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The Pharisee and the Tax Collector Use a skipping rope to see how high the rope needs to be before one can no longer get over it. Tell the story of the purchase of my wooden chair/ladder. The parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee is found only in the Gospel of St Luke. Naming any story is an interesting exercise because it can predetermine how we understand the story. Thus we need to pay attention to how we choose to name Jesus’ parables remembering that we are naming them, not Jesus. Thinking about this, the parable can also be called the parable of the two prayers. Or the parable of two kinds of hearts or attitudes. What Luke is explicit about, is the target audience for whom Jesus intended the parable. “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector”. In Jesus' day the Pharisees were the strict Jews. They were highly educated and respected religious leaders. They were disciplined. They took the Mosaic Law seriously and went to great lengths to obey not only the letter of the Mosaic laws but also built a number of hedge laws around those laws in order never to break them. The tax collectors, on the other hand, followed another law entirely -- the law of the Roman oppressors. It was their job to collect taxes for the Romans. They bid on the contract for collecting taxes for a certain district. If the won they contract they would be responsible for delivering to the Romans the amount of money agreed upon. Any money accrued over and above the amount owing to the Romans they were free to keep for themselves. Tax collectors were considered the scum of the earth. They weren't just hated because they were considered turncoats and traitors. They were also considered cheaters and leeches. They would sometimes even assess more tax than was legal. If a farmer or businessman couldn't or wouldn't pay, they would turn him over to the Romans. Extortion and threats were part of this system. What the story focuses on however is the ways in which these two men pray. "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. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' (18:11-12) His entire prayer is about himself, using the first person pronoun 5 times in his prayer. He thanks God -- not for blessings -- but that he isn't a sinner like others more specifically like the tax collector standing near him. He then goes on to give God a testimonial about himself reminding God how pious he is. As Jesus tells the story, I can almost hear a ripple of laughter sweep over the crowd. They all recognize the type of Pharisee Jesus is describing. Jesus' description might have been a slight caricature of the Pharisees, but not too much of a stretch. There was a well known prayer amongst such religious men that went as follows: Blessed be you O God for not making me a gentile. Blessed be you O God for not making me a slave. Blessed be you O God for not making me a woman! Hardly a prayer wouldn’t you say. One might argue that anyone who is proud cannot pray. The gate of heaven is so low that none can enter it save upon one’s knees. By way of contrast, the tax collector's prayer is short and honest. Oh Lord, have mercy on me a sinner. First, he addresses God, just as the Pharisee had done. Next, instead of telling God all the good things about himself, he delivers a realistic appraisal of his sinful lifestyle. Notice that he makes no excuses for his behaviour, offers no mitigating circumstances. He confesses his sinfulness before God and takes full responsibility for it. Finally, he asks for mercy. He is obviously humble and repentant of his sins, but his faith has made him bold to ask for something that he has no right to expect – he calls on God’s grace asking for forgiveness and restoration. At this point in the story Jesus makes a judgement call on the two prayers. "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God." (18:14a) Wow Jesus chose the tax collectors prayer of the Pharisee’s. That’s a bit like choosing Hitler’s prayer over the Pope’s prayer. The reason that Jesus prefers the tax collectors prayer is simply this. The tax collector gets what the real question at hand is. The real question is not am I as good as my neighbour? The real question is am I as good as God? To which the answer has surely always got to be No! The gate of heaven is so low that none can enter it save upon one’s knees. Refer to the skipping rope. If the bar is yay high then surely the only way to get passed it is to go under it. Can you imagine the impact Jesus' parable had on the Pharisees present? They must have been livid with anger. How about the crowd? They were amazed, wondering, pondering. But the prostitutes and tax collectors, thieves and adulterers in the audience may have been weeping with relief, for Jesus had declared that it was possible for them to be saved, to be forgiven, to be cleansed, to be justified before God. There was hope for them yet. Jesus had given them hope. Recently I attended a leadership day at Laidlaw college and we spent some time exploring what the Gospel of Jesus really was. We discussed how if what we were sharing with others about Jesus was not good news then it could not be the Gospel of Jesus. What the Pharisee was sharing was certainly not good news to the tax collector was it? We might reflect on this question: In what sense is the Gospel good news? The good news of salvation through Jesus Christ is that it gives hope to the world, all the world, not just the bit we inhabit. It gives hope to the trapped the marginalised enabling them to be accepted, to belong and to be freed from the guilt and shame that may be binding them. If we are to be proclaimers of this Gospel we too must receive this hope for ourselves and then pass it on to others. Now here’s the rub. The Pharisee was doing the exact opposite through his self-righteous behaviour and stance as he prayed. Go back to the chair. Turn it into a ladder. Elevate yourself on the ladder. What makes the Pharisee’s behaviour so despicable was that he elevated himself at the expense of the tax collector. He effectively stood on the tax collector’s reputation in order to make himself look better just as I am standing on this ladder. Such arrogance and self-righteousness Jesus condemns. “God I thank you that I am not like other men, robbers evildoers adulterers or even like this tax collector!” So how does this story speak into our lives? Who or what do we stand on to make ourselves taller? Think about it when we criticise others we do so to make ourselves feel good or better. We could do a better job. They are not any better than we are. In fact at least we …… When we gossip about others it has the same effect. We are not as bad as that we are effectively implying. How often do we talk down to people who we perceive to be less worthy than we are: the person doing a lowly job with English as a second language, The person whose religious views are different from ours. The person who is less able to perform a skill or a task as well as we can. False pride, i.e. pride based on an inflated opinion of ourselves at the expense of others separates us from our fellow human beings by putting them down. False pride gives us a stiff neck and an unteachable spirit. True humility based on the realistic understanding that we are by our very nature all sinners and imperfect and have fallen short of the glory of God, enables us to identify with others recognising that we all share the common struggle of what it means to be human. Humility opens doors with its power to sympathise with the struggle we share. Humility gives us a teachable spirit. Pride turns up its nose; humility offers an open and helping hand. In this series of parables Jesus is laying the groundwork for the kind of people whom God accepts. The Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge (18:1-8) which David preached on last week, teaches the importance of persistent faith even when we feel lowly and inadequate, while this parable teaches the saving power of humility before God. Jesus teaches that the only way up to God is down. That is the subversive riddle of His Gospel. Refer back to the two props: The ladder chair The skipping rope. |
