Text: Luke 18:9-14
In the name of + Jesus. Amen.
Jesus tells the story that we know today as the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Even without knowing all the ins and outs of what first century Jews thought about Pharisees and tax collectors, you can figure it out. The Pharisee’s bragging, and his passive-aggressive denigration of the tax collector, speaks for itself. And also the humility of the tax collector, who simply asks God to be merciful to him, once again makes the lesson in this story clear.
But Jesus wants to be very clear, and so he tells us the moral of the story: “This man [the tax collector] went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exulted.”
It’s interesting that the Pharisee begins his prayer-that-isn’t-a-prayer with a thanks-that-isn’t-a-thanks. “God, I thank you,” he says, just before launching into bragging about what he doesn’t do, and what he does. God really doesn’t have anything to do with this. But it is an opportunity for the Pharisee to try to impress his audience – even if it is only one lowly tax collector – or perhaps he is trying to impress himself as well, and also even God. This is a form of blasphemy and misusing God’s name. And notice that his “thanksgiving” is closely related to praise – which he offers to himself.
For thanksgiving and praise go together. They are inseparable to the Christian. Interestingly, in the chapter before this one, St. Luke records an incident with ten lepers. This is not a story, but an actual occurrence. Ten lepers come to Jesus, crying out, like the tax collector in Jesus’ parable: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” And Jesus does. He heals them. They all go off to see the priests to be restored to the community. “Then one of them,” writes Luke, “when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving Him thanks.” And we also learn that this grateful healed leper was a Samaritan, an outcast – the very opposite of a Pharisee.
It’s hard to imagine that this incident was not on our Lord’s mind as he crafted His story, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. For the lepers in the real world prayed for mercy. They knew their condition. They knew that they were without hope except by God’s mercy. And upon receiving mercy, the grateful leper responded with both thanks and praise. In fact, we have a hymn that we often sing for Thanksgiving called “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise.” For the two are inseparable to the Christian.
The Pharisee is not only exalting himself, he lacks actual gratitude toward God. He doesn’t think to give God actual thanks for cleansing him, nor does he give God actual praise in response. Rather, he is so self-centered that he brags about himself, and then praises himself. His behavior is comical, except in real life, this isn’t funny. It is a pathway to death and hell. So beware, dear friends. Jesus is warning us.
And obviously, our tax collector is the opposite. He humbles himself, and Jesus says that such men are “justified” and “exalted.” The tax collector’s prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” is answered by Jesus, God the Son, by shedding His blood on the cross. Jesus doesn’t finish the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. He leaves it off here, with the tax collector’s prayer. But within our Lord’s moral at the end of the story, we know that salvation has come to this household, to the humble tax collector (who will be exalted by God), who is justified – not by his works, but rather by the exact thing for which he prayed: God’s mercy. “For by grace you have been saved, through faith.” As St. Paul teaches us. “And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
And boasting is what the Pharisee does, as he focuses on his works, thinking that this is the cause of his salvation, when it’s really the opposite.
Dear friends, let’s be honest. We are the sin-sore lepers. We are the sin-laden tax collector. And, in fact, we are also the sinful by self-deluded Pharisee, as we love to be praised by men. We are obsessed with ourselves, which is exactly why we recognize this and pray the very prayer of the tax collector in our liturgy: “Lord, have mercy upon us.” And indeed, gathering here as the leper colony known as the church, we see the leprosy of our sins, we cry for mercy, and Jesus absolves us, and He promises us that we will go down to our houses justified.
And in this house, we confess, we cry for mercy, we are absolved, we hear His Word, we receive His sacrament, we are healed, and we do indeed sings songs of thankfulness and praise.
Let us never forget, dear brothers and sisters, that we are poor, miserable sinners, that we are helpless in our sins, that we have nothing to boast about, and let us also not forget the blood of the Lamb that atones for us, by means of holy baptism: the robe of Christ’s righteousness that covers all our sin.
Let us call to mind the words of our catechism: “All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. This is most certainly true.”
Amen.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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