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Have Mercy On Me Luke 18:9-14 9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Dads, do you have any opinion about the man who marries your daughter? We only have a few dads in our church who have experienced what it is like to have their daughter legally kidnapped by another man. That’s what it is, isn’t it? Any man who steals your daughter from you is participating is legally sanctioned extortion and kidnapping. I don’t own any guns, but when Kellyn hits 16, I may just need to go shopping for a shotgun. Dads, is it safe to say that you do have opinions about who your daughters choose for a lifelong mate? Of course we care just as much about our sons, but high powered weapons are not generally necessary in those cases. Dads, let me describe two suitors and then let you decide which one you would choose for your daughter. We’ll call the first guy Steve. Steve grew up in a middle class family and is an owner of a small business. Steve is not rich, but he has already accumulated some healthy assets. He always treats his employees fairly and he is well respected by the community in which he lives. Best of all, he is zealous follower of God. He studies the word of God on a daily basis and has huge portions of it memorized. Though he lives in the world, he is not tainted by it because he strives for the highest standards in moral purity. So dads, would you like your daughters to marry Steve, or would you prefer she marry the next guy named Sam? Sam grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He is a high school dropout who eventually worked his way up to become an entry level government employee. It didn’t take Sam long to notice that all of his fellow employees were stealing from the government, so he decides to do it also. Why not—it’s an easy way to make a little money. Besides, his boss is doing it too. Sam has one or two work buddies he hangs out with, but otherwise, no one likes Sam—actually, most people genuinely dislike him. Unfortunately Sam doesn’t have a strong faith. He says he believes in God, but you couldn’t tell from looking at him. He always skips church on the weekends and sometimes he drinks too much. So who do you choose for your daughter—Steve or Sam? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, Steve, not Sam, is going to get invited home for dinner. But here is where Steve and Sam meet up with Jesus’ parable. Steve is the modern equivalent of the Pharisee in the story and Sam is the tax collector. This may sound a bit surprising to you, but let’s assume you lived in the first century and your daughter brought home a Pharisee named Steve (well, maybe not Steve—how ‘bout Solomon!) Chances are very good you would really like this guy. He would have been a well-mannered, highly respected member of the community. Many daughters would have liked to have married a respectable Pharisee. But we wouldn’t want our daughters to marry a Pharisee. Why is that? There are two reasons we have such a low view of Pharisees—because we did not live in the first century and everything we know about Pharisees has come from Jesus. Jesus hammered the Pharisees in the gospels, but the average Jewish citizen would have never done this. Pharisees were not despised, rather they were admired for their dedication to God’s law and their concern for the average Jew. Even if some Jews recognized hypocrisy in the Pharisees, they never would have spoken out. This parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is so familiar to most of us that we already know what is coming. We immediately recognize that the Pharisee is brimming with self-righteous pride and is about to be put in his place by Jesus. If we have read this parable even once we know that we are not supposed to be like this guy. But in order to fully understand this parable, we need to place ourselves in this first century context and be free of Jesus judgment of the Pharisees. Imagine if we were close enough to see these two men and listen in on their prayers. Would we be turned off by the Pharisee or enamored by him? He would have been an impressive sight, all decked out in his finest robes. He came as close to the center of worship as he could without crawling on the altar. He felt that he deserved to be close to God and we would have agreed with him. When he prayed, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, we would have thought, “Yes God—thank you for reserving these holy men and setting them apart.” When he listed off the actual sinners—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—we would have whispered “Amen! After all, robbers break the 8th commandment—“Do not steal,” and adulterers break the 7th commandment. This Pharisee is obviously nothing like them. Finally the Pharisee glances condescendingly behind him as he concludes the list of sinners—“or even like this tax collector.” If they could have made such a thing, I am sure there would have been Jews that walked around carrying signs which read, “God hates tax collectors” or “Hey tax collectors! Turn or burn!!” Everyone knew tax collectors were the pariahs of society and this Pharisee was the extreme opposite of such a sinner. So far we like this guy and we agree with his prayer. We continue to listen as he said, “I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” This last part really impresses us because Pharisees were only required to fast once per week and they did not have to tithe every last spice and scrap of food, but this particular Pharisees went above and beyond the call of duty. He was truly a holy man, set apart from the sins of this world. And to top it all off, he was a thankful person. He thanked God for the blessing of being a Pharisee and not a low-life tax collector. If we had lived in the first century and heard this man’s prayer, we would have liked him. This is the shock value of Jesus’ parable. We are drawn into the story with these two characters fully expecting that the Pharisee will be praised and the tax collector condemned. If you were listening to Jesus tell this parable for the first time, that would have been your clear expectation. But Jesus shocked his audience by condemning the Pharisee and praising the tax collector. Jesus’ intent was to shock his listeners so they would ask the all-important question, “Am I more like the Pharisee or the tax collector?” “Am I ‘poor in spirit’ or do I have a lot to offer God and his people?” When we see the parable through Jesus eyes we know that the Pharisee is a blatantly prideful person. The temptation is to think that we are nothing like him because our pride is not usually so obvious. Most people don’t go around boasting of their greatness like this country western song. Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble Nor do we know people like this fifth grade girl who came home very excited
from school one day. She had been voted "prettiest girl in the class." The next
day she was even more excited when she came home, for the class had voted her
"the most likely to succeed." The next day she came home and told her mother she
had won a third contest, being voted "the most popular." We would rightly be shocked to hear such over the top examples of pride, but Jesus’ parable has lost most of its shock value because we know the outcome—the respectful man is filled with self-sufficient pride and the societal outcast is painfully aware of his need for mercy. But as I thought about this I realized that this parable still has the same shock value as Jesus originally intended. The sin of the Pharisee was that he passed judgment upon the tax collector. He considered himself better than the tax collector. But as we read this familiar parable 2000 years later, what do we do? We don’t pass judgment on the tax collector, we pass judgment on the Pharisee! When I read this I can’t help but thinking, “Lord, I thank you that I am not like this Pharisee.” Do you see what I have done? Just as the Pharisee was convinced that he was far superior to the tax collector, I have convinced myself that I am far better than the Pharisee. And in so doing, I become the Pharisee! This parable still has shock value because each time we read it we see ourselves in the Pharisee. Furthermore, if you don’t see yourself as a Pharisee, that is proof that you are! The moment I think I am not prideful is the point of my greatest pride.
What separates you from a Muslim in Indonesia? Your vast spiritual insight? Your humble, God-seeking ways? The only thing that separates us from any other person on the planet is Christ and his mercy. We are not ounce better than the Indonesian Muslim man who prays to Allah five times a day. We are no better than the Buddhist woman who lights a morning candle in front of her Buddha statue. We are no better than the new age folks in our community who worship mother earth and hug trees. We are no better than the gay and lesbian people who want the world to see them as natural. The only thing that separates us from any other person is Christ and his mercy, and the moment you think otherwise, you have just become this prideful Pharisee. In 1994 India considered importing cow dung from the Netherlands in an effort to promote organic farming. India is a land of 400 million cattle so they certainly had no shortage of cow manure. Protesting dairy farmers took to the streets and filled eleven large carts with cow manure destined for the front steps of the country's Parliament building in New Delhi. Police armed with bamboo sticks blocked the demonstrators from entering the city so the protesters dumped their loads at a major intersection. These Indian farmers were deeply offended that their own government would consider Dutch cow manure better than Indian cow manure. Do you see the essence of their protest? Their message was, “Our manure is better than your manure”[3] When we believe that we are better than someone else, this is also our message: “Our manure is better than your manure!” That’s precisely what this Pharisee did. Imagine him standing before the altar of the Lord with his beautiful flowing robes and smug appearance praying, “Lord, I thank you that my cow manure is better than this tax collector’s cow manure.” Spiritually speaking, this is what we bring to the table—cow manure. In Philippans 3 the apostle Paul recounted his spiritual resume: “circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.” (vv. 5-6) You cannot possibly get a better Jewish resume than Paul’s. If he were a pastoral candidate, every church in the nation would be clamoring to hire him. He could not have been more proud of his spiritual pedigree—that is until he met Jesus. Do you recall what he thought of these things after he met Jesus? He said, “I consider them rubbish.” Let me stop for a quick Greek lesson. I don’t usually take the time to teach Greek in a sermon, but this one will be vitally important for your spiritual life. The word that Paul uses for rubbish in Phil. 3 is “skubala”. Let’s say that together—skubala. Do you know what skubala means? It means cow poop. So Paul actually said, Everything I thought was worth something was just cow poop. The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable was really proud of his cow poop. Sorry, I’ll go back to the word manure, but you get the point. The tax collector was fully aware that all he had to offer God was a pile of cow manure, and he was not about to be proud of that. That is why he beat his chest and begged God for mercy. He asked for and received the only thing of worth—Christ and his mercy. The only thing which keeps any of us from being a Pharisee is Christ and his mercy. There is such a powerful force which pulls us into living like a Pharisee and being proud of our cow manure. Here is how you know if you are a Pharisee. You are a Pharisee if…you say, “Lord, I am glad I am not like…” Who is the person you compare yourself to? How often have you attempted to boost your self-esteem by comparing your life with another’s. Except for Christ and his mercy, you are no better than anyone—so quit pretending.
You are a Pharisee if…you think your sin is less offensive than your neighbors. I just gossip, I don’t commit acts of homosexuality. I have lust in my heart, but I would never cheat on my wife. Trying to rank sins is like trying to place cow manure into gradations of quality. “I’ve got ‘Grade A’ cow manure over here while that guy clearly has inferior cow manure.” One man’s rubbish is just like another man’s rubbish. One woman’s sin is like another women’s sin. Only Pharisees think their sin is less offensive than someone else’s.
You are a Pharisee if…you think you can live the Christian life in your own strength. Self-sufficiency is not only wrong—it’s just not smart. What if I looked in my bank account every day and found a zero balance—what would I do? I would have to be completely dependent on the mercy of others for everything. Every day I wake up and see that same zero balance and every day live in dependency on others. When we try to live in our own strength it is like trying to buy groceries with a zero bank balance—it just doesn’t make any sense! That’s what Jesus meant when he said “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Spiritually speaking we are bankrupt. If we think we have spiritual riches then we don’t think we need mercy. It is like saying a prayer of thankfulness for your cow manure. But when we know we are spiritually bankrupt, then we must ask for mercy.
Rich Maurer April 19, 2006 |