The Storyteller: Shock Value

Lk.18:9-14 (Barclay translation)

Jesus spoke this parable to some who were self-confidently sure that they were righteous and who despised others. "Two men went up to the Temple to pray. The one was a Pharisee, the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, `O God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men, thieves, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of all that I get.' The tax-collector stood afar off, and would not lift even his eyes to heaven, and kept beating his breast and said, `O God, be merciful, to me--the sinner.' I tell you, this man went down to his house accepted with God rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

 Text Introduction:  Some of Jesus’ stories had a shock value when they were originally told.  Because of our familiarity with these stories and because of our distance in time, we may miss this when we read them.  The parable we are looking at today is one of those shocking stories.  For some of Jesus’ listeners the shock bred anger, for some the shock bred surprise, and for some the shock bred hope.

The parable was told in the midst of Jesus’ running battle with the religious elite of his culture.  They didn’t like Jesus because he loved them.

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“Two men went up to the Temple to pray.”  Now, there’s breaking news.  Every day people went up to the temple to pray.  The Old Testament once called the temple a house of prayer.  But what Jesus said next kept this from being an ordinary story about the day-to-day operations of the temple.

One of the men was a Pharisee.  Now, you should know the Pharisees were regarded, by ordinary Jews, as the spiritually elite.  It’s true that they were regarded as spiritually elite, in part, because the Pharisees said they were spiritually elite, but, still, there was once something to the claim.              As a group, the Pharisees emerged about two centuries before Christ.  Their goal was to rescue Judaism from the corrupting influence of the Greek culture.  So, they set out to model the strictest adherence to Jewish religion and ritual.  Though they began with the best of intentions, in time they became proud and isolated from the ordinary people they sought to influence.   

Some of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were hypocrites.  Some were sincere men who really tried to live by the rules they believed comprised God’s will.  Most of them shared the notion that if they worked really hard, they would win God’s favor.  All of them needed to be confronted by the truth in this little story.

The other man was a publican.  That’s a tax collector to you and me.  I don’t know any IRS employees.  If you do, you may kid them a little about their work but, in the end, you would know what they do is necessary.  In first century Judea, tax collectors were thought of as traitors because they worked for the Romans.  They were thought of as cheats and extortionists because most of them were.  The Romans told them what they expected from a certain area.  The publicans set out to squeeze all they could because they could keep anything above what the Romans expected.  Some of their victims showed their contempt for tax collectors by linking them to the dregs of society.  We hear references to “tax collectors and sinners” or “tax collectors and prostitutes.”   The Pharisees often complained that Jesus was too chummy with the tax collectors.

If we had the mindset of first century Jews and a tax collector were to walk into our sanctuary, we might glance up to see if the roof was about to fall in.

So, having met the characters, let’s look at Jesus’ improbable tale.

`Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.’  At this point, some of Jesus’ listeners might have expected Jesus to speak of a dazzling light bathing the temple court and a Charlton Heston-like voice booming, “Tax collector, you rascal, how dare you think you could pray anywhere near this fine Pharisee.”  Of course, that isn’t what happened.  Instead, we get to eavesdrop on a couple prayers.

The Pharisee’s Prayer

The Pharisee prays, `I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here.   I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.'   

The interesting thing about this prayer is that most of it might be true!  There’s nothing to suggest he was dishonest in his business dealings.  There’s no reason to believe he was unfaithful to his wife.  And, though the Old Testament law required only one day of fasting per year, a good Pharisee fasted on Tuesday and Thursday.  If he had one, the average Pharisee probably pulled out his pocket calculator to make sure he was giving a tenth of everything that came his way.  The comparison or contrast, if you will, with the tax collector was added just so God could understand the kind of prize he had in this Pharisee.

It’s easy to fall prey to this attitude.  Remember the Sunday school teacher who taught this parable to her children.  She ended with this prayer:  “Thank you God that we’re not like that Pharisee.”

In case this story seems a little far-fetched, history has left a record of some prayers offered by Jews like this Pharisee.  One daily prayer went something like this, “Thank God I am not a Gentile.  Thank God I am not one of the common people.  Thank God I am not a woman.”  Some of Jesus’ listeners may have overheard prayers like the one used in this parable.  Some of his listeners may have prayed one.

While the prayer tells us something about the Pharisee, how he prayed that prayer tells us something too.  Jesus said he “prayed this prayer to himself.”  I don’t know all that might mean.  You shouldn’t try to read too much into any parable but we can assume Jesus chose his words carefully. Perhaps Jesus was picturing a man who was as much concerned to rehearse his virtues for his own benefit as he was to give thanks to God.

This Pharisee might have hoped he would be “overheard” by those around him.  After all, what’s the use of being a saint if you can’t invite people to admire your halo?  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned against those  who “love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them.”  When Jesus crafted this character he might have had this type of behavior in mind. 

Then, too, the Pharisee may have recited his virtues to build his own confidence.  He may have hoped to confirm to himself his value to God.  No matter how confident you are, when you set out to win God’s favor with your good works, you can never be too certain you’ve done enough.

But, for the moment, this Pharisee was dead certain he had done enough to outdo any tax collector.

So, let’s listen in to the tax collector’s prayer.

The Tax Collector’s Prayer

Jesus portrays this man’s demeanor as so very different than that of the Pharisee.  To begin with, he wouldn’t stand in as prominent a location.  He hadn’t come to be seen, he had come to lift a petition to God.  This man wouldn’t even allow his eyes to drift toward heaven.  He wasn’t worthy.  He beat his breast, a sign of deep contrition and sorrow.  In our culture, he might have buried his face in his hands.  Every ounce of pride had been rung from this man as he offered his very different prayer.

`O God, be merciful, to me--the sinner.'  Did you catch that?  Many translations depict the tax collector referring to himself as “a sinner.”  That gets the point across but the original text allows him to refer to himself as “the sinner.”  He wasn’t content to see himself as just another sinner;  he epitomized the role of sinner.  The Pharisee might have relished comparing himself to others to show how good he was, this tax collector didn’t even allow himself the comfort of comparing himself to others.

He wouldn’t think of praying, “Lord, you know I’m not as bad as some tax-collectors.”  He may not have known the intricacies of the law as well as the Pharisee did, but he knew enough to know his life didn’t match up to God’s demands.  In light of that knowledge, he came to God with only one petition.

He wanted mercy.   Mercy isn’t something you earn or deserve.     Mercy is a remarkable kindness bestowed by the offended on the offender.  It isn’t earned.

Luis Palau tells this story to illustrate the nature of mercy.

A mother once approached Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son. The emperor replied that the young man had committed a certain offense twice and justice demanded death. 

"But I don't ask for justice," the mother explained. "I plead for mercy." 

"But your son does not deserve mercy," Napoleon replied. 

"Sir," the woman cried, "it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for." 

"Well, then," the emperor said, "I will have mercy." And he spared the woman's son. 

The tax collector knew he didn’t deserve anything from God, certainly not mercy.  Yet, he bared his soul and asked.  He may not have known the intricacies of Israel’s history as well as the Pharisee did, but what he knew of that story prompted him to ask.

Shock

We can’t be sure what Jesus’ listeners were expecting this point.  Chances are, what came next was a shock.  Jesus explained the differing results of those two prayers.  “I tell you,” Jesus said, “this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God.”  

Some in that crowd must have been standing there with their mouths open.  Any Pharisees who heard him may have complained about his nerve.  Any tax collectors—and a variety of other spiritual outcasts—who heard may have wondered if there might be hope after all.

Jesus had just said that God had accepted the unacceptable and had rejected those who were convinced and had convinced many others that they were sure winners.  More than that, Jesus announced this would be a principle of the Kingdom.  Here’s that principle, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted."  The first step toward having a place in God’s Kingdom is to admit you don’t have a right to a place in God’s Kingdom.

A New Way of Thinking

Many commentaries describe this as parable about prayer.  In some ways it is.  More than that, it is about a new way of thinking about ourselves and about others.

Sometimes we have to guess a parable’s purpose from it context and the circumstance in which Jesus told it.  In the case of this parable, Luke tells us who Jesus was calling to a new way of thinking.  Luke says, “He spoke the … parable to some people who prided themselves on being upright and despised everyone else….” 

Folks who think they’ve got it all together, who think God will have a box full of merit badges for them when they get to heaven, often have pretty low opinions of other men and women.

This story Jesus told is a wake-up call about us all needing God’s grace.  You see, Jesus loved the Pharisees too much to let them hold on to their illusion of being good enough.  Of course, all of us need to echo that tax collector’s prayer because none of us can earn a place in heaven. When we come to that self-understanding, something remarkable happens.

A heart that sees its need of grace has a changed approach to God and a changed attitude toward others.

We come to God, not with pride, but with humility; not with lists of our virtues, but with confessions of our failure.  We join redeemed sinners of ages past in singing, “My hope is built on nothing less but Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”  When our hearts see our need of grace, we stop deluding ourselves about the value of our good works and trust only in the good work Jesus had done on our behalf.

Of course, when we do come to God for grace, we don’t have play the Pharisee’s game of one-upmanship to try to convince ourselves we’ve done enough.  We can rest in God’s grace and get busy living out our gratitude to him.

At the same time when we see our need of grace, we realize we need to relate to others in a new way.  Shakespeare’s Portia understood this.  Listen to some of what she says about mercy.

We do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy...

When we see our need of mercy, we begin to see our kinship with others.  We’re all sinners who deserve God’s judgment but yearn for his mercy.  We begin to understand the wisdom of Paul’s instruction:  “accept one another, just as Christ accepted you, for the glory of God.”

Seeing our own need of mercy gives birth to an attitude that refuses to write someone off because of their failures; we know the eraser could easily be put against our own names

Christians are sometimes accused of being harsh and judgmental.  That’s probably truer than we’d like to admit.  But if we Christians see ourselves as beneficiaries of mercy, there should no place for harsh, judgmental attitudes.

When we see we are beneficiaries of that mercy, we may be more eager than ever before to share the gospel with those without Christ.  But our approach will be transformed.   We won’t be like that Pharisee saying, “Thank God I’m not like you.”  It will be an approach that says, “Thank God, I’ve got good news for both of us.”