PPLP Pentecost + 20 Proper / Lectionary 30
23 October 2022
Joel 2:23-32
Psalm 65
2 Timothy 4:6-8
Luke 18:9-14
God beyond our knowing, we make you into an idol to serve our own needs. Humble our arrogance by the strangeness of your coming and the wonder of your mercy; through Jesus Christ, the friend of Pharisees and tax collectors. Amen.
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Last week’s gospel talked to us about the need to be persistent in our lives of prayer. Today Jesus talks to us about prayer postures and about honesty in our prayer lives.
We see, today, a pharisee stand before God giving thanks for all of the blessings in his life real and perceived.
Pharisees are the group in our gospels who rigorously have their spiritual life all together and are more than happy to not only model such a ‘spiritual lifestyle’ for those of us who aren’t there, but they’ll encourage and cajole us into doing things their way, as well.
We see, in art depicting this parable, how the Pharisee stands tall, in the temple space. We see him robed in costly / expensive fabrics, with his prayer shawl on his head, and his face raised toward God, as he offers his prayers. We can sense a disdain for anything lower than the current position of his chin, and this would include himself, when he lowers his head.
His prayers, though give thanks for the things that this man wouldn’t embrace in his life anyway: extortioners, the unjust, adulterers, and such descriptions are found in today’s gospel. (Lk 18:11)
His prayers fail to touch on the actual conditions of his own life, instead focussing on what he is not, not what he is or has done, is doing in and with his life.
His prayers, although dramatic and extravagant fail to touch on the fabric of his life.
In essence, he gives thanks for being a self-righteous individual who fails to connect with the world around him, because he might get his hands dirty, or have to find ways to sanitize the world away before he comes back to pray, once more.
Jesus contrasts this Pharisee, this man and his own self-righteous approach to the prayers and posture of the tax collector.
We can approach this from the information that each knows the other is here. We know this because the Pharisee mentions it specifically.
We know this because Jesus tells us that they both “went up to the temple to pray.” (Lk 18:10)
But this is where the similarity stops.
Where the first stands tall, boldly facing God and giving thanks for all that he is not, the second bows his head, his posture is one of humility as he begs God for mercy, forgiveness, and love.
Jesus tells us: “the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”” (Lk 18:13)
Although the artistic interpretation of this parable shows that the Pharisee is well off, well dressed in the tradition of the Jewish people, they often show that the tax collector isn’t as well prepared for prayer. No prayer shawl, no fine garments or ‘Sunday Dress,’ as we’d recognize his clothes.
But I’d say that they’re probably both equally well attired as only one who is wealthy could afford to be a tax collector in the Roman Empire.
So, then, what separates these two men is their self-perceptions, their own feeling of worth before the God of all creation.
And this is where we step into the parable, the image, the story, as well.
Each week, we come before God, and we proclaim the Rite of Confession and Forgiveness.
Each week, we pause to collect in our minds and hearts all of the ways we need to lay our own sins, faults, transgressions, errors, mistakes, problems, and concerns before God.
Each week we are able to lament where we’ve been hurt, and where through our own actions, we’ve caused hurt to others. (And at this point I’m thinking we need to pause here a little longer in our services, probably?)
But how many of us, then fall back on the Pharisee’s prayer proclaiming, with a sense of pride what we are not instead of what we’ve done, and yet what we’ve failed to do?
Proclaiming with a sense of pride what we are not instead of stripping away and revealing to ourselves what God already knows: what we are, and what we’ve done or failed to do?
It’s not how we do, or don’t, stand before God. Rather it’s how we bring the errors and the burdens of our lives before the one who created us all.
Will we be self-righteous and casual about our errors and mistakes?
Will we confess absolutely every time we’ve ‘stepped on a crack and broken our mothers back’, to paraphrase a childhood rhyme?
This isn’t like our standard response of proclaiming with head held high “not bad” to the greeting of “how are you doing?”
The Lutheran Course tells us that early in his career as a monk, Martin Luther would confess absolutely every time he ‘broke wind’ because he was so concerned with leaving something unconfessed on his soul that he lived in constant and continuous fear of never getting it right, and so failed to live!
It wasn’t until he realized the love and grace of God for all who believe that he was able to honestly lay his burdens before God: his errors, his sins, his worries, his fears, and honestly confess his place in God’s creation as a sinner who loves God.
And this, then, is our great reversal.
The gospel tells us that the pharisee prays: ““God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”” (Lk 18:11b-12)
He’s doing everything right.
His checklist is complete.
He’s a good upstanding man in his faith, and he feels that God has rewarded his behaviour and blessed him beyond measure.
Every day, the world makes us think we need to be like the Pharisee. Getting it all ‘right’ means that we are untouched with the conditions of others that make them less than ourselves, and who we long to be before society.
We are able to give thanks that we are not like person A, or B, or even D.
So, then, do we list before God all of the things we’re doing in our own lives that have no impact on the world around us? Fasting, praying for our own little bubble, instead of stepping out of our comfort zone and experiencing life outside of our social circle?
But when we do that, we separate ourselves from these individuals who are in need of the love and grace of God,
Rather, when we reach out and help them up, we help them and each one of us to see that before God we’re all the same: sinners in need of God’s forgiveness.
But the pharisee isn’t the only one in the temple space today, is he?
“13But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” [Jesus tells us] 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’” (Lk 18:13-14)
So, how in each of our hearts, in each of our lives do we stand?
Will we give thanks to God for all that we are not?
Will we feel a sense of self-righteousness that artificially boughs us up because it’s only a part of who we are before God and before each other?
Jesus tells us of two men, today.
One man, who is so out of touch with his heart that he lives only in his head, trying to cross all of the ‘T’s’, and dot all of the ‘I’s’ in his attempt to live life rightly and so be righteous.
And he shows us another who knows how he’s seen in society and what the community thinks of him, and he seeks to be seen before God and to receive God’s mercy in grace in his life.
He’s not thinking that he will be made right, but he’s recognizing who he is and he’s asking for forgiveness for that role he lives in the community.
Jesus shows us two men at prayer. One who couldn’t find the pavement under his feet, because he’s not like the pavement. The other who acknowledges his place as a sinner in the community, and therefore before God, and he begs God’s forgiveness for the circumstances that have made him a sinner.
When we stand before God, whether it’s with head held high, or bowed, whether we stand or sit or kneel, it is before the Most High that we are positioned, no matter where we are, physically.
God already knows our hearts, our lives, our deeds. God knows each one of us from the time the first zygotes come together to create each of us in our mother’s womb’s to the time we stand before the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven.
The question we face today, the question we aske, really, is will we gloss it over the mistakes and sins of our lives with what we are not?
Or will we embrace the errors, lay them at God’s feet, and strive to do better tomorrow?
Amen.
anglolutheranpastor 