St Peter’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Public Schools Club, Adelaide, 9am
Grace, mercy and peace be to
you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
Prayer: May the words of my
mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Before we begin to look at the parable itself, it is very much worth our while to examine our hearts according to these words. Do we trust in ourselves that we are righteous, and do we treat others with contempt? You know, in the Gospel of John, we read a wonderful passage there where Jesus says: If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. It is a truly, wonderful gift to have the word of Jesus, to abide in it, to be his disciples, to know the truth, and to be set free by the truth. I can’t imagine, in some sense, a greater gift in the whole world.
However, we live in a world where many people do not abide in the word of Jesus, who are not truly his disciples, who do not know the truth, and instead, are bound and slaves to various lies. And we would be in exactly the same position, if it hadn’t been for the wonderful grace and favour of our Lord Jesus, and his inexhaustible mercy toward us. There are all kinds of people who have heard the word of God, and yet they don’t listen to it. They are just numb to it, or they can’t hear it, or they even really hate it, and mock it, and ridicule it. There are all kinds of people who look like they are disciples of Jesus, but take no notice of what he says, and almost don’t have any interest in what he says, especially if it requires them to change their mind about something.
There are many people who are not interested in truth. They are only interested in following and doing what most people around them do. They just go along with the flow like sheep, and go astray like sheep. They believe whatever their told, and don’t want to think differently. But also they are bound, imprisoned, enslaved, and they don’t even know that they are not free, let alone want to be free.
But to be a Christian, to be one of Christ’s baptised children, to be a believer in Christ, to be a follower of him, a disciple of him, is to abide in Christ’s word, to know the truth, and to be set free by the truth. One of the most important things that we Christians need to keep at the forefront of our minds is that we are all conceived and born in sin. All our thoughts, words and actions are tainted by sin, even before we have branched out and done anything. St Paul puts it very sharply in the third chapter of Romans. He quotes a long list of passages from the Old Testament. None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grace; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and they of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes… All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In Galatians, St Paul describes exactly what the human heart has contained within it. He says: The works of the flesh of evident: sexual immortality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. Jesus himself gives a similar list: He says: From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.
In the last year or two, with everything that has gone on in the world, many people have come to realise that not everything we are told by the press, by the media, by politicians, by those elected to govern us, is the truth. Many people have come to realise that those who are in power do not necessarily have people’s best interests at heart. On the other hand, many people still trust, what they call, “the system”. We have seen corruption in all kinds of levels of society, censorship, control. Many people are worried and anxious, and think about what might happen next, and where things are going.
We Christians should never be surprised that there is evil in the world, and that there is a certain level and extent and prevalence of evil in the world. We can so easily think that we are righteous and then treat other people with contempt, just as Jesus warns us in the reading today. No: we are not righteous, in and of ourselves. If we know the truth, it is not because we are people who are so arrogant that we just always think we are right. If we are Christian, it is not because we are spiritually or morally superior to those who are not. No—the creation of our bodies and souls was a work of God alone, our redemption by Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection was a work of God alone, and our conversion to Christianity was also a work of God, and a work of God alone. Our will needed to be converted first, before it could do anything that pleased God, and even now, our will still reacts and turns against God. Jesus said to his disciples, and his words still apply to us: You did not choose me, but I chose you. We have nothing in and of ourselves to claim any righteousness before God. Everything we have, we have as a complete, total, pure gift alone, and we can do nothing but simply thank God for what he has done for us, how he worked to save us, how he continually works through us and around us and behind us and in front of us to preserve the fragile and precious faith that he has given to us.
So: Jesus tells us a parable that we should not trust in ourselves that we are righteous, and treat others with contempt. Let’s read the parable.
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
In this parable, Jesus polarises the world. He doesn’t polarise it in the way that we normally think. He does not put the left-wingers on one side, and the right-wingers on the other side. He does not put the Fascists over there, the Communists over there. He does not put the rich over here, and the poor over there. He does not put white people over here, and black people over there. He does not put love-filled people over here, and hate-filled people over there. He does not put conservatives over here, and liberals over there. No—none of that is relevant in this parable. Because however human beings want to polarise and divide people, God still divides and polarises each of them even more. Jesus takes the knife of his word and cuts right through the heart of every single person.
He puts the one who exalts himself over here, and the humble over there. He puts the one who is justified before God over here, and the one who is not over there. There is a polarisation: there is a separation. It’s not like Jesus just says: “Let’s not divide people, let’s find the middle ground.” No—he doesn’t. Because when people try to divide and polarise society and people and families and whatever, they testify to something that is actually true, and that is: there is a judgment. However, the truth of the matter is that God is the judge, he is the one who justifies, he is the one who divides truth and error, he is the one who exalts the humble and humbles the exalted. That is the polarisation: that is the true judgment, the judgment between the sheep and the goats on the last day.
What is so incredible about this passage is that the Pharisee that Jesus speaks about seems to be the model Christian. He says: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. Look! Almost everything this man says is great! First of all, he prays to God. If only we prayed more. Second, he thanks him. If only we were more thankful to God for everything that he gives us. Third, he is not an extortioner, he is not unjust, adulterer. Let’s assume that he is telling the truth! If only there were more people everywhere that didn’t commit these kinds of sins. Fourth, he fasts twice a week, and he gives tithes of all that he gets. If only we had such self-discipline, and devotion towards God. If only more people supported the church like this man.
However, he is so wrong about one thing, which makes all the difference. He says: I thank you that I am not like other men. Here is the lie. He is exactly like other men, because he thinks that his righteousness before God consists in the things that he has done. He is exactly like other men, because he thinks that his own sin isn’t all that serious, and that he put all of his good works in the scales of divine justice, and weigh up the balance. He is exactly like other men, because he doesn’t recognise the sin that is at work in his fleshly, human heart, just like that same sin works in all kinds of people.
For example, take Hitler and the Nazis. They said: We Germans are not like the Jews. Hermann Sasse, a Lutheran theologian in Germany at that time, who ended up living here in the city of Adelaide, said: No, we Germans are exactly like the Jews. Why? Because we are all sinners, both Germans and Jews, and whoever else. Hermann Sasse saw that the problem with the Nazi party’s understanding was that they didn’t recognise sin.
But then, we can also turn things around, and say: We are not like the Nazis. We can have a certain self-righteousness about ourselves, and start to imagine ourselves as if we lived in some kind of historical movie, as if we would have been the heroes and they would have been the villains. Every terrible movement that has done great damage to the world and the human race has come about because of sin, and that sin is the same thing that we carry around in our own hearts. So, when we see terrible things happening in the world, our answer before God is not to say: We thank you, God, that we are not like those people over there. No, our answer before God is to say: God, I am exactly like those people over there, and I repent. My heart, my flesh, my corruption is the same as them, and if there is any reason why it hasn’t spilled over to the same extent as it has in them, it is purely by the grace of God, who has worked in us to restrain us. And so, we are not the heroes. We have never been the heroes. There has only been one hero, and that is Jesus Christ alone. He is the one who has taken all the corruption, all the dirt, the filth, the damage, the murder, the polarisation and the judgment of the world, he has taken every single last drop of it, and he has died for it all on the cross. He stretched out his arms and his hands and his feet, and submit himself and was willing to be nailed to it all. He is the one Saviour who has ever lived. All his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane ran from him. Peter denied him three times, even though he was the first preacher on Pentecost. Paul locked up and persecuted and killed Christians. None of them were righteous, because Jesus is the only one who is righteous.
Now, we come back to the two men in our parable today. If no-one is righteous, why is he tax collector justified? Why is he exalted? Well, this has really nothing to do with him. You see, a tax collector was not a person that was thought very well of, at all. Tax collectors at that time were often Jews who worked for the Romans—they were considered to be traitors to the Jewish people. Now, Jesus is not saying that all Pharisees are bad, and all tax-collectors are good. There would have been plenty of tax-collectors who had no interest in Jesus. And we do read about some Pharisees, like Nicodemus, who helped to bury Jesus. It’s like the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Jesus is not saying that all poor people go to heaven and all rich people go to hell. There are plenty of poor people who will not be saved, and there are plenty of rich people who will be saved. However, there is a danger when we are wealthy and rich, that we think that we have everything and don’t need God. In the same way, there is also a danger in being a Pharisee, even a religious person, a devout person. There is a danger, sometimes, in being devout, in being religious, in being committed to God, because we start to think that our devotion, our religiosity, our commitment, our piety, even our Christianity itself, earns something before God, or is something that makes us better than other people, or is something in and of ourselves that justifies us before God. And then we think: God must bless me, because at least I am better than that person over there.
No – that is not how it works. Let’s look at the tax-collector. We read: The tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
There is always something we can be certain of when we think about our salvation. People always look to themselves to work out if they are saved, and this is dangerous. They start to think, I can see God working in me. But this man doesn’t say anything like that. He can see sin working in him. Perhaps, he doesn’t know to what extent sin is working in him – God alone knows that and sees that. God only allows us to see our sin in little bite-sized chunks, because otherwise it would completely and totally overwhelm us.
This man recognises that he is a sinner, and if he is a sinner, then the good news is that he qualifies to be saved. Because Jesus only died for one kind of person in the world: he only died for sinners. People who are not sinners have no need and no use for him.
The tax collector also says: Be merciful to me. Actually, this is not the normal word, “be merciful.” There is a word, “have mercy”, that has historically been used in the church service throughout the centuries, eleison. The words, “Kyrie eleison”, is Greek for, “Lord have mercy”. But in this passage, this is not that word. It is a different word: ilástheti. And this word has to do with atonement. It’s as if he is saying, “Atone for me”, or “make atonement for me”, or something like that. He is looking at his sin, and he sees that is great. But he is not simply asking God for mercy, as if to say: God, I know you have every reason to punish me, but I’m asking you not to. He’s asking God to do something about it. He’s asking him to do whatever needs to be done to forgive it, to expel it from his heart, to cast it out, to blot it out, to wash it away, to purge it from himself.
This little word should be of great encouragement and comfort to us. Because when we sinners come into the presence of God, we have an atonement. We have a Jesus, who has shed his blood, and has offered himself in our place before the throne and the judgment of God. And when we enter into his presence in this life, we simply say to him: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”. We say: God, let this atonement that Jesus carried out be mine, let it have its full effect in me, let it apply to me, let it be that thing that I can cling to, and be completely and totally certain of your mercy and your favour and your love towards me. That’s what the atonement of Christ gives to us: it gives us the mercy of God, and all the blessing of God.
You see, when this Pharisee dies, all the things that he prided himself on would die with him. When the tax-collector dies, the mercy and the atonement of God continues. And it continues in such a way, that the sin, which he felt so deeply that he beat his breast over it, that that atonement and mercy would make him completely and totally sinless and clean and pure as he enters heaven to rejoice with all the angels of God. The tax-collector humbled himself under God’s judgment, and trusted in God’s capacity alone to make things right. This is the reason why this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
So, let’s go down to our houses today also justified in the sight of God. Let us recognise that we have a sinful heart, just like everyone around us, and humble ourselves with a repentant attitude before God’s throne and his judgment over sin. But also, let us trust in Jesus Christ, our Saviour, our Lord, our King, who has died for us, risen for us, atoned for our sin, and is so full of mercy and grace and forgiveness, that we cannot even begin to comprehend or understand it. He is the one who humbled himself to became like us, and now has ascended into heaven, and is exalted to the right hand of God. Jesus, my Lord and my God, what a wonderful thing it is that you are merciful also to me, even to me, a sinner!
Amen.
And the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds safe in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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