The first day of college orientation I shyly sat with very little hair on my face in a Guerry Auditorium with 366 of classmates. Dean Rob Pearigan, the dean of students at the time, asked us to raise our hands if we thought that we were going to make A’s and B’s during our first year at Sewanee. At least 367 hands shot skyward. For a moment Dean P let us sit there starring around at one another in our arrogance, before he said, “About eighty percent of you are wrong!” A strange sense of worry washed over the auditorium, as we all started grumbling. I believe Dean P was just trying to motivate us. Yet, it felt like a disappointed coach taking the mistakes of last year’s team out on the new recruits. Somehow his words got through to me.
During the next nine months I worked harder than I had ever worked in my life. I read every page assigned to me, I took all my drafts to the writing center to be marked up so professors wouldn’t make them bleed red ink, and I even spent many Friday and Saturday nights in the library doing work. At the end of those two semesters, I looked back and thought, “I was right to hold up my hand in that auditorium on the first day of orientation.” The confidence I had been building over that first year was reaching a level of inflated ego that teetered on the verge of making me downright cocky.
As I entered into my sophomore year, I took on a few more commitments. I was running varsity track and cross-country, serving as a sacristan at church, working on the dorm staff, making new friends, and still keeping up my grades. Noticing all that I was doing, my mom rightly felt a sense of parental pride. By the time Christmas Break came my quiet confidence had been melted away by an unhealthy amount of cockiness. So when my mom told me something like, “I am proud of you for all your hard work the last year and a half.” I responded, “I know. I am awesome!”
While my remark to her was made somewhat sarcastically, she could tell that the naïve dedication of my first year had shifted into a sense of self-righteousness. Cutting through my own puffed up ego my mom looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Yeah, and you are humble too!” When I begin to rely a bit too much on my own ego I remember this story and it seems to be a gentle reminder.
I am reminded not to avoid working hard, or striving for excellence, or even taking the time to recognize the things that I have done well, but rather this story helps me to recognize that I have a tendency to believe that on my own I have achieved something that makes me right, praise worthy, or awesome. I bet we all have a story from our life where we have thought a little too highly of ourselves.
Even though I know this tendency that resides within me, I really want to put myself in the place of the lowly tax collector. I want to do this because I know that he, and not the Pharisee, is whom Jesus praises. Much more often I am in the place of this particular Pharisee. I think highly of myself because I follow the “rules” of being a Christian: I pray, I tithe, I give up stuff during Lent, I come to church, I do outreach. Is this not enough? I am doing all the right stuff. However, it is not really about what I do, it is about how I do it. We can see this starkly in the two characters from the parable:
-The Pharisee is self-righteous; the tax collector is contemptible.
-The Pharisee thanks God for making him unlike the thieves, rogues, adulterers, and even the tax collector; the tax collector begs God for forgiveness.
-The Pharisee tithes and fasts; the tax collector bows his head and beats his breast.
Based solely on the actions of these two characters the Pharisee is the one apparently doing the admirable things. Tax collectors in those days would take more than their share of their tolls, which would create enmity in his neighbors and separation between them. What I believe Jesus wants us to see is that it is not enough to just do the right action! It’s not about coming to church, it’s not about fasting, and (Evan close your ears) it’s not even about tithing! (Blasphemy in the pulpit during stewardship season!) God does not care about any of these actions. God cares about the intention!
The sinful tax collector looks in the mirror and sees the wickedness he has committed so he goes up to the temple and standing away from others, he prays. He cannot bring himself to looking up towards God and even averts his eyes from catching anyone else’s in the temple. Beating his breast as a sign of his contrition, he prays a very simple prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” To this miserable one the only thing that will bring relief from the separation and destruction that he has caused is God’s mercy. God’s mercy is more than enough though to overcome the wrongs that the tax collector has committed and he is the one that walks home justified. He is the one that walks home in right relationship with God. He is the righteous one and not the Pharisee.
Yet before you walk away thinking that I am saying go be like the tax collector, steal money from others, and one day turn back to God seeking his mercy think about what Jesus is saying to us. Neither of these men is complete. Both need God. One, the Pharisee, goes through the motions, while he appears connected he is walking in a spiritual wilderness. He is the one who seems to have it all together (nice car, big house, beautiful family), yet just beneath the surface he is cracking. He has relied upon himself for so long that he has turned himself into a God. God alone is merciful, justifying, and righteous!
The other, the tax collector, knows he is far away from God and yearns for God’s mercy to overflow in his life, so that he will turn away from a life of swindling others out of money. Only the one who seeks God’s mercy is put in right relationship with God, but after turning from this life of taking advantage of others he needs reminders of God’s mercy. We need reminders of God’s mercy, God’s presence in our lives, God’s abundance in our world.
This Pharisee is not wrong because he tithes, he is wrong because he does not connect his tithe to gratefulness for all God’s blessings in this life. He believes that what he has done has brought him into right relationship with God. Rather it is by tithing, serving others, fasting… whatever the spiritual discipline… that we are reminded that it is not us who is righteous it is God.
We do not give money to the church so that we can boast about it or serve the poor so we can guilt others into it or fast just to feel more important than someone else. We practice these so that we can participate more fully in the life of God! To tithe our first fruits is to show our gratitude and our reliance upon God’s abundance. To serve the poor is to connect with the person of Christ Jesus in those who are around us. To fast is to help understand all that God gives us daily.
When I hear today’s parable I don't want to be the arrogant college student or the Pharisee, I want to be the tax collector, seeking always God’s mercy which never fails. But, to do this I have to practice, like the Pharisee. The challenge is for us to avoid just going through the motions, and instead find practices that continuously draw us into the realization that we everyday we require God’s mercy!
-The Pharisee thanks God for making him unlike the thieves, rogues, adulterers, and even the tax collector; the tax collector begs God for forgiveness.
-The Pharisee tithes and fasts; the tax collector bows his head and beats his breast.
Based solely on the actions of these two characters the Pharisee is the one apparently doing the admirable things. Tax collectors in those days would take more than their share of their tolls, which would create enmity in his neighbors and separation between them. What I believe Jesus wants us to see is that it is not enough to just do the right action! It’s not about coming to church, it’s not about fasting, and (Evan close your ears) it’s not even about tithing! (Blasphemy in the pulpit during stewardship season!) God does not care about any of these actions. God cares about the intention!
The sinful tax collector looks in the mirror and sees the wickedness he has committed so he goes up to the temple and standing away from others, he prays. He cannot bring himself to looking up towards God and even averts his eyes from catching anyone else’s in the temple. Beating his breast as a sign of his contrition, he prays a very simple prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” To this miserable one the only thing that will bring relief from the separation and destruction that he has caused is God’s mercy. God’s mercy is more than enough though to overcome the wrongs that the tax collector has committed and he is the one that walks home justified. He is the one that walks home in right relationship with God. He is the righteous one and not the Pharisee.
Yet before you walk away thinking that I am saying go be like the tax collector, steal money from others, and one day turn back to God seeking his mercy think about what Jesus is saying to us. Neither of these men is complete. Both need God. One, the Pharisee, goes through the motions, while he appears connected he is walking in a spiritual wilderness. He is the one who seems to have it all together (nice car, big house, beautiful family), yet just beneath the surface he is cracking. He has relied upon himself for so long that he has turned himself into a God. God alone is merciful, justifying, and righteous!
The other, the tax collector, knows he is far away from God and yearns for God’s mercy to overflow in his life, so that he will turn away from a life of swindling others out of money. Only the one who seeks God’s mercy is put in right relationship with God, but after turning from this life of taking advantage of others he needs reminders of God’s mercy. We need reminders of God’s mercy, God’s presence in our lives, God’s abundance in our world.
This Pharisee is not wrong because he tithes, he is wrong because he does not connect his tithe to gratefulness for all God’s blessings in this life. He believes that what he has done has brought him into right relationship with God. Rather it is by tithing, serving others, fasting… whatever the spiritual discipline… that we are reminded that it is not us who is righteous it is God.
We do not give money to the church so that we can boast about it or serve the poor so we can guilt others into it or fast just to feel more important than someone else. We practice these so that we can participate more fully in the life of God! To tithe our first fruits is to show our gratitude and our reliance upon God’s abundance. To serve the poor is to connect with the person of Christ Jesus in those who are around us. To fast is to help understand all that God gives us daily.
When I hear today’s parable I don't want to be the arrogant college student or the Pharisee, I want to be the tax collector, seeking always God’s mercy which never fails. But, to do this I have to practice, like the Pharisee. The challenge is for us to avoid just going through the motions, and instead find practices that continuously draw us into the realization that we everyday we require God’s mercy!
I am going to end with a prayer inspired by Peter J. Scagnelli’s Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year C. Let us pray:
Silence our prayer when our words praise ourselves. Turn your ears from our cry when our hearts judge our neighbor. Raise always up to us spiritual practices that leave on our lips the prayer of the tax collector: “O God, be merciful to us who are sinners.” We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God for ever and ever. Amen.
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Endnote: Much of this sermon came from a comparison of the parable's characters based on Joel B. Green's The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997, 645).The Pharisee
Frame: Some who relied on themselves because they were righteous regarding others with contempt (v. 9)
Scene: Went up to the temple to pray (v. 10)
Position: Pharisee (v. 10-11)
Stance: Standing by himself (v. 11)
Prayed: “God, I thank you I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even this toll collector.” (v. 11)
Action: “I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” (v. 12)
Result: Unjustified; All who exalt themselves will be humbled (v. 14)
The Toll Collector
Frame: “Other” regarded with contempt (v. 9)
Scene: Went up to the temple to pray (v. 10)
Position: Toll Collector (v. 10-13)
Stance: Standing far off (v. 13)
Prayed: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (v. 13) Request for reconciliation made in humility as seen by following actions…
Action: Did not look up to heaven, beat his breast (v. 13)
Result: Justified; All who humble themselves will be exalted (v. 14)
Scene: Went up to the temple to pray (v. 10)
Position: Toll Collector (v. 10-13)
Stance: Standing far off (v. 13)
Prayed: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (v. 13) Request for reconciliation made in humility as seen by following actions…
Action: Did not look up to heaven, beat his breast (v. 13)
Result: Justified; All who humble themselves will be exalted (v. 14)
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