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SERMONS

Proper 25C
October 28, 2007

By The Rev. Alston Johnson

(Preached at 7:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. services)

Luke 18.9-14

I remember the shirt wars of seventh grade. First, it was whether of not your shirt had and alligator on it; then it was a polo player. Later in life it became the car wars, the house wars, the vacation wars; and then finally, the "who are your people" wars. The little wrestling matches and games that we play over pedigree, pride of place, pride of person – which we even see in the Church, sometimes especially in the Church – pride of self righteousness. We must always remember the old story of why Lucifer fell from heaven; it was not because he thought of himself as the dimmest star in the sky.

"We are holier than you," thought many of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.

If we were Jews, or Gentles, living in ancient Palestine, we might agree with them. We might agree that the Pharisees were holier than other people, because of their strong sense of togetherness, their strong sense of making religion the focus of their daily life and their family life. Praying in their homes with their children, fasting twice as often as others, going to Temple daily, tithing from all of their possessions: ten percent from their daily profits, ten percent from their crops, ten percent from their inventory, ten percent from their savings, the Pharisees displayed the fruits of righteous living. Having drawn a religious circle around every aspect of their lives, they were scrupoulously careful not to even place themselves in harms way; so they avoided the presences of sinners, of Gentiles, of the unclean, people like prostitutes and tax collectors. The Pharisees were individuals who were concerned with making God’s will, and God’s Law, a visible and tangible presence in their daily, community life. They wanted to see Torah at work in their daily lives; they wanted the external reality of their lives, and the internal reality of their hearts, to be in harmony, to be one, a total offering to God.

Living in the midst of Pharisees, seeing the evidence of their religious devotion, we would probably agree with them, and say, "Yes, you are holier than me." In fact, we might desire to become Pharisees ourselves.

The grammatical root of the word "idiot," stems from the Greek: idios, meaning, one’s own, pertaining only to one’s self, peculiar to one’s self. This morning, we see how even the best intentions can make one an idiot. We might say that this Pharisee standing in the Temple is offering up a kind of idiotic prayer to God, because his prayer is concerned simply with himself. Reciting a list of his own righteous actions, rather than making his life an offering to God, this particular Pharisee actually puts himself in the place of God; giving himself permission to look askance at, and judge, another human being. "Thank you God that I am not like all of these other unclean people, because I do what is right."

Actually, this Pharisee is not so much talking to God, as talking to himself. This Pharisee is carving out his own righteous identity on the backs of those whom he believes he has transcended. The Pharisee we meet this morning is an image of how we can become lost in the religious life, of how we begin doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Without someone to be "better than" the Pharisee has enough religion to be socially virtuous, but not enough to be truly humble. His posturing is like what the famous preacher Dwight Moody said about pride, "God sends no one away empty . . . except those who are full of themselves."

Without the tax collector standing near-by, it is unlikely that this Pharisee would have much to say to God.

The tax collector has no bargaining chips for God.

The tax collector comes to the temple without any pretense of having earned anything. There is no circle of righteous deeds behind with the tax collector might hide. He is despised by his fellow Jews for having to squeeze Roman taxes from them – the equivalent of supporting an oppressive regime. The tax collector has no personal or community code of manners that might lend itself to personal holiness. Although he might be rich in the eyes of the world, this tax collector knows that he is poor, empty, nothing in the eyes of God . . . that is why his only prayer is a prayer for mercy, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

This is the prayer of the broken and contrite heart; the heart that knows it has failed. This tax collector prays the prayer of those who feel that they have exhausted all of the world’s options, or who have been exhausted by the world. This is the voice of those who have lived in harm’s way. Those who know their own selfishness and sin so well, that it is clear the only shoulders they can climb on are God’s shoulders.

Actually, the tax collector is praying the prayer that the Pharisees claims his life exemplifies.

What this parable is telling us about our daily lives is that when we stand before the living God at the end of this life, we will find the most unlikely assortment of characters who have proven themselves righteous in the eyes of God, but who were charged with unrighteousness by those who think of themselves as religious. We may find that those we believe are the farthest from God, may in fact, be the closest to Him; because it is our pride, our self-certainty, that keeps us from God – not our misery.

Jesus is telling his followers that we do not get to stand on the shoulders of those whom we have proclaimed unclean and sinners, in order to get closer to God. In fact, those who exalt themselves on the backs of others, will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.