Trinity 11 Service

St. Luke 18:9–14

[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Last of all, as to one untimely born, [Christ] appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

St. Paul wrote those words in his first letter to the Corinthians (part of our epistle lesson for today). He had regrets in this life. He’d been ‘Saul,’ who went from town to town with authority from the Jewish rulers. They’d commissioned him to round up Christ’s followers. He was to bring them bound to Jerusalem (Acts 9).

Jesus had told his disciples: They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake (Luke 21:12). That was Saul (among others)—laying hands on Christ’s followers, persecuting them, delivering them up to the synagogues and prisons, bringing them before kings and governors. His campaign of terror was an example of what Christ had foretold.

It had been stopped only by the grace of God (as Paul writes in our epistle lesson). Jesus confronted this Pharisee on the road to Damascus. He gave him opportunity to put aside the harm he was inflicting (in God’s name, so he thought) in favor of a Christian ministry that truly glorified God (the ministry included him preaching God’s grace in Christ, and writing much of the New Testament).

Paul was made humble when he came to know God’s grace in Christ. Now he knew he wasn’t righteous in himself; he needed the One Whom God had provided to make him righteous. He needed Christ. He knew this, now; and that was good. But he would live the rest of his life regretting what he’d done.

The Bible doesn’t leave any room for a person to think he’s righteous without Christ. You who would be justified by the law [apart from Christ, that means]; you have fallen away from grace (Galatians 5:4)—those are Paul’s words in another letter. Grace means that God gives a free gift of righteousness to sinners who otherwise could never be what He requires, could never measure up for His kingdom. He makes them righteous in spite of themselves. He does it by putting Christ’s righteousness on them like a garment that they wear. He does it through the Spirit’s work in Baptism and the Word. It’s the opposite of a person presuming he could save himself by obeying the Law. Grace is God saving him from sin’s punishment free of charge; the law is him impossibly trying to do it himself.

The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable has chosen that second option—trying to be righteous in himself, without Christ. Under other circumstances, if you were to hear that a man had stood in God’s House and said the words, I thank you, you might think his address to God would have been well received by Him. After all, he could have been saying with King David in Psalm 138, I give you thanks for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word; or like in Psalm 118 (28): I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. He could have been saying (as you have this morning in The Gloria in Excelsis Deo): …we give thanks to You, for Your great glory. O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty. Thanks directed in that way would certainly be God-pleasing.

The Pharisee is going a different direction with those words—I thank you, though. He says, I thank you that I am not like other men. Other men are such sinners that they can’t help themselves into God’s kingdom, he means. Other men actually have things to confess before God. God has to concern Himself with these people (though not me). They have things to actually feel guilty about. He goes on to list a number of ways he isn’t like them. They're extortioners or unjust. On the contrary, he fasts even more than the law says he needs to. He tithes more than the law requires too.

Jesus is really demonstrating in this parable what being bound for God’s kingdom looks like and doesn’t look like.

To the Pharisee it looks like a person standing before God confident that what he is makes the cut for God’s kingdom. It’s a person who doesn’t really have any shame before God because he expects that God will compare him with others, and he will fare well enough in that comparison. He may devour widows’ houses here and there (as Jesus charged about Pharisees one time); but there are others who do even worse things (that’s kind of how he’s thinking God will see it).

That’s appealing in a certain way, isn’t it? It’s comforting to think, no matter how bad we are, there’s always somebody that looks worse. What?! You're giving me a speeding ticket, officer? There were people flyin’ right past me! That’s how we tend to think about a number of things, right? The issue in our minds isn’t as much that we were doing wrong, as that someone else was doing more wrong.

I told the students in chapel the other day about a time I wrote in tiny letters on the graffiti-filled bathroom stall at school: “I was here.” It was hardly the crime of the century (though it was a breaking of the rules). The principal hauled me down to the scene of the crime and made me clean every bit of graffiti off the stall—even though my part in it had been so tiny. I’d said, What?! But my part in it was so small compared to what others had done. I was trying to excuse my sin based on the gravity of others’ sins. I was guilty; that’s all that really mattered. By nature, we kind of think as long as there’s somebody else who’s a worse sinner than we are, we’ll get lenient treatment from God.

Jesus sees it differently in our text. In the end, about the one thinking in this way (comparing himself to others)—this one instructing God on how he should view his life, Jesus says that he didn’t go down to his house justified; meaning: God hasn’t excused this man’s sinfulness (even though the man himself has). As far as God is concerned, this man will answer for his sins regardless of the situation with the tax collector nearby or anyone else.

It’s about that other man in the Temple that day that Jesus says, this man went down to his house justified. And that’s interesting because that man—the tax collector, isn’t even trying to hide his sin. He’s putting it right out there. He’s beating his breast in shame. He’s hanging his head. He’s standing in the shadows. His words: ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’—are a prayer to God; but they express the same sentiment as St. Paul’s words with which we began our message—his words of great regret: I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. This man’s sin hadn’t been of the same sort as Paul’s, but he was filled with regret over it. He knew that he needed forgiveness for it.

And unlike the Pharisee, he was saying the words God wants to hear from every sinner: have mercy on me. Nothing is sweeter to His ears, because everything he wants for that person can be that case then. The mercy that He has punished His own perfect Son to provide can be applied to the account of that sinner as free and full forgiveness. The righteousness of Jesus, who has no sins of his own to confess, can be put onto that person, erasing all shame and regret.

You have shame and regret just like St. Paul had, and just like the tax collector in the parable had. You might describe yourself similarly to how Paul did, considering Christ to have appeared last of all to you, as to one untimely born—the least of all those who have been called, unworthy to be such because of your sins. But then, knowing that, why would you hold onto those things as if God hasn’t already provided the solution to them? Why would you try to make a Pharisaical claim before Him, as if pointing out others’ sins would be of any help to you?

Christ is the answer. Go before Him along with the tax collector and simply say, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ And then along with him go away justified. Go away knowing that (as Paul says in the epistle), by the grace of God you are what you are—a citizen of God’s eternal kingdom—that place filled with forgiven sinners who have forsaken their own righteousness and put themselves at God’s mercy in Christ. That mercy is for you and any person who wants it. You are forgiven because of Christ. To Him be all glory and honor, both now and forevermore. Amen.