“A Tale of Two Sinners”
Sermon for Trinity 11, Gospel, Luke 18: 9-14
The crowds of men had been filing into the court of the Jews in the Temple for several minutes now, awaiting the morning sacrifice and communal prayer. People were gathered in groups, talking together, or standing by themselves, in postures of prayer and meditation. Then the Pharisee of our parable, we’ll call him Judah, enters the courtyard with his best robe on, tasteful, but not extravagant, what the best people wear. Those near him him whisper among themselves as he walks by, “That’s Judah, the son of Benjamin, the Pharisee. Did you know that he and his family have contributed to the synagog and Temple more than just about anybody for years. Some people think that maybe he shouldn’t talk about himself so much, but Judah says that the people need a good example to follow, so he shows them. He’s only missed morning prayer once or twice in his life. He fasts two days a week and gives the food that he would have eaten on those days to the poor. If only we had more Godly men like him and not so many like the riff-raff that hangs around the temple at prayer time, like those grubby camel merchants or those smelly sheep herders from the country who don’t even know how to act in the Temple, and especially the tax-collectors. They’ve really got some nerve coming in here with decent folk! Everybody knows they’re crooks. You know they bribe their way into their jobs, don’t you? And then they cheat their fellow Israelites, overcharging when they collect money for the Romans. I spit on them. Traitorous crooks!” “But maybe some of them are honest”, his friend says. “Honest, a tax-collector? You must be kidding!” Look at that one over there. He won’t look at anyone in the eye. Going around with his head down. He doesn’t even belong in the same room as Judah the Pharisee, and other decent people. Look at Judah, the way he walks with his head up, right through the crowd. He is not afraid to look people in the eye. He’s walking right up to the front where everyone can see him and he prays loud so everyone can hear him, too. He’s not ashamed, you see. He has nothing to hide.” Listen to him now. He’s about to pray. And Judah the Pharisee opened his mouth and said, “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.” I’ll bet he does, too, whispered the man.”
All who heard the prayer of Judah the Pharisee turned to look then at the despised tax collector, we’ll call him Levi, standing at the rear, apart from the others.. But the tax-collector Levi didn’t notice them looking. He hadn’t heard a word of Judah’s prayer either, for his head had been down the whole time, his eyes looking at the ground as he was spoke to himself the same words over and over again, striking his chest with his fist each time, “God be merciful to me, a sinner. God be merciful to me, a sinner. God be merciful to me, a sinner.” The priest offered the morning sacrifice, prayed the closing prayer and blessed the crowd. Then the men began filing out of the Temple courtyards to their homes and businesses, Judah the Pharisee surrounded by a group of friends, Levi the tax-collector walking by himself. But there was something different about him. He didn’t look the same going out as he had entering into the courtyard. He held his head up now and there was a look of peace upon his face. He looked at people in the eye. He spoke to them as he passed them with the greeting, “The peace of the Lord!” Few, to be sure, returned his greeting, but it didn’t seem to matter to Levi. The man who had whispered to his friend about Judah the Pharisee said saw the change in Levi, too, and said to his friend, “Who can tell with those crazy tax collectors. Like Judah says, Thank God I’m not like them.”
I told this story in this way to help you get an idea of how the hearers in Jesus’ time might have heard it. For we all know that the Pharisees are the bad guys. They are consistently portrayed as hypocrites in the Gospels. But in Jesus time they were respected and admired for their piety. They were the pillars of their community. They obeyed the laws, both civil and religious, to the best of their abilities, even going beyond what was required of them, as in their fasting. They tithed not only from their income, but from their purchases too, a kind of self-imposed sales tax for the Temple. And tax collectors were universally despised, by their fellow Jews, and by the Romans who used them, too. They were hated like the Nazi collaborators were in France or Norway during World War II, or like police informants are often looked at by the police, despised by useful.
Jesus picks these extremes in society to make a point in His parable--that those who put faith in their good works to justify themselves before God are gravely mistaken. For it is only those, like the tax collector Levi, who recognize their own sinfulness and emptiness, and trust in a merciful God to forgive them who will be filled with God’s grace, reconciliation, mercy, and forgiveness. Jesus’ audience would have been shocked by this surprise ending-- that the tax collector went down, that is, he left the temple, justified, and the Pharisee didn’t. For Jesus said that everyone who exalts himself will be brought low and everyone who humbles himself will be lifted up.
And this has ever been so. From the very beginning, Adam and Eve, even before they had committed the sin of disobedience by eating the forbidden fruit, committed the sin of mistrust of God’s word. Wishing to exalt themselves to be like God, they were brought low, expelled from the Garden, incurring the condemnation of God, present and eternal death. But God did not leave them without hope and a promise. He promised them that the seed of Eve, one of her descendants, would crush the head of the serpent, Satan, destroy his works, and deliver mankind from sin and death. They believed this promise of a Savior to come, and they went down from Eden justified. In the Old Testament reading today we heard the story of Cain and Abel, their first two sons. The sons each presented a sacrifice, a good work to God, but only Abel’s was accepted. The author of Hebrews says, “By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.” (Hebrews 11: 4).
Faith is the key to justification, to reconciliation with God. And the fruit of faith is good works. But you might say, “What of the Pharisee’s good works, Pastor? You have been preaching about the importance of stewardship and coming to church and Bible class and attending worship regularly. Here we have a good example of someone who does that.” That is true. He is following God’s law, at least outwardly, But we can see that inwardly he is violating the commandments. He is putting his trust in his own righteousness, not God’s, making an idol of his piety. He is putting himself above his neighbor, expressing contempt for the tax collector, killing him in his heart. But even these sins of the heart would be forgiven by God if he asked for forgiveness, if he repented of his reliance on his own righteousness. Judah the Pharisee felt no need for forgiveness, so he didn’t ask for it. Since he didn’t ask, he didn’t receive it. He put his trust in his works.
And this is what we are not to do, for even our best works are tainted with self-consideration, with pride, with self-righteousness, with sin. We can’t escape it. We carry the corruption of sin to the grave. So why even bother doing good works, if they don’t count for anything in God’s eyes, you might ask? We’re getting to the point now. Works don’t count for justification. Only faith count--for those who lived before Christ was born, faith in the promises of salvation through God’s anointed Savior; for those born since His birth death and resurrection, faith in the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ. You who believe that God sent His Son to fulfill the law perfectly for you and die for your sins, for you good works are now possible. For God sees His Son working in you in whatever you do in faith, no matter what your vocation is, mother, father, son, daughter, employer, employed, citizen, or any other honest calling.
And yes, God wants you to come to worship and Bible class regularly so that He can feed you with His Word and Sacrament, and share the joys and burdens of your brothers and sisters in the faith. He wants you to be an example of piety to those weak in the faith. He wants you to give your tithes and offerings so that you can deepen your trust in HIm to provide you with all you need for your body and soul. He wants you to serve your neighbor so that you will see him or her as a fellow human being whom His Son died for, who needs your love and compassion.
The tax collector saw that he had nothing to offer God but his praise and thanksgiving for being a merciful God. He presented nothing to God as deserving repayment. He didn’t insult God with filthy, sin-tainted rags of “good works”. Even his humble confession of being a sinner was not offered as a work, but was the fruit of His faith. In the same way, our tithes and offerings are fruits of our faith and thanks for the gift of salvation we have already received, not bribes or payments to God. God doesn’t need our money. The cattle on a thousand hills are His, as He says in Psalm 50. (Psalm 50: 10). Our neighbor needs our gifts, though. The work of the church uses the fruits of thankfulness to God that are our offerings to proclaim the Word of God to a fallen world and to rightly administer the Sacraments, the Word made visible.
God doesn’t need our prayers or our worship, either, but we do. We need that connection with our Father in heaven made possible through the reconciliation of God to us in His Son’s death for our sin. We need it to keep our faith strong, to confess our emptiness so that God may fill us, to strengthen us and our brothers and sisters in the faith in love and fellowship. God wants us to worship Him because He is the only God who saves, and He wants to save us. He loves us. He sent His Son for us to do end the law for righteousness for us.
And this excludes all boasting except in the Lord. As Saint Paul says in our epistle reading today, the clarion call of the Lutheran Reformation, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2: 8-9). Therefore we boast only in the Lord who has saved us and gave His Holy Spirit to us in Baptism, whose Father has forgiven us for His Son’s sake so that we may delight in His will and walk in His ways to the glory of His Holy Name. Amen.
