Steve message

Oct 28, 2007 Bothwell & Clachan

Luke 18:9-14 Luke’s Picture of Jesus: “Holier Than Thou” Usually Isn’t or “Goody-Two-Shoes Goes to Church”

INTRODUCTION

Faking Out God?

Research psychologists have found there are at least three situations when we are not ourselves. First, the average person puts on airs when he visits the lobby of a fancy hotel. Next, the typical Jane Doe will try to hide her emotions and bamboozle the salesman when she enters the new-car showroom. And finally, as we take our seat in church or synagogue, we try to fake out the Almighty that we've really been good all week.

 - Dr. Perry Buffington, licensed psychologist, author, columnist; "Playing Charades," Universal Press Syndicate (9-26-99)

So while we all try to look holy I will ask a question.  

Are We Really Listening?

In his book Directions, author James Hamilton shares this insight about listening to God: "Before refrigerators, people used icehouses to preserve their food. Icehouses had thick walls, no windows, and a tightly fitted door. In winter, when streams and lakes were frozen, large blocks of ice were cut, hauled to the icehouses, and covered with sawdust. Often the ice would last well into the summer.

One man lost a valuable watch while working in an icehouse. He searched diligently for it, carefully raking through the sawdust, but didn’t find it. His fellow workers also looked, but their efforts, too, proved futile. A small boy who heard about the fruitless search slipped into the icehouse during the noon hour and soon emerged with the watch.

Amazed, the men asked him how he found it.

        I closed the door,'' the boy replied, “lay down in the sawdust, and kept very still. Soon I heard the watch ticking.''

Often the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are being still enough, and quiet enough, to hear? - Eric S. Ritz, The Ritz Collection, www.Sermons.com

So what did God say to you during the Bible reading this morning? As you heard it read, or followed along, did it make you uncomfortable? Did it make you laugh? Did it even make sense? Listen again as I read it from Eugene Peterson’s The Message.

Now the hardest part about reading our parable in 2007 is to realize that back in Jesus day his hearers would have begun with a positive starting image for Pharisee and a negative starting image for tax collector.

The Story of the Tax Man and the Pharisee

     9–12      He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’

           At this point, Jesus’ hearers would be cheering for the Pharisee, especially since most were followers of the Pharisaic party.

     13     “Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’ ”

     14     Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”[1]

This was the opposite of what Jesus’ hearers would have expected. Jesus’ conclusion to this parable would have shocked the original hearers (cf. comment on 18:11); it only fails to shock us today only because we are so accustomed to hearing the parable.  But although we modern-day readers identify with the tax collector, I do think that in the process we have unconsciously uttered the prayer, “Thank God I am not like that Pharisee,” showing that the heart of the Pharisee lives in all of us.[2]

Bruce Larson has warned that if this happens, the church, unfortunately, can become just a museum where we try to display the victorious life. - Bruce Larson, Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 4.

A few minutes ago we talked about listening. What did you hear as the parable was read again? Did you hear the tone of the first man’s prayer? The tone of the prayer reveals his problem. He uses the pronoun “I,”  five times in two verses. This Pharisee is out there talking to himself—he thinks he is talking to God, but his prayer never got out of the rafters. He was just having a little pep talk; he patted himself on the back and went out as proud as a peacock.  That Pharisee’s attitude seems to be that God should be grateful to him for his commitment. The man obviously looked down on other people and was proud of his fasting and tithing.[3] God never heard that prayer.

Now you could not get any two as far apart as those two men were. The Pharisee was at the top of the religious ladder. The tax collector was at the bottom. Pharisees were the most pious people in regular Palestinian Jewish society; tax gatherers were the most despicable, often considered traitors to their people. Pharisees did not want tax gatherers admitted as witnesses or given honorary offices. To catch the impact of this parable today one might think of these characters as the most active deacon or Sunday-school teacher versus a drug dealer or crooked politician.  Just please do not rename it “The Parable of the Deacon and the Revenue Canada Agent”! I have some very nice in-laws who work there and I don’t want to upset them.

The tax collector knew that he was a sinner; he was as low as they come. He had sold his nation down the river when he had become a tax collector. When he became a tax gatherer, he denied his nation. When he denied his nation, as a Jewish man, he denied his religion. He turned his back on God. He took a one-way street, never to come back to God. Why did he do it? It was lucrative. He said, “There’s money down this way.” He became rich. But it did not satisfy his heart. And so this poor man knowing that he has no hope of access to the mercy seat in the temple, in his misery and desperation, cries out to God

Donald G. Bloesch: The Christian alternative to Pharisaism is not to try to live like that earlier ungodly life of the tax collector, but rather to embrace a costly discipleship.  - Donald G. Bloesch in Theological Notebook I. Christianity Today, Vol. 40, no. 2.

This parable illustrates the kind of faith that God desires. The reactions of these two men remind me of the illustration some of you have seen on one of the Alpha videos. There Nicky Gumbel uses the example of a pole to measure the height of our sins. The Pharisee considered himself better than other people (v. 11). In contrast to most everyone else, he felt that his few sins only reached a little way up the pole. He was using other people as his standard for measuring righteousness. But the Tax Collector used God as his standard for measuring righteousness. He realized that the measuring pole actually reached all the way to heaven. Without help he could never measure up to God’s standards.

We have a tendency to think our prayers are answered in direct proportion to how many times we’ve been in church, how many times we’ve had devotions, how many times we’ve given offering. But nothing is further from the truth. Prayer is not based upon merit. It’s based upon mercy. That’s what this sinner discovered. 

All too often, we come before the Lord and not only say, “Forgive me,” but “I promise I’ll never do that again.” When I make those kinds of promises, I am expressing a confidence in my flesh that will prove to be an embarrassment to me down the road. I can’t promise not to sin again. Like the tax collector, I must simply ask the Father to have mercy upon me.[4]  

Humor: Worth a Thousand Points

Perhaps you have heard the story of the man who came to the gates of heaven to be greeted by St. Peter. Peter asks the man if he can give a brief history of his life with an emphasis on the good deeds he had done in order to gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven. "You will need 1000 points to be admitted," Peter tells the man.

"This will be a cinch," the man thinks to himself, "I've been involved in church from the days of my youth." Then he begins to list his activities for Peter. He was a leader in his youth group, served in every possible position he could as a youngster. Was on the Church Board and every committee the church had to offer. His list was extensive.

"Very impressive," Peter smiles at the man. An angel standing with them also smiled and nodded as he tallied the points and then whispered in Peter's ear. Peter tells the man,

"This is quite striking -- we seldom see men of your very good works. You will be pleased to know that you have 327 points! Is there anything else you can think of?"

The poor soul breaks into a cold sweat and begins to reach deep for every single act of kindness he could think of. He listed them as the angel scratched furiously on his angelic clip board and nodded his head in admiration. Peter looks at the clip board and says, "This is quite exceptional! You now have a total of 402 points. Can you think of anything else?"

The distressed guy strives to recall good deeds -- like the time he helped a little old lady across the street. He finally arrives at a grand total of 431 points and cries out... "I am sunk! There is no hope for me! What more could I have done? O Lord, all I can do is beg for your mercy!" 

"THAT," exclaims Peter, "Is a thousand points!"

 -  John Jewell, Qualities of Faith

----

[1]Eugene H. Peterson, The Message : The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, Colo.: NavPress, 2002), Lk 18:9-14.

[2]Walter A. Elwell, vol. 3, Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, Baker reference library (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1996, c1989), Lk 18:9.

[3]Earl D. Radmacher, Ronald Barclay Allen and H. Wayne House, Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Commentary (Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers, 1999), Lk 18:10-12.

*Pharisees. A movement of several thousand pious Jewish men who sought to interpret the law carefully and according to the traditions of previous generations of the pious. They had no political power in Jesus’ day but were highly respected and thus influential among the larger population. They emphasized their own version of purity rules and looked forward to the resurrection of the dead.

*Tax gatherers. A despised group of Jewish people who collected taxes for the government at a profit. Rome allowed wealthy men to contract with their own cities or districts to see to it that taxes were paid; because they had to cover any shortfall themselves, they were not inclined to have mercy on their clients. Herod the Great had used local taxes to finance not only the Jerusalem temple and his palaces but also pagan temples in Gentile enclaves in Palestine, an action that had undoubtedly further alienated the masses. Tax collectors thus appeared as collaborators with the occupying pagan power.

*Parable. Jewish teachers regularly illustrated their teachings with brief stories, similar to the use of sermon illustrations today (though often with less verisimilitude). Jesus’ parables, like those of other teachers, were meant to illustrate his points graphically, hence many details in these parables appear there only to advance the story line. Modern interpreters who read too much into such secondary details run the risk of overlooking the parable’s real point or points. The Greek word for “parable” normally means a comparison; the Jewish practice behind Jesus’ usage included a wide range of meanings (riddles, proverbs, fables, etc.).

[4]Jon Courson, Jon Courson's Application Commentary (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 389.