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Sermon

Just like the parable of the persistent widow, Luke tells us who the parable is for.

“Those who trusted themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.”

And at the conclusion of the parable, Jesus uses the word “justified” - it is a different form of the same word in verse 9 - translated “righteous”.

It means “To be declared righteous.”

Righteous and just are different words in English, but in the Greek they are the same word.

It means to be completely conformed to the standard of God’s law.

The law says, Deut.

27:26

It is part of our nature to believe that we are naturally good people.

Nobody wants to be a bad person.

We are created with a deep moral sense and have the desire to be known as good.

And because the heart is deceitful, it convinces us that God’s assessment of our goodness is substantially the same as our own assessment.

This tendency doesn’t go away when we are saved.

We must fight against it our whole lives.

The parable is spoken to everyone who considers themselves to be righteous and at the same time despising others - those who are “not righteous”.

But in the end, God’s declaration might be totally different.

The Pharisee

This parable should be soberly considered.

There is a man in the parable that has spent his whole life thinking of himself as a pretty good man, by God’s grace - at least not as bad of a sinner as that guy over there.

And this man isn’t a pagan.

He isn’t an atheist.

He isn’t a gentile.

He is a Pharisee.

The expert in religion.

Trained thoroughly in the scriptures, well-known for his zealousness for good works.

He understands himself to be a child of Abraham, and heir to the promise, part of the people of God, circumcised, thankful to God, an upstanding member of society, well-regarded and well-respected.

Horrified by sin and committed to living a godly life.

And when he dies, the judge gives the verdict: You are not righteous.

You are cursed, for you are a sinner, an alien from the promises of God.

You are fit only to be cast into outer darkness.

I never knew you.

The Tax Collector

We live 2000 years after this, so the horror of the tax collector in the ears of a Jewish audience is somewhat lost on us.

It is necessary for the impact of this parable that we understand some of the emotional issues involved with being a tax collector.

Rome had a very organized way of collecting taxes.

Gathering taxes themselves would have been a monumental task, and very costly.

They didn’t want to bother.

So they franchised it out.

Large areas of their provinces would be “sold” to a chief tax collector.

He would be a man wealthy enough to buy the area and pay the annual fee to keep it.

He would then gather “taxes” on the trade routes, the merchants, the tradesmen, the townspeople.

He would send the Roman portion to the appropriate authorities, and he would keep the rest.

He could charge whatever he wanted.

And they didn’t sell the franchises to Romans, but to local citizens.

Rome preferred using local citizens who knew their communities, knew the trade routes, and knew where the money was hidden.

Zacchaeus, whom we will meet in chapter 19, is one of the “Chief Tax collectors”.

The chief tax collectors sold smaller franchises within their territory and oversaw the whole thing for that area.

Israel considered themselves to be victims of Roman occupation.

Rome considered them to be a province.

Rome crucified rebels as traitors.

There were, needless to say, extremely hard feelings between the pious Israelite and the tax collector.

The tax collector were often greedy, oppressive, violent, and traitors of their countrymen, all to make more money.

They were driven by covetousness and would sell their own families to Rome if it meant a profit for them.

At least, many were just like that, and they were all viewed like that in the eyes of Israel.

To emphasize the repulsive aspect of this parable in the minds of the hearers, we in the modern day would not use “tax collector”, but a term that would signify the heartless, cold, compassionless drive for more and more money, even over the destruction or enslavement of your whole community.

This drug dealers, pimps, traffickers, robber barons - the worst of the worst.

And yet, Jesus says, in the eyes of God, the just judge of the whole world, the tax collector was considered righteous, and blessed by God.

This is why we must pay very close attention to this parable.

Justification

The Pharisee knew that he was righteous.

But God declared him to be unrighteous.

The Tax Collector knew that he was NOT righteous.

But God declared him righteous.

Everything is backwards, isn’t it?

Doesn’t that mean that God is unjust, declaring the sinner to be righteous and declaring the righteous man to be a sinner?

It seems as if God can’t do that.

We all know that there are sinners.

And we suspect that we are NOT sinners - at least not really.

Only kindof.

And it offends our moral sensibility to think that God declares the unrighteous to be righteous and those who are righteous to be unrighteous.

The tax collector, by any standard, was a sinner.

The Pharisee, by any human standard, was righteous.

Jesus said something shocking in his Sermon on the Mount.

He said,

Unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees, you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.

The righteousness that the Pharisees achieved was the pinnacle of human effort.

Paul himself, trained a Pharisee, said that according to the law, he was blameless.

But Jesus said, “It isn’t enough.”

The Pharisees believed that a sinner could be converted, forgiven, and have his sins washed away.

That is what the Day of Atonement was all about.

But then, after that, they had to live a righteous life to be declared righteous before God.

And they were very proud of their achievements.

But God’s standards are not the same as human standards.

God sees the heart.

He sees what we fantasize about.

He knows what we would do if we had the opportunity.

He knows what our bent is.

He knows what we would do if provoked.

Hercule Poirot said that every man is a murderer if the conditions were right.

And Paul said, “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

The time came when the conditions were right, and the Pharisees were threatened - and they plotted to murder the most righteous man who ever lived.

They lied about him and murdered him.

And each one of us has the seeds of the most vile acts in our hearts.

We betray, we lie, we commit adultery, we steal, we slander, we blaspheme God…we have the seeds in our hearts...

And if the conditions were right and God let us go, there we would go.

This is what the Pharisees missed.

What will you do when what you REALLY value is threatened.