A pretty well known story from the Bible.   The next in our series of stories from the Gospel of Luke that you will find only in Luke.   Like the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son, and the bent woman, and the rich man and Lazarus, and the ten lepers, this is yet another story that helps identify Luke’s unique perspective as he gives his witness to the life of Jesus.  Or as Bishop Dick Wilke put it in his original Disciple Bible Study, Luke’s passion for the lost, the least and the last.

            Jesus tells another parable, a little sermon illustration, if you will.  There were two men who went to the temple to pray.  One was a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.

            Stop right there.

            Jesus has already disrupted the equilibrium.  Those who were listening, Luke identifies them as those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous...would have immediately been surprised by what Jesus had just said.

            In our contemporary context, here’s how they might have heard those words:

            Two men went up to First Church to pray.  One was the church’s lay leader, the other a wealthy pornographer. 

            The words make us cringe.  That’s what Jesus’ words would have been like for those who heard his story.  The contrast would have been startling.   Tax collectors were nothing but extortionists, who corroborated with the occupying enemy forces to extract not only heavy taxes for Rome but whatever else they could shake out to line their own pockets.  They were despised, hated and left to associate only with others of their ilk.  What was a man like that doing in the temple?  Praying?  Sure...right.

            But try also to hear the word Pharisee the way the original audience would have heard it....not with disdain, or judgment.   No, Pharisees were the most dedicated of the Jews.  They were the temple faithful.  The lay partners for the set apart priests.    A Pharisee praying in the temple...of course.  They were there whenever the doors were open.  They were committed to the practices of their faith.  

            Fred Craddock, the great preacher and Bible scholar reminds us that the Pharisee was a faithful man, the kind that puts his tithe in the offering plate to pay the pastor's salary so that the pastor can preach a sermon on the Pharisee and the tax collector!

            So as Jesus begins his story, the contrast was quickly drawn.  Pharisee = good.   Tax collector = bad.

            But then this business of their prayers.

            The Pharisee is often portrayed as arrogant and full of himself.  If you can, try to push that image out of your mind.  He simply begins his prayer by saying “Thank you God.  Thank you for being in my life.  I thank you I have not been given over to the sins of this world.  The thieves, the rogues, the adulterers.”  Then seeing from the corner of his eye, the man he’d thought would never be caught dead in the temple...”or even this tax collector.”

            “I work to live a life pleasing to you, O God.  I tithe a tenth of all of my income.  I fast not just once as the law commands, but twice a week.”

            Don’t imagine him with his chest puffed completely out.  Just imagine him with his arms upraised, his face turned toward God, his spirit desiring only to do what was pleasing to God.  That’s no doubt how Jesus’ listeners would have pictured him.  Perhaps even identifying with the religious man.

            Then the Tax collector.  He doesn’t approach the altar.  He cannot.  He barely gets in the door.   He doesn’t turn his face toward heaven.  (Can you imagine those listening to Jesus’ words thinking to themselves....what a heathen.  He doesn’t even honor God by turning toward heaven?)   He doesn’t raise his arms, but beats his chest with his fists.  His prayer isn’t eloquent at all.  No thanksgiving.  No coming into God’s presence with honor.  Just the vulgar wailing....”God have mercy on me....a sinner.” 

            Then Jesus’ clincher.  “I tell you, this man, and not the other, went to his home right with God that day.  For everyone who exalts themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

            I would gather that the end of Jesus’ little sermonette got a pretty chilly reception at that point.    In a sentence he turns the world of worship, religion, and the temple on its head.   Now, Jesus points out....Pharisee = bad, tax collector = good.

            Now, we are part of the Christian community that has learned and lived with this story for over two thousand years.   For us, the story lacks a turn or a twist, because after all, we’ve been taught since we were children that the Pharisees are the bad guys in the Bible.   Jesus ate with sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors and the like...and therefore, they are the good guys in the Bible.  Right?

            We’ve almost forgotten what it would have been like for the religious community to hear this story originally.  I read about the Pharisee and the tax collector in Scripture and immediately Mac Davis’  song from a long way back pops into my mind.

            O Lord it’s hard to be humble

            When you’re perfect in every way

            I can’t wait to look in the mirror

            ‘Cause I get better lookin’ each day!

            To know me is to love me.

            I must be one heckuva man.

            O Lord it’s hard to be humble...

            But I’m doin’ the best that I can!

            Ah--the song of the Pharisee!

            There’s an old story of a Sunday School teacher who once taught this lesson to her class, and ended her lesson by having all the little boys and girls bow their heads for prayer.  Then she said, “ we thank you Lord that we not like that arrogant Pharisee, but are humble... like the tax collector.”

            “O Lord, it’s hard to be humble, but I’m doin the best that I can.”

            When we snicker at the story of the humble Sunday School teacher who is glad that SHE‘s not like the Pharisee,  then we have to watch that we don’t begin our own prayer, “thank God I’m not like that Sunday School teacher.”

            Do you hear it?

            This parable, once it begins its work, calls each of us to a continuous and endless process of self-examination, by searching out our own hearts before God, rather than looking round for comparison.  For you see, its the comparing that gets us in trouble. 

            I preached a sermon once following the death of Matthew Fox, a young man in Wyoming who was attacked and killed by being hung on a barbed wire fence to die from exposure.   You might remember that Fred Phelps and his church from Topeka went to Wyoming to picket the funeral with their horrible signs--signs that read Death to all Gays, and God hates fags.

            I remember preaching that sermon about God’s love for all children, a love that Fred apparently couldn’t understand, let alone share.   Somewhere in the middle of that sermon,  while I was pounding the pulpit, sure of my conviction that Fred Phelps and his hateful mob had taken God’s name in vain with their signs and actions that it occurred to me.   Fred Phelps was incapable of loving certain persons.  But that I was also incapable of loving Fred Phelps.   My ability to change Fred was pretty remote.  I didn’t know him personally, and surely had little influence over him and his teachings.  But my ability to change my own feelings of intolerance and hatred toward Phelps, well....that was within my grasp.  But also a much harder thing to face.

            Comparing myself to Phelps got me into trouble.  We were more alike than different.  

            O Lord, it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way.

            We think we have the story down when we ourselves come before God pleading for God’s mercy.  But that’s only part of the struggle.  The greater struggle is to keep our focus upon the perfect nature of God, and our own sinfulness, and not let our eyes stray to see who else might be in need of divine correction.

            Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham tell the story of a rabbi, who one day rushes into the synagogue, falls to his knees before the Holy Word of God, and begins beating his breast, crying, "I'm nobody! I'm nobody!"

            The cantor of the synagogue, impressed by this example of spiritual humility, joined the rabbi on his knees, also crying,  "I'm nobody! I'm nobody!"

            The custodian watching from the corner, couldn't restrain himself either. He joined the other two on his knees, also calling out, "I'm nobody! I'm nobody!"

            At which point the rabbi, nudging the cantor with his elbow, pointed at the custodian and said, "Look who thinks he's nobody!"

            I don’t think Jesus was simply trying to point out the horrible character of the Pharisee.  I don’t even think Jesus’ main point was trying to show how good and pious the character of the tax collector was.   I think Jesus was trying to get those who listened to this story to focus on the character and nature of God.   The character and nature of God is one who not only hears desperate cries for mercy, but grants it.   After all, the Pharisee didn’t ask God for anything.  Only came to make his weekly report.  It was the tax collector who pleas for mercy, AND who receives it.

            The grace of God is always marvelous, often surprising, and sometimes exasperating.   For if God’s mercy is to be available for the sin that lurks in the shadows of our soul, it is to be available for all sin, that permeates the world and the people who inhabit it.  

            Our confessions get it right.  “Jesus Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.”  Isn’t that what we say?  “That proves God’s love for us.”  “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.”   In the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.  In the name of Jesus Christ, all who seek the mercy of God...every last and lost one of us all--ALL who seek the mercy of God are forgiven.  Thanks be to God.