A Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Richard Laribee
Imagine finding ourselves in a gathering of disreputable sinners, notorious outlaws, infamous ne`er-do-wells: the very dregs of society. What would you say in such a gathering?
Imagine the opportunity to proclaim Good News, both astonishing and incredible, that God confronts such people with arms wide open. Grace! Peace! Redemption! Reconciliation!
I can imagine painting a picture for a collection of thieves, rogues, adulterers and traitors, of this publican. Picture him, standing apart from the temple, eyes lowered, head fallen, shoulders drooped. Barely daring to whisper, “O God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
But there is a problem with my imagination. Were I to use this image for thieves, rogues, adulterers and traitors, this Gospel in such a gathering, the problem is that I would be completely ignoring the intention for which Jesus told this powerful parable. Listen again to the very first line of our Gospel:
To whom it may concern: Those who believe they have their ducks all in a row, those who have it all together, and who view those other people with contempt, this one’s for you. This Gospel was not given for the thieves, rogues, adulterers and traitors. This parable was given to us, for us, about… us.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer has been practiced for centuries, especially among the Eastern Orthodox, and other Christians who are very interested in interior life, in spirituality. It goes like this: Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Of course, it finds its origin in today’s Gospel. The people who use this prayer are trying to find a way to deepen their experience of God beyond what most people ever dream is even possible. The people who use it are trying to act on the Scripture, which says, “Pray without ceasing.” To literally pray without ceasing, we need a prayer that is short enough to remember, short enough to tie to our own breathing, and powerful enough to transform our inner life.
Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. By practicing this, we focus our attention on God: Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God. While attending to God, we also attend to our relationship with God: have mercy on me, a sinner. This prayer keeps things in their proper order. Jesus Christ, first and foremost. And our relationship with God – which is not based on our worthiness, but on God’s mercy.
Perhaps, had this prayer been a central part of the religious life of Israel, Jesus might not have needed to tell the parable to them. Perhaps, were this prayer central in our religious life, we might not need to hear this parable. But it’s not part of our life, and we do need to hear it, for it turns out that we do the very thing this parable is warning us about.
There were two men, said Jesus. One a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. Of course, you understand that in that time, in that place, a “tax collector” is not what we think of as tax collector. A publican, a tax collector, in first century Palestine was a traitor: a Jewish collaborator with the Roman invaders, selling out his own people to the enemy occupation, selling his soul to the Roman devils, making himself rich at the expense of his own neighbors and relatives. In addition, understand what a Pharisee is. We’re so familiar with how the Pharisees are shown in the Gospels that we tend to equate the word “Pharisee” with the word “hypocrite.” We think of them as the villains, the guys in the black hats. But that is to completely miss the point of what Jesus was doing. In that culture, the Pharisees were the shining examples of faithfulness, commitment, integrity, and prayerfulness. To make a shocking point, Jesus intentionally contrasted the image of the most respectable person in that culture over against the most disreputable person. Were Jesus to tell the parable in our culture today, he would be very hard pressed to find anyone with the kind of respect and reputation the Pharisees had earned. Sad to say, the clergy in our culture do not enjoy that kind of respect. Nor do community leaders. Perhaps Jesus would say, “two people went up to pray: One, Mother Theresa; the other, an FBI agent who had been exposed for selling secrets to the enemy.” We think of her as a hero, not a hypocrite. And that’s what Jesus was trying to do: He was trying to find an example of the most innocent, the most righteous, the most respectable to contrast against the most despicable traitor.
On the one hand, here is this righteous, committed, faithful person: “O God, I thank you. O God, here I am, so grateful, so thankful. O God, I eucharist. O God, here we are in church, praying, gathered around the eucharistic table, giving thanks to you. I thank you that I am not like those other people, those thieves, rogues, adulterers and traitors. Why, I fast twice a week… I give tithes of all that I get.”
Now Jesus is not criticizing fasting, or giving tithes, or praying, or celebrating the eucharist, or being faithful, or worshipping, or being respectable. He isn’t criticizing any of those things. For whom was this parable given? For some who thought that they were righteous… and regarded others with contempt.
“I thank you that I am not as others… thieves, rogues,
adulterers, or even this tax collector.”
So on the one hand, here is this righteous, committed, faithful person. But on the other hand, here is this tax collector. He knows what he is. He knows he sold out his people. He knows he betrayed them. He knows that his own house was built from the pain, oppression, poverty, blood and robbery of his own friends, family, and neighbors while he served the Roman occupation army. He stood apart, knowing his own treason, unable to raise his head, “O God… have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Now at this point, what we would really like to do is to re-write this parable. We’d much prefer the parable to say, “And, having come to his senses, he went home, sold all his possessions, made restitution, and became a Sunday school teacher.” We’d much rather that Jesus had said the tax collector went home justified only after he first changed his behavior and made restitution. But what is so shocking is that Jesus refused to say that.
One of the clichés often heard among us is this: “The reason why we can’t judge another person is that it is impossible to know what is in another person’s heart. Only God knows. We are not mind readers. So we never judge another person’s motives or thoughts. However, we can evaluate another person’s actions. Another person’s heart may be hidden to us, but their behavior is open for all the world to see.”
But consider! The Pharisee’s contempt, which Jesus condemns, is not contempt for motives or intentions but for public behavior. Not inner thoughts, but the actions that are open for the entire world to see.
Thieves – refers not just to greedy, coveting, stingy attitudes… but to behavior. Theft. Robbery.
Rogues – refers to those who commit wicked behavior… such as outlaws, criminals.
Adulterers – not just those who want to sneak a peek, the lustful, but those actually commit adultery.
Tax collectors – those who had betrayed their own people, selling out to the Romans, for dishonest gain.
This Pharisee was not regarding with contempt the presumed yet unknown inner motives and thoughts of other people: He was regarding with contempt those who sinned publicly, openly. In was not the hidden motivations but the public behavior he condemned. He is a believer in God, a man of faith, a man of prayer, a man of morality. And he has drawn a line in the sand. He is against immorality. He is not going to stand for that sort of behavior. He stands against the immoral, public behavior of community and denominational leaders.
Don’t misunderstand me: The Gospel is not approving of the thief, rogue, adulterer, tax collector, nor any other behavior we wish to mention – or leave unmentioned. The Gospel is not saying that evil is good. All it is saying is that if we want a right relationship with God, then quit worrying about other people’s behavior.
What we’d like the Parable to say is that the immoral man came to his senses, confessed his sin, changed his life, and became a man of faith both in his heart and his behavior. But Jesus carefully avoids saying that. And worse, this other man, the man of faith, the man of prayer, and man of morality, went home condemned.
It’s estimated that 45,000 people will die by the end of this year in automobile crashes. I would imagine that many of them were right… they had the right of the way. But so what? What good is it to be right -- if it kills us? What good is it if we’re morally right – but not right with God? What good is to be a person of faith, a person of prayer, theologically, morally right – but condemned by God? Jesus told this parable for us… those who believe themselves right with God, and who regard with contempt those who behave badly.
It’s time for us to quit worrying about the morality of other people. We might be right in taking a stand against the behavior and choices of other people: We might be right – but we won’t be right with God. And in the end – what does it matter if we’re morally right – but at odds with God?
Others criticized Jesus Christ as having no standards. He’d be friends with anybody. It’s not that he actually approved of immorality – it’s just that Jesus never seemed to think it was all that important. He never drew the line in the sand. He wouldn’t take a stand. He never thought that standing against moral decline was the way of the Gospel. He was doing something far more important – he was bringing the Light of God into the world. In contrast to Jesus, we demand moral clarity. We have higher standards. We draw the line against immorality. We are against those kind of people. We stand against that kind of behavior.
It would have been so much easier had Jesus said simply that we are all sinners… that before God no one is pure. That the true believer and the moral person both have enough sin that before God we are no better than the thief, the criminal, the adulterer, or the traitor. It would be one thing for Jesus to say that we’re not better than one another, we’re all sinners, we all need forgiveness. That we could understand.
Instead: he offers a most shocking reversal: Rather than saying we are all the same, he says the opposite. Like Thunderdome: Two men enter; One man leaves. One man justified; one condemned. The moral believer who condemned the immoral tax collector went home rejected by God for only one reason: He viewed himself righteous while regarding others with contempt.
We want to re-write this parable, because, frankly, it is about us. We are the Pharisee. We want the freedom to condemn other people’s behavior. We want to pretend that we are on the right side with God, in contrast to people who are committing certain kinds of behaviors, certain actions, certain sins, who are not on the right side with God. We want to believe that we have not only the right, but the moral imperative to take a stand against them.
Let me be perfectly clear: Jesus was not approving immoral behavior. But he was saying that there is only one way to be in a right relationship with God. When we permit ourselves to regard with contempt those we consider immoral, then we are not in that right relationship. When we permit ourselves to condemn other people’s actions, behaviors, or choices – we only cut ourselves off from a right relationship with God. Contempt for others because of their sinful actions, behaviors and choices is precisely what we are not allowed to do.
Will the friends of Jesus err on the side of the moralism? Or on the side of grace?
When we err on the side of moralism, Jesus offers us this parable. He gives fair warning that after we’re done praying, after we’ve gone to church, after we’ve gone to Eucharist – we might yet go home rejected by God. And the very people that we stood against may be the ones, in the end, who are accepted by God.
If we’d rather err on the side of grace, then Jesus assures us of this: He will pour out his grace on us. Give grace to others. Let them off the hook. God pours out his grace, not only on them, but also on us!
Instead of waiting until Jesus comes – why don’t we just give up the war now? Why not give in to the grace of Jesus now? Why don’t we quit taking stands on this issue or that? Rather than taking stands, we don’t we just fall to our knees? Why don’t we quit worrying about other people’s sins… and become grateful to God for his mercy poured out so graciously, so lavishly, so indiscriminately on all sinners – those people and us? So what if somebody gets away with something wicked, something immoral, something sinful? Isn’t that really God’s problem, not ours? What if we quit praying for God to help us in our struggle against the behavior of others… and we prayed about our own behavior? Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Let nothing more than the love of Jesus Christ and his grace fall from your lips. Let grace abound.
Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.