Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Luke 18:9-14, October 23
Faith Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman
Next week is Reformation Sunday when we tend to toot our horns with pride about being Lutheran. But because I am such a cheerleader for the Lutheran tradition, every Sunday might as well be Reformation Sunday for me. Which is to say, each Sunday is an opportunity to proclaim the gospel with distinctively and shamelessly Lutheran accents. But hopefully with more humility than with pride, as you’ll come to understand later in this sermon.
The parable in today’s gospel reading from Luke gives us a great opportunity to explore a central reality of our Lutheran tradition, namely the theme of justification by grace effective through faith. This is the teaching that we are saved as a gracious, loving gift from God which is not dependent on or conditioned by our efforts, our works that we do to seek to win favor from God.
Lutherans generally take up justification as a doctrine, a teaching. But today’s gospel parable gives us occasion to explore justification by grace effective through faith as a lived, existential reality and not merely the head trip of a doctrine. Listen again: “Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous…” That sets the stage for exploring the human condition that we think it’s our efforts that make us righteous, and if we only try harder and work more diligently at it, we’ll someday achieve righteousness on our own and thus win God’s approval.
Those who pursue this angle tend also to self-righteously look down on others whom they perceive to be less holy than they are. As Jesus observed about those who trusted in themselves to be righteous, they “regarded others with contempt.” That’s when Jesus told in Luke the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector who went up to the temple to pray. Pharisees, by the way, are the religious professionals, the experts, the elite, or the clergy, if you will.
Tax collectors, on the other hand, were regarded – often justifiably so – with contempt. For not only were they in cahoots with the imperial powers of Rome, they also could charge more than the actual tax bill as a form of commission, making themselves wealthy through corrupt gain. In short, most everybody hated tax collectors (even as today we tend not to have high regard for the IRS, though our systems for collecting are more just and fair compared with tax collectors of old…).
Note that as he was praying – probably among the best seats in the house in the temple – the Pharisee is standing by himself. That already speaks volumes as if he can do anything on his own without help from others.
Listen to his prayer as Jesus told it according to Luke: “God, I thank you that I am not like other people…” That is indeed holier-than-thou spiritual arrogance, isn’t it? Then the Pharisee goes on to name names: I’m not like thieves and rogues (that is, unjust ones), or adulterers….
Then looking toward the tax collector, the Pharisee says, “or even like this tax collector….”
The Pharisee concludes his prayer by listing his righteous deeds – he fasts twice a week and he tithes, that is, he gives a tenth of all his income. These are good and righteous religious actions and duties that we are called to do. But for the Pharisee it’s all about trusting in himself and his works and that these efforts make him righteous.
The Pharisee is not a very attractive figure to say the least. In contrast, then, we have the tax collector, whom we might assume would be even more arrogant and contemptuous than the Pharisee. But no. The tax collector stands far off, not presuming to get too close to the holy places center stage. And he did not even look up to heaven – looking up being a common posture for prayer in the ancient times. Moreover, the tax collector was beating his breast in a gesture of contrition, of apology. And he prays a simple prayer with just a few words: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” That’s it. God have mercy.
The Pharisee’s manner reveals sin conceived as misplaced trust, misplaced faith, trust in one’s own self-proclaimed righteousness. The tax collector, contrary to what we might expect of the likes of him, is the one who demonstrates true faith and genuine trust, not in himself, but in God with the hope for God’s merciful forgiveness of sins for sinners. The Pharisee shows forth the ways of sin even in his attempts to be righteous. The tax collector reveals the attitude of faith that makes available the freedom of the gospel.
Or as Jesus adds in this teaching moment: “I tell you, this man [the tax collector] went down to his home justified rather than the other [the Pharisee].” Then Jesus concludes, “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” Another way of putting this is that those who think highly of themselves will be brought low. And those who start at the lowest place, close to the earth from which we came, will by God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness be invited to the higher places.
It’s easy and tempting for us to conclude that we are not like the Pharisee. But if we have contempt for the Pharisee, then we’re doing the same thing he’s doing in being self-righteous and looking down the nose on others. In fact, there are a multiplicity of ways in which we do our own version of feeling self-righteous while looking down on others. Democrats these days regard Republicans with contempt and very much vice versa. Coastal people look on people who live in the fly-over states – and vice versa.
Lutherans might be overly proud of our theological traditions, that we get it right about God’s grace and faith! And we may believe that other churches fall short theologically. Even here at Faith Church we might be overly proud of our commitments to good liturgy and music, while concluding other churches don’t do worship as well as we do. And on the lists go.
When we are all are so prone to be proud like the Pharisee in our own ways of self-righteousness and even subtle contempt for others, what does it take for us to adopt the humble, down to earth manner of the tax collector?
Of course, it takes Christ. We are drawn by Christ who himself sought out the lowest place, he who humbled himself and became obedient even to the point of death. He came down from heaven, from his seat at God’s right hand and made a home with sorry humanity even to the point of becoming one of us, fully human while at the same time fully divine. Christ humbled himself to the point of death, even shameful death on the cross, and was then lowered into a tomb, from which he was exalted to the highest place by God in the resurrection from the dead.
Therefore, it is Christ, in dying and rising, and it is the power of Christ’s word and teaching, it is Christ who provokes and evokes us to take our place very near the dust of the earth from which we are created. This fundamental reality charts the path for us. And we are taken there by Christ in the power of the Spirit via our ritual enactments each and every Sunday.
Think of confession and absolution at the very beginning of the service. We assume there the posture of the tax collector essentially confessing as he did, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Our crying out in humility in our confession is also the manner of the prophet Jeremiah who in today’s first reading speaks pleadingly with contrition on behalf of his whole people: “We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord, the iniquity of our ancestors, for we have sinned against you. Do not spurn us, for your name’s sake; do not dishonor your glorious throne; remember and do not break your covenant with us.” (Jeremiah 14:20-21)
Think also about our practice as Lutherans of infant baptism. Who is more humble than a little child? By the way, today’s gospel reading about the Pharisee and the tax collector is followed in Luke by Jesus’ teaching that it is little children who inherit God’s kingdom. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” (Luke 18:16b-17)
Moreover, the preaching of God’s prophetic word of judgment convicts us and drives us to our knees. Then sometimes on our knees at the table of Holy Communion we hear again the words of gospel promise, “given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” Then we eat and drink that forgiveness, that grace, that mercy in full humility and wonder at the mystery that the dead and risen Christ is made known to us in the breaking of bread.
Thus, too, we greet each other with Christ’s peace – often in these pandemic days bowing to each other in a gesture of humility, honoring the image of God in each of us – and not looking down on each other with contempt. Through these means of grace in the liturgy, we come to adopt the manner of the
radical humility of the tax collector as the Spirit does her work in us. This humble manner draws us to justifying grace made effective through faith, our trusting reception of the gift with a simple but profound thank you, because that’s all we have to give.
Then by God’s grace we exclaim along with the apostle as recorded in today’s reading from 2 Timothy: “But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed…. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for the dominion of heaven. To the Lord be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
With such words of confident faith and thanksgiving, and gratitude for grace given, the Spirit, then, propels us back into the world in the humble, lowly manner of the tax collector to inspire others to adopt that same humble posture and thus to be drawn into the matrix, the womb of God’s justifying love. You see, this is all more than the head trip of a doctrine. It is existential where the rubber hits the road. It’s a matter of death and life!
What a difference this makes for our Pharisaical, self-righteous, self-justifying, contemptuous world! May we by Christ’s mercy and grace and in the power of the Spirit be leaven to raise the whole loaf for the world’s healing. Amen.
