake? We can’t! The
good news is that we can come here every Sunday, give everything we’ve done
over to God, admit that we are sinners, and start over. Why? Because Jesus died
for our sins on the cross so that we can have eternal life with God alongside the
resurrected Jesus.
As
church people, we aren’t supposed to have it all together. We are human beings
who fail daily at perfection. And that’s okay because God doesn’t expect
perfection. God’s justification is based on love, faith, and trust, not perfection,
pride, or piousness. God expects us to love God, to love ourselves, and to love
one another. God expects us to have faith in God’s plans for us. And God
expects us to trust that God knows what God is doing.
The
point of today’s parable is not to see who the best is at praying to God. It’s
not about creating competition amongst the people of God to see who deserves
the most justification. It’s not about who has scored the most points with God
in order to get closer to heaven. God doesn’t keep score of our deeds, good or
bad. God doesn’t monitor to make sure you’re praying properly. The point of
today’s parable is a lesson in trusting in God’s grace and mercy, for if a tax
collector can find mercy before God, then who could possibly be excluded?
God’s
greatest act of mercy is found in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. All
people are drawn into the mystery of redemption through the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, at the foot of the cross, we can make the
tax collector’s cry for mercy our own: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” In
Luke’s Gospel, we see this enacted in the penitent thief who says, “Jesus,
remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus replies, “Truly I tell
you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Amen.
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