One characteristic of a parable is that the people in them are
not real. They’re character types. This morning’s
gospel isn’t the real story of a real Pharisee and a real
tax collector. Jesus uses them as models to illustrate a particular
principle.
This
is an important concept to grasp, because if you don’t
understand that the Pharisee in this story is intended to represent
a character type, you may come to this parable thinking “Jesus
is after those horrible Pharisees again” and miss the
point. Jesus is speaking directly to certain people but there’s
nothing to suggest that they’re Pharisees. The last time
Luke identifies an audience is in 18:1, “Then Jesus told
his disciples a parable…” That parable ends in verse
8. In verse 9, he begins speaking directly to “some who
were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on
everyone else.” The natural reading seems to be that the
“some” here were “some” among his own
disciples. That changes the way we understand this parable because
now we can’t safely assume that Jesus is addressing those
nasty Pharisees. He’s using the figure of the Pharisee
to address some among his followers “who are confident
of their own righteousness and look down on everyone else”
and that cuts a lot closer to home.
But he’s also providing a model, in the person of the
tax collector of a better way. It would’ve freaked his
disciples out that he picked a tax collector. We’ve spoken
many times about tax collectors. They were despised in Jesus’
day because they collaborated with the Romans. They collected
taxes from their fellow Jews for the Roman government. And,
worse, the Romans authorized them to make their living by taxing
more than the law required but since Roman law didn’t
specify how much more, many if not most tax collectors made
themselves rich on the backs of their countrymen. That’s
why they were hated and it was socially acceptable to hate them.
Think oil executives or tobacco companies today, you can say
anything you want about them because it’s socially acceptable
to hate them. Jesus chooses the most politically incorrect type
of person to model an attitude of heart pleasing to God.
Jesus sets this parable in the one location on earth that God
that ordained for meeting personally with his people. Walking
into the Temple court was to walk into the antechamber of heaven;
to be in the tangible, real, personal presence of the holy and
almighty God. You would not approach the Temple casually.
One day about 700 years before Jesus told this parable, the
prophet Isaiah went to the Temple. Isaiah was a righteous and
holy man; far more righteous and holy than anyone else at the
time. On this particular day the Lord chose to remove, suddenly,
the veil between heaven and earth and allow his prophet to see
the Temple as it really was. Isaiah describes what he saw in
Isaiah 6, “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and
exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above
him were seraphs…and they were crying to one another ‘Holy,
holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of
his glory. At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds
shook and the temple was filled with smoke.” Now listen
to his reaction. Isaiah, good, righteous, godly Isaiah sees
God and he says, “Woe is me,’ ‘I am ruined!
For I am a man of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King,
the Lord Almighty.”
Isaiah comes before the Holy God, he gets a true vision of God,
and that vision causes self-revulsion. He sees the holiness
of God and recognizes immediately that he’s unworthy;
that he cannot stand in the presence of the Lord, that unless
God acts to save him, he’s ruined. That’s the response
of someone who truly knows God; who truly knows himself in light
of God. Now, compare that reaction to the posture, to the attitude,
to the words of the Pharisee.
Look at verse 11. “The Pharisee stood up and prayed about
himself…” That’s a mistranslation. The text
really says, the Pharisee stood apart from the crowd, by “himself”
not to get alone with God but so that he could be seen and heard
by others. When Jews prayed, even privately, they prayed out
loud, mostly in hushed tones. But you get the sense that the
Pharisee is praying loudly enough for everyone to hear, “God
I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers,
adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week
and give a tenth of all I get.” The law required everyone
to give a tenth of all that they earn. This Pharisee tithed
on everything, even things he bought in the market.
There
was only one required fast day a year, the Day of Atonement.
The Pharisee fasts twice a week. This man’s gone above
and beyond his peers in every way. Those around him would look
at him and think: wow, what a holy man. No one, looking from
the outside, would doubt his faith, his goodness; his godliness
and he seems to agree.
Now look at the tax collector, verse 13. “But the tax
collector stood at a distance.” Whereas the Pharisee stood
apart, by himself, so that he’d be more noticeable, the
tax collector stood at a distance. The implication is that he
didn’t want to be seen. His purpose was solely to meet
with God not with men and he was ashamed. He didn’t come
with self-confidence. The tax collector “would not even
look up to heaven” One part of Isaiah’s vision I
didn’t include was his description of the seraphim, the
angels that surround God’s throne. Angels are sinless
beings, but the seraphim Isaiah saw were equipped with three
sets of wings, one set specifically given so that they could
cover their eyes because even sinless seraphim cannot look directly
at God in his glory and live. The tax collector, like the seraphim,
won’t look to heaven, he bows his head, he averts his
eyes. And instead of speaking to God of all his accomplishments,
he beats his breast, a sign of anguish and guilt, and he prays,
“God have mercy on me a sinner.”
There’s no prevarication, no excuse, no “well I’m
really a good person deep down and I’d be a lot better
if this person hadn’t done this to me or that thing hadn’t
happened when I was a kid…” There is no bargaining,
no “well, I messed up here and there but look I did these
good things...” The tax collector sees himself in the
light of a true vision, a true knowledge of God, he sees his
true status and he repents, like Job, like Isaiah, in dust and
ashes. I’m guilty. I’m a sinner. I’m not worthy
to come before you.
Think about what a contemporary mental health care professional
might say to these two men. Let’s say they don’t
go to the Temple, but to the therapist. The Pharisee comes in,
chest out, nice suit, sits down, says, “My life is going
great. I’m successful, honest, faithful to my wife, I
recycle, I’m spiritual, I give a lot of money to charity
and I watch my diet.” The average therapist would say
“You’ve got self esteem and confidence, you find
strength within yourself. You’ve got a healthy self-image,
you’re okay” The tax collector shuffles in afterwards,
plops down on the couch, “I’m not doing well at
all. I mean, I just keep messing up. I know what’s right,
I know what I should do and I don’t do it. I keep failing.”
The therapist would say. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.
You just need a healthier self image. You need to work on finding
your inner light. You need a self esteem coach.” That’s
the sort of junk our society’s been fed for the last thirty
or so years. Jesus would say, you’re in great shape. That’s
exactly where you need to be. Now I can work with you. I can’t
do anything with that Pharisee because he won’t get honest
with me or honest with himself.
I said a moment ago that the tax collector doesn’t approach
the throne of God with self-confidence. But he does have confidence
in something or he wouldn’t have had the guts to come.
His confidence is not in himself but in God’s promise
of mercy. You see it in verse 13. “God, have mercy on
me.”
And Jesus says, “this man,” meaning the tax collector,
“rather than the other,” meaning the Pharisee, “went
home justified before God.” But the Pharisee’s so
holy. He’s done above and beyond everyone else. That’s
not the standard. God doesn’t compare you to everyone
else. He measures your heart by the perfect standard of his
commands, “be perfect therefore as your father in heaven
is perfect” (Mt 5:48) and no one meets that standard.
So the only thing you can do when you come before God whether
you’re a prostitute or the pope is fall down and seek
mercy. And the promise is that when you do, you’ll find
it.
The word used for “justified” here, dedikaiwmenos,
means, “having been made righteous.” The tax collector
came to the presence of God steeped in sin. But confident in
the Lord, trusting in the grace and mercy of God rather than
his own goodness, he acknowledged his sin, he repented of his
sin, and he left the temple cleansed and purified. The same
thing happened to Isaiah. He cried out to the Lord and the Lord
sent an angel to press a burning coal to his lips which symbolized
his being cleansed before God. The promise of God is that if
you come seeking mercy, he’ll forgive you your sins and
he’ll cleanse the stain: “If we claim to be without
sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we
confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us
our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”(1st
John 1:8-9)
Sin stains your soul. It’s deep, its ugly, its pervasive
and we don’t like to face it. We don’t like to acknowledge
it. That’s why people have to work so hard to develop
a positive self image, because they know themselves, they know
what they’ve done, they know what’s in their heart
and they’ve got to compensate. But the truth of the gospel
is that you don’t have to compensate. You don’t
have to work to cover over your sins. You don’t have to
number your accomplishments to assuage your guilt, you don’t
need to talk yourself up, you don’t need a self esteem
coach. God has a launderers’ soap powerful enough to cleanse
and purify your heart. Though your sins are like scarlet, they
shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they
shall be like wool. That’s the power of the blood of Jesus
Christ that was and is poured out for you. It’s cleansing
blood. But to be cleansed you’ve got to stop playing the
Pharisee game. You’ve got to be willing to acknowledge
your unworthiness before God and trust alone in his promise
of forgiveness and the cleansing he offers in Jesus Christ.
Amen
