a sermon on Luke 18.9-14
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama
The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is a favorite. I have
mentioned it numerous times in sermons, but I have never before preached a whole
sermon on it. If I could achieve just one thing with this sermon, it would be to
help you hear this parable the way Jesus’ contemporaries did. When I read it,
were you scandalized? Did you think Jesus must have something wrong with him?
Did you disagree? Of course not. You have heard this before. You are familiar
with the truth it teaches. Whether you have taken that truth to heart is a
different question, but you are not surprised by it.
Plus, the Pharisee is a self-righteous jerk. Our culture has taught us to
despise self-righteous jerks. Ironically, if we buy into the values of our
culture uncritically, this is exactly what we become. But we still do not like
them. A contemporary American finds the Pharisee in this parable impossible to
like. Meanwhile, we want to give the tax collector a break. Sure, he’s done some
bad things, but he is humble and sincere. That counts a lot with us. We tend to
love the fallible guy with the good heart. The first century Jews who first head
this story from the lips of Jesus would have heard it very differently.
To begin, the Pharisee would have been an easy character to love. After all, he
was loyal to God, country, and family. He tried. He did the right things. He was
a person you could count on. He was honest and conscientious. If anyone could be
worthy of God’s love, or at least respect, it was this guy. He was a patriot and
a good guy. The tax collector, on the other hand, would have been automatically
despised, and not because people hate to pay taxes. The tax collector was a
traitor. He collaborated with the pagans who were oppressing God’s people. The
Romans farmed out their taxes. They would put a region up for bid. One person
says, “I’ll get the empire $15 million from Mobile.” Another says, “I’ll get $20
million.” The highest bid wins the contract. The winning bidder becomes the
local tax collector, and he gets to use the Roman army to get as much money out
of people as he can. The idea being, if you bid $20 million, you collect $25
million. The difference between what you collect and what you have to pass on to
Rome is called profit. Right away then we know this guy is disloyal to his
people, and he’s crooked to boot! Many of the people listening to Jesus would
have considered him worthy of death.
Jesus had a way of telling stories that shook people up, didn’t he? Once again,
this is a parable about the kingdom of God. It is about who is in, who is out,
and the criteria for entering. Jesus takes up the question: Who is right with
God? It was not an academic question. Many of his opponents were exactly like
the Pharisee in his story. Many of his disciples were exactly like the tax
collector. We even know a couple of names: Matthew had been a tax collector and
so had Zaccaheus. Jesus tells this story to make a point about the kingdom of
God and how it is arriving through his ministry.
If Jesus had told the story so that at the end both the Pharisee and the tax
collector had gone home justified—that is, right with God—he still would have
offended many people. Telling it the way he did, … well, he wasn’t going to win
any popularity contests. It is the parable of the prodigal son transposed into a
different key. The Pharisee is the loyal son, the tax collector the rebel. To
most people’s minds, God should have been pleased with the Pharisee and rejected
the tax collector.
How can I help you feel what those first listeners felt? Consider this story:
Two people came to the deacons and me for help. One was a long time church
member, faithful in attendance, a tither, not currently on the session but an
elder, someone who always does things to help around the church—in the kitchen
on dinner days, all that. The other was a homeless drug addict who recently
vandalized the church. They both needed $100. The church member for medicine,
the drug addict claimed it was for rent. Happily the deacons happened to have
exactly $100 in their budget. So the deacons and I talked it over and decided to
give the money to … the drug addict. Let me say, before hymnals come flying,
that this did not happen. It would not happen. We are not going to ignore the
needs of someone in our congregation if we can help at all. I made this story up
because I wanted you to get a taste for how Jesus’ story would have sat with his
first audience. If you were thinking, “What?! That’s not right! You got it
wrong!” Then you may have some idea how they felt.
Now, from this point on I will make an assumption. I will assume that Jesus was
right. What he said about God surprised his contemporaries. It may surprise us.
But he was right. What then does the parable mean for us?
I think the best way to answer that question may be to look closer at the two
main characters and try to experience vicariously what they did. Let’s start
with the Pharisee.
The Pharisee represented Jesus’ target audience, which Luke describes this way,
“They trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on others.”
This is the Pharisee’s first mistake, trusting in himself. Scripture clearly
teaches, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Romans 3.23].
That’s in Romans, so it wasn’t written yet and we therefore cannot expect the
Pharisee to know it; but the same idea is there in the Psalms and Jeremiah. Did
the Pharisee even need that? He could have simply looked into his heart, and if
he were honest with himself, he would not have been so confident in his prayer.
Probably the Pharisee defined sin too narrowly. Like a lot of people, he figured
that if he didn’t steal, murder, worship idols, or commit adultery, then he was
OK. Some people who think Christianity is all about rules—“do this,” “don’t do
that”—think that’s all the word sin means. In reality, sin is a condition of the
heart. Sin means the part of you that is supposed to delight in God is broken.
The bad things you do are symptoms. Various people are subject to different
sorts of temptations, and some people are a lot worse than others in terms of
how destructive and hurtful they can be; but every human being has the same
basic root problem. This is why we need a Savior.
If being right with God were a matter of following some checklist of rules,
there would be some people who managed to get it right. God could love those
people and give them the kingdom of heaven. As things stand, however, no
checklist could ever matter because our hearts are far from God. That’s why God
sent Jesus. To save us. To turn our hearts back to God. To suffer the
consequences of our sin, to forgive us, and to give us new hearts. The Pharisee
in the story would never be interested in a Savior like Jesus. He trusts in
himself. He thinks he doesn’t need a Savior, and that means he is farther from
God than the tax collector is, even at the start of the story.
The Pharisee’s second mistake is a common one. He appeals to comparison. “Am I
holy? Am I pleasing God? Am I fit for the kingdom? Well, let’s see. One thing is
for certain: I am a lot closer than most people.” The Pharisee observes that
most people have obvious faults. He considers them greedy, dishonest, and full
of lust. Is he right? Of course, he is! His mistake comes in thinking he is
better than they are. He cannot see his own faults. He is proud, selfish, and
uncompassionate. He may think those are lesser evils, but they are not. And even
if they were, what would it matter? You could be the holiest person who ever
lived (Jesus excepted), the nicest and most caring, the most humble and
honest—the all around best person ever (again, except Jesus)—and what would your
status before God be? You would still be a sinner in need of a Savior. Without
the new heart only Jesus can give you, you would be as lost as the most immoral
reprobate who ever disgraced the human race by his existence. The Pharisee just
didn’t get it. He looked at the tax collector and mentioned him specifically in
his prayer. “I thank you, God, that I am not like this tax collector.” You can
always point out people who are worse than you are. So what? God is not
impressed.
The third mistake the Pharisee made was appealing to works. Two specifics are
mentioned. He fasted twice a week and tithed everything scrupulously. Note: If
he did these, he did a lot more. These are things that both he and his
contemporaries would have considered above and beyond the call of holiness.
Anyone can fast occasionally, even regularly, but twice a week? That shows
devotion! Anyone can give. Some tithe. This guy tithed everything. Income.
Produce from his garden. You name it. Jesus once criticized a group of Pharisees
for tithing their spices but ignoring more important matters. The Pharisee in
the story reminds us of them. He imagines that his devotion counts for
something. He thinks God will be pleased with him because of all the religious
stuff he does. Not so.
Like Jesus’ first audience, we might want to know, why not? It goes back once
again to the state of our heart. Without the new heart only Jesus can give,
religion is nothing but a game. So the Pharisee fasted twice a week? So what? He
may be starving his body, but he is feeding his immense ego. You might think
that certain good deeds ought to count for something with God. And they do, once
your relationship with God is restored and you are right with him. Once you
experience his grace, then yes, your good works mean something. They last. They
make a real difference. But, they are never the reason why God loves or accepts
you. If your heart is far from God, nothing you do can change that fact or
overcome it. Only God’s grace can set you free and bring you home. The Pharisee
thought the kingdom of God could be entered only by those who were holy. He
thought his impressive resume of religious deeds and charity made him holy. Not
so. The kingdom of God can only be entered by grace, and only grace can make us
holy.
The Pharisee made these mistakes because he was ignorant of God and ignorant of
himself. He was ignorant of God because he thought God was petty, rejoicing over
the Pharisee’s small moral triumphs. God was not impressed, and of course God
sees our sin even when we do not. God sees the heart, and he knows.
The Pharisee was ignorant of himself because he imagined himself holy when he
was not. Here is a handy way to tell when you are doing this. If you start to
imagine you might not need a Savior, you’re doing it.
One of the ironies of the Christian life is that the holier you get, the more
you are conscious of falling short. All the really holy people throughout church
history have been acutely aware of their need for grace.
Maybe it is something like the kid who played football in his backyard and
dreamed he was the greatest quarterback ever. Playing high school football would
show him there are lots of talented players out there. Playing in college would
show him his talent may be above average, but not the best ever. And if he made
it to the professional ranks, he would soon realize how far he was from being
the best ever. Playing in the backyard, the dream seemed possible. The higher he
rises in the game, though, the more reality sets in. Maybe you find that
helpful, maybe not. The important thing is, the more you mature as a Christian,
the closer you get to Christ. The closer you get to him, the more you realize
how much God has to change in you to make you like him. If you ever start to
feel complacent as a Christian, that you have learned all you need to know,
developed your faith sufficiently, achieved a comfortable level of holiness,
take another look at Christ and at yourself. That complacency is evidence you
are not nearly so far along as you had thought.
So much, then, for the Pharisee. We don’t want to forget his friend the tax
collector. Today is Reformation Sunday. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther
posted a theological treatise on the church door at Wittenberg. He was inviting
disputation. And he got it. The Protestant Reformation, bubbling under the
surface of the medieval church for so long, finally boiled over.
I know what you are thinking, and no, I am not going to give you the kind of
sermon once popular in Protestant pulpits that pitted the Catholic Pharisee
against the Protestant tax collector. I don’t know about you, but the Catholics
I know are not like the Pharisee in Jesus’ story. Maybe the ones Luther knew
were, but not the ones I know. And besides, I fear God laughed at those old
Protestants who turned Jesus’ story around and said, “Lord, we thank you that we
are not like these Catholics.” Who really was the Pharisee that day? Protestants
have been as smug about their doctrines of grace as the Pharisee was about his
good works. So I don’t want to play that game. However, I do believe that what
happened to the tax collector is what the Protestant Reformation was about.
You can define the Reformation in a number of ways, and all of them would be
right. It was a political movement. It was a social movement. It was a religious
movement. It was a natural consequence of the printing press and putting the
Bible into the hands and languages of the common people. It was a corrective to
abuses in the church. But if we talk about a Reformation experience, I think
this is it: Standing before God, conscious of the gulf that separates you from
him, conscious of your need for a Savior, not even looking up to heaven but
simply praying from the heart, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” And … and this
is the best part, knowing that because of what Jesus did for you on the cross
that God has heard your prayer and forgiven you and bridged that gap.
What was the Reformation about? What is its continuing relevance? What does it
mean for you today? I say look at the tax collector and you will have your
answer. The Reformation was about grace. God’s grace is our only hope, yet he
gives it so freely. That experience: coming to God with empty hands, throwing
yourself on his mercy, and then he welcomes you home with open arms. That’s the
experience. Matthew and Zacchaeus had that experience. Martin Luther had that
experience. It is the same in every time and place. I hope you have had it too.
The grace of God is for you. No matter how holy or wicked you are. Jesus died
for you, and that is enough. Trust in him. Seek his grace. It is enough. Amen.