Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

There are two ways to get into heaven: by your own effort and work, or by faith in the work of Jesus. I’ve only ever met one person who flat-out admitted: “I’m trusting in what I’ve done to get me into heaven.” But that doesn’t mean that this way of thinking is rare. It’s not. From the time of the first recorded sacrifice until now, people have been trying to be reconciled to God by what they do. This goes for Christians too. Cain and Abel were both members of the Church, raised by Christian parents. As sinners, each of the brothers knew that a sacrifice for sin was necessary. Abel’s offering was filled with the sweet-smelling fragrance of faith. Cain’s sacrifice, on the other hand, reeked of his own sweaty self-righteousness.

I’m sure we’ve all heard the term “self-righteous” enough to know that it’s a not a good thing. Nobody wants to be known as “self-righteous,” but what exactly does it mean? Merriam-Webster defines it as being “convinced of one’s own righteousness especially in contrast with the actions and beliefs of others.” In other words, if you are self-righteous it does not mean that your behavior is objectively good. It simply means that you think your behavior is better than others. No sane person would claim to be perfect, but we’d all like to think that we are better than most, in the same way that all parents are convinced that their children are above average.

Self-righteousness assumes that God grades on a curve. This is why the sinful nature in each of us secretly takes great pleasure in discovering the faults of others. It’s why tabloids magazines continue to sell even when everyone knows they’re full of lies. It’s why gossip is such a beloved and enjoyable sin. Every time a truly wicked sinner is unmasked, our own standing improves—or so we think. And when I say “we”, I’m talking about that sinful nature that lives within each one of us.

If you get a D on an exam but your teacher uses a curved grading scale, you would rejoice to hear that everyone one in the class got an F. Your D just became an A. And this is exactly how self-righteousness works. It is always on the lookout for sins in others, hoping by this to improve its own score. You see, deep down we all know that nobody can measure up to the requirements of God’s law. No one is perfect. No one can actually score an A. So self-righteousness must resort to finding fault in others.

Our Gospel text begins with this introduction: “Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Lk 18:9). Self-righteousness always goes hand in hand with looking for evil in others. And this is the opposite of love. Whereas love covers up a multitude of sins, self-righteousness delights to expose them for all to see. Love is eager to forgive; self-righteousness uses the sins of others as a twisted form of currency to try to buy God’s favor. But since God requires that we love our neighbors, self-righteousness, which treats others with contempt, can never improve our standing before God. In fact, it only adds to our guilt.

Today, driven by this increasing sense of guilt, self-righteousness has taken a bizarre new expression. Mainline churches all falling over themselves to prove that they are more tolerant of sin than the next. Never mind what God calls sin, our culture has decreed that the only real sin is intolerance. “Are you caught up in the sin of adultery? Well, join our church where we celebrate and encourage you to continue in that. We are so much more loving and tolerant than those fundamentalist Christians who still believe in that outdated thing called repentance. What? You think abortion is murder? How intolerant. We all know that the Fifth Commandment is about not murdering polar bears and endangered butterflies.”

Guilty people will try to find self-righteousness in a host of strange places: “I only drink from paper straws. I drive an electric car. I never go out in public without a mask. I know how to distinguish between real news and fake news, unlike all the other sheep who can’t tell the difference. I support blue lives. I don’t support blue lives, because five minutes ago the media told me it’s not PC anymore.” Apart from Christ, the whole world is caught up in virtue-signaling, that is pretending to be good, upright, tolerant, loving individuals, when it’s only a façade. According to God’s holy Law, there is none righteous, no, not one. Self-righteousness, which comes from putting others down, cannot make us righteous before God. It is the opposite of loving our neighbor and, in fact, only makes us more guilty.

I said at the beginning that there are two ways into heaven: by your own works, or by the work of Christ. If you consider the words of the Pharisee, it’s obvious which one of these he was counting on: “I am not like other men. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.” His faith is in himself. His prayer is all about what he has done. He mistakenly believes that righteousness before God can come from within: his righteous deeds, his pure motives, his loving heart. But of course, any honest look at the human heart will always reveal that we have fallen far short of the glory of God. Theoretically, one could earn heaven by living a perfect life in thought, word, and deed, from conception till death. But no one born of a human father and mother has ever done this. All have sinned. There is none righteous.

What does self-righteousness do with this knowledge? It tries to throw its neighbor under the bus. “I may not be perfect, but at least I’m not really wicked like other men, sinners…especially this detestable tax collector over here.” But God does not grade on a curve. His holy, righteous character demands absolute perfection. He always rejects the sacrifice of self-righteousness, just as he rejected the offering of Cain. Self-righteousness might make you feel better about yourself. It might even get you a pat on the back from our virtue-signaling world. But it won’t help you out before God, and it certainly doesn’t help your neighbor. You can’t live a perfect life, and pointing out your neighbor’s sins won’t excuse your own. Self-righteousness is a trap that can never truly make one righteous.

So then, how should we live? As Abel did: by faith. This is the only sacrifice that can please God: faith in the work of Jesus. Only Jesus loved his neighbor without a shred of self-interest. Only he has the perfect righteousness that God requires in order to enter heaven. When the tax collector prayed, he didn’t talk about his works at all. His only prayer was, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Lk 18:13). Notice who is doing the work in that sentence. The only action is “be merciful” and God is doing it. The tax collector’s faith is in what God has done, that is, in the perfect life and obedient death of Jesus on the cross. Only on that basis can a man hope to become righteous before God.

There is no need for fake self-righteousness when you have already been given the true righteousness of Jesus. You didn’t earn it. No one ever could. You simply received this precious gift by faith. God declared you righteous on account of his Son’s sacrifice. And this is good news, not just for you, but also for your neighbor. Since you already have God’s favor, there’s no longer any need to prove that you’re better than your neighbor. You don’t become righteous at his expense. You were made righteous at Christ’s expense. And knowing this enables you to actually and truly love your neighbor as only a Christian can do. The self-righteous man always needs to talk about what he has done that his neighbor hasn’t, yet his guilt remains. But the Christian cries out in faith, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This is your prayer. And God hears your prayer and declares you righteous and worthy of heaven for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.