10.23.2022 - Biblical Faith - Humble Faith

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But 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!’ I 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.”

Aspiring Artists

What is your best achievement in life? When you have thought to yourself, “I may not be perfect, but at least I _____,” How would you finish that thought?

Many of you had your childhood artwork proudly displayed on the refrigerator door, or perhaps you were the parent displaying it for your child. Every aspiring artist has to begin somewhere, and we all need encouragement along the way. Good mentors say, “That’s the best picture yet!” and cheer their students on without telling them they have reached the pinnacle of art and that there will never be someone as good as them. There is a way, going all the way back to creation, of praising people, and even things, as being “good” without calling them “better than.”

Comparison is not wrong by itself. Comparing things helps us know the difference between right and wrong. It helps us grow. It helps us recognize when we have done the right thing at the wrong time or in the wrong place and how to do better next time.

I was a student pastor in my second year of seminary and walked into a job expecting to be a youth pastor, but due to some unforeseen events, was given the children’s pastor position as well my first day on the job. I took an important Christian Doctrine class that was essential to work through my theology papers for ordination. I was learning all the big Greek and Latin words and the definitions of everything related to the foundations of our faith. I wanted to preach and teach everything I was learning. My congregation turned out to be children, most of them between 4 and 10 years old.

Those big words meant nothing to them. I had to take what was good and learn the ability to translate it into something they could receive. It didn’t make my learning of it less valuable, but it was certainly humbling to realize that just because I knew something didn’t mean I could share it with others. God and those young children worked on me until I could share the gospel in a way they could finally understand.

We think we grow by making accomplishments. What if our spiritual growth came from outside of us? What if the way we grow spiritually is not primarily based on what we do for God and others but on what God does to us? Mature believers know their own need for mercy. As we grow in our relationship with God, we become more, not less, aware of our need for Him.

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What is Prayer?

One of the first ways we recognize God’s mercy is that he lets us pray to Him. God is not aloof, distant, dispassionate, or disgusted with us. He could choose to be, and no one would be able to blame Him. When we are babies, we are messy, and the older we get, the bigger our messes get. The difference is that we sometimes get the experience of learning how to clean up after ourselves and others.

Some of us don’t go to prayer until the mess is so big that we cannot clean it up ourselves. Sometimes we don’t even ask for help then. Instead, we wait until our mess moves from a nuisance to others to become something that is harmful to them. Often without intervention before this point of brokenness, relationships are lost between God and ourselves and between us and each other. Shame comes in and covers us, keeping us from trying to reconnect to God. It makes us prisoners of ourselves and our own sins.

Luke tells us that Jesus told this parable to those who trusted in themselves and looked at others with contempt. Those are the kinds of people used to cleaning up their own messes and probably the messes of others too. Or perhaps those that just think that they do. Sometimes I imagine these people with really long noses that they use to look down upon you. Or maybe those who stand in the background and whisper quietly. It’s not too hard for me to imagine what they might look and act like because I’ve done it myself.

You might think that pridefully looking down on others and praying to God were completely different things, and you would be half right. Those two attitudes are like having clean and dirty water from the same faucet. They don’t mix. But we can switch back and forth very quickly when people put their focus on us.

In this parable, Jesus gives us an either/or scenario by giving us the two characters: the Pharisee and the tax collector.

The Pharisee represented the most religious and faithful of the Jewish people. He fasted twice a week, which was beyond anything commanded by God in the Old Testament. He tithed. This was a picture of a man who went above and beyond his duty to God, and he knew it. By contrast, the tax collector represented the worst of the worst. This was a John the Baptist vs. Judas Iscariot kind of comparison, and everyone knew it.

Rather than tell us directly what to do, these parables put us in uncomfortable places and challenge our faith. The scripture clearly tells us that this parable was told to those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” We can safely surmise that some of these were indeed Pharisees. It probably put them on edge to have Jesus name them out loud, like one of our political parties or religious denominations. Perhaps they had come to see how the teachings of this traveling rabbi Jesus compared with the teachings they had been raised in their good Jewish homes.

The prayer he put in their mouths, thanking God that they were unlike everyone else who lived their lives ensnared by sin, was probably on point. The icing on the cake was the list of spiritual disciplines they practiced. Maybe a little over the top, but I bet they considered it a fair prayer, especially since it gave thanks to God as the one who allowed them to be so faithful. After all, they could have been born to a family of Gentiles or Jews who had turned their back on God. Yes, this was a good prayer.

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Humble Prayer

But Jesus disagreed. No, this is not the way to pray. He gives them another example: the tax collector. This tax collector cannot even bring himself to look up. It is not pride but shame that binds him, yet not to the point of paralysis. Many tax collectors and other types of sinners felt shame for what they had done and who they had become, but it did not stop this one from coming to God. He walked out in public and prayed in quiet confession, not listing his sins but admitting them through his words and actions. He did not come to bring thanks that day. He came for help.

The Jewish people did not invent the “eye for an eye” kind of justice. God took that and redeemed it to be closer to “an eye for an eye,” plus interest in making amends for the mess that sin had caused. Those who had sinned against others, such as tax collectors extorting more money from their clients than was actually owed, were required to pay back the money with interest to receive forgiveness. After many years of this sinful lifestyle, true repentance may well have bankrupted those tax collectors.

You and I, and the disciples of Jesus, and the other onlookers may hear this parable and think to ourselves; I definitely don’t want to be a Pharisee. But I don’t think I’m quite a tax collector either. I’m probably somewhere in between, and maybe I need to lean a little more toward the humility of admitting my sin and not judging others. That’s easy. Lesson learned. Let’s go home.

The challenge of this parable is that Jesus is not inviting us to find ourselves somewhere in between. It is not a sliding scale of good and bad. It is one or the other. We either find ourselves praying the prayer of the Pharisee or that of the tax collector. Either way, Jesus tells us it is the tax collector who went home justified, so we know what kind of prayers we ought to pray to get right with and draw closer to God.

Gratitude grows our awareness of God, and making and keeping promises form a solid foundation to build that faith - and the Pharisee showed both of these things. But the tax collector put skin on his faith when he expressed honesty. He was brave enough to tell the truth about himself to God and to others. The Pharisee could have been praying to any God and not changed his words at all. Those who watched the tax collector found their eyes not lingering on him but waiting for the God who would come and show mercy.

I have a friend who was raised in church from the day she was born and came from a strong Christian family. She began following Jesus very young and did not seem to struggle as I felt I did growing up. I asked her once what it was that showed her God was real, rather than just going through the motions of the church with her family. She told me she remembered a day when she was about 4 years old when she had done something bad and was spanked and sent to her room. She snuck down the stairs after a few minutes and looked into the kitchen where her dad was knelt down by one of the chairs in the kitchen, weeping and praying to God for help raising his daughter. She said seeing that moment of true honesty from her father was the moment she knew God was real.

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Truth Telling

Full Honesty is the difference between the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Humility does not mean beating yourself down. It means being truly honest. If you can be honest with yourself, you can be honest with God. If you can be honest with God, you can be honest with those around you. As anyone who has been through recovery or healing can tell you, it is the first step, the second step, and every step afterward. When you stop being honest, your faith grows thin, and the infection gets in, eating away at your gratitude and willingness to make and keep promises.

So, if you are honest with yourself today, what do you need to talk to God about?

I’m going give you a moment of silence to find that place of honesty with yourself and with God and let Him grow that into a faith that grows strong, not because of our goodness, but because of God’s mercy. What do you need to talk to God about today?

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