Proper 25C 2007
2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18
Luke 18:9-14
The Tax Collector and the Pharisee
Parables contain an element of surprise. The story begins with the Pharisee who in the ears of the first century would represent the devout among the Jews. The Pharisee does the things faith requires, all the proper religious duties, tithing, obedience to the Law, faithful to the tradition. Tax Collectors were despised because they worked for the enemy, the governing oppressors of Rome. When the Tax Collector prayed he confessed to being a sinner – and well he should. Each man knew his place: the good religious Pharisee and the corrupt servant of the Roman occupation, the tax collector. At first hearing it sounds correct, even right.
Realizing that the story is being told by Jesus, we suspect something is not as clear as it first seems because Jesus has a habit of associating with tax collectors. They are baptized (John 3;12); one of them, Levi, became one of the disciples (Lk 5:27); Jesus ate meals with them and called them friend (Lk 5:29-30); they listened to Jesus (Lk 15;1). In contrast, Pharisees questioned and criticized Jesus (Lk5:21, 6:2, 7:39); they refused John’s baptism and rejected God’s gift (Lk7:30) and Jesus ate with Pharisees (Lk7:36; 11:37; 14:1) and pronounced woes on them (Lk11;42-43).
Knowing that Jesus has had good relationships with the tax collectors and not with the Pharisees we might wonder where this story is going. We can think of many examples of persons being thankful that they are unique, not like the rest of humanity…that we are pious, by what we do and what we don’t do. We are thankful that we have homes, family, friends, jobs, money, cars, health, freedom, that wars are fought over there, that there is peace here, that the way we pray and worship and fellowship is the right way, approved way, blessed way. Like the Pharisee we see our virtues as clearly as our neighbor or enemies faults. We may be self-satisfied, proud of our faith, our church, our ministry and our mission efforts. Like the Pharisee we may be tempted to be egoistic and separate. The trouble is not that the Pharisee is proud of being faithful to his beliefs, generous with his money, or upright in the community. It is good to recognize those traits and nurture them in one another. The problem is in being programmed or convinced that we can do it in our own strength. The Pharisee is telling God how much he has done: he is self-righteous. Rather than depending on God’s grace and giving thanks for that grace, the Pharisee trusts himself. He is neither in a position to be forgiving or forgiven because he sees nothing wrong in who and what he is. The Pharisees were held in high esteem for their scrupulous practice of the law, ceremonial customs, and lost sight of the inner life of the spirit.
If the Pharisee represented public honor, the publican/tax collector was aligned with the enemy. The tax collector worked for Rome; charged more taxes than were owed to cover his salary. The Pharisee prayed: “God I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” He built himself up by putting others down. His arrogance separated him from others. He projected these sins on others by his rigid code of conduct. “I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.” Perhaps he is thinking, after all I have followed the rules, and I deserve this elevated position. The error is that he justifies himself by his outward behavior. Believing he has arrived, the Pharisee is no longer teachable.
“But the tax collector, standing far off, could not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” This man was not an exemplary character, and he was aware that he could not change himself, but needed external divine help. He was putting himself in a position to be filled with grace, mercy, forgiveness and tasting the divine love, could be changed by it. The tax collector was teachable. He did not think he already knew all he needed to know or was doing all that was required of him. He was humble and in him Jesus saw a container empty enough to fill.
When we engage in ego-centric, self-exalting prayer a future realization awaits us. In time we will see that such an attitude alienates us from both God and neighbor. If we do not acknowledge God as the source of every positive action, we are blocking the source of grace that supports every good work. It cuts us off from neighbors because our elevated self-status is based on our judgment of those we consider less righteous than we are and we are neither equipped nor able to make such judgments. The maxim is correct: those who exalt themselves will eventually be humbled by their own act of self-exaltation.
I suspect all of us have our own examples of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Those who say we have x gifts and therefore we ought to do what God especially equips us to do are tempted to see themselves as agents of grace and divine favor. Those who read the scriptures as the sole source of authority without any knowledge of it’s origins or complexity, context or commentary, use it for judgment as the bible church from Kansas in their protests at funerals for our military serving in Iraq – a judgment against those who are outside the traditional family structure. The judgment of some within our own Episcopal and larger Anglican Communion who find inadequate the response of our house of bishops for their “sin” against the Communion – read God because of Gene Robinson. Those who restrict the kingdom are setting themselves up as God’s special privileged persons and denigrating others. In essence such attitudes say that God cannot be doing a new thing now because the rules are fixed – the scripture/canon is closed: “God said it, I believe it and that settles it” as the bumper sticker reads.
Where then are the humble who bow before God and seek mercy? Are they the hungry who struggle to survive and plead for mercy? Are they the ones living in conditions of poverty out of cars, begging on street corners, or are they among us, kneeling in prayer, bowing in adoration, praying for forgiveness for what we have done and left undone?
The truth is that in side each of us there is some of the Pharisee and some of the Tax Collector. We have come together to pray, to beg for mercy, to celebrate thankfully what we have in faith. We are proud of our heritage, our faith, our church. We are aware that we have not done all we might have done for justice on this earth. We know that too many of our neighbors near and far are lacking the basic needs of human flourishing and we have not given all we could or should for their dignity. We are both proud and humble. To the extent that we are humble, we can say with the Tax Collector, Lord have mercy on me a sinner.
From the perspective of humility, our prayer will come from our conscious dependency on God and solidarity with our neighbors. Knowing we are dependent and relational creatures means we seek God with all that is within us because nothing can replace the quality of divine love. We seek God’s mercy when we acknowledge our inability to do what we should all the time, in every place, with everyone. God honors our honest plea for mercy. God’s grace begins to flow into our hearts when we are willing to be bound together by a common redemption for the purpose of a common work.
The nature of God is to pour grace into any vessel that is empty enough to receive it. Divine unconditional love is released the moment all human justifying conditions are released.
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