If there is one thing we’re learning over these weeks, it is that life in the reign of God is not about competition.  Life in the reign of God is not about making comparisons.  We have a story before us about two men who went to pray, but only one of them prayed.  It’s a story that tells us something about prayer for sure.  It’s a story about two figures in the Gospel of Luke with whom we have become familiar.  The self-righteous pharisee, looking down at other sinners.  The tax collector who is humbling himself before God, much like the tax collectors who have turned to Jesus and are eager to spend time with him.  We see how this story is going to unfold from kilometres away.  We know all about self-righteousness versus grace and living in the grace of God.  We’re not haughty.  We never look down on others.  Do we?   Not even the self-righteous?

Let me say at the outset that I think that the worst thing that could happen here this morning would be for us to leave here missing something fundamental about this parable.  To go away from here thinking, “Thank God I am not like that Pharisee!”  The worst thing that could happen would be for us to miss seeing ourselves in this parable. Let us not miss seeing ourselves as we consider the picture that Jesus draws of these two men in the temple.

Let us not look at these two men stereotypically. I don’t believe that Jesus is merely dealing in stereotypes here.  It doesn’t strike me as something Jesus would do.  He always saw the person, didn’t he?  Now the very word “Pharisaic” has come to mean something in our language.  It’s used to describe a religious person who is smug or judgemental in their actions, particularly if their actions prove that they are much less holy than they pretend to be.  Someone who is self-righteous.

What we mustn’t ever do is look to what Jesus said about Pharisees of his day and think, “Oh yes, they must have been terrible!”  The words that Jesus spoke to the Pharisees serve as warnings to us today.  At one point, he talked about being white-washed tombs – looking so good on the outside and dead on the inside.  He didn’t say these things so we could be here 2,000 years later going, “Tut tut!”  I don’t think Jesus would have been one to stereotype, and I don’t think that this story is meant to be representative of pharisaical thought or belief of the day any more than I think that the tax collector here is representative of tax collectors of the day.

A few words about both groups before we begin.  Pharisees were a group of people who wanted to figure out what it meant to live out the Torah in their context.  Sounds reasonable, yes?  The Torah was how the nation of Israel connected to God, how they knew God.  Pharisees wanted to figure out how the Torah touched every aspect of life.  They were serious about connecting with God.  They were out on the streets.  This is why Jesus was continually encountering them.  We might even call them missional today.  They observed the rules.  They gave away money.  They fasted.  This all meant something to them.  They were serious.  They were respected.  It’s like the person who is a lifelong church member attends services, gives faithfully.  Prays.  Serves. 

Further away, we have the tax collector.  He’s further away because he’s not allowed to stand within the inner part of the temple.  A collaborator with the occupying Roman forces.   A traitor.  One who is known for trying to get everything he can for himself.  One who is known for fleecing his own people.  An outcast.  Often ex-slaves or people without homes or land see no alternative to make a living.  Which makes me think that we always need to stop and consider circumstances which have left people where they are before we go about deciding how distasteful it is.

We’re invited to see ourselves in these characters.  It’s not simply a matter of seeing this story in terms of black and white, good and bad.  Life’s never that simple.  How many of us have been in the position of thinking, “God is lucky to have me on his side?”  or “I’m doing really well in this!”  How many of us have been in the position where we say, “I’ve done something so bad or so vile there’s no coming back from this?” 

To help us, let’s look at the parallels between the two men.    They are both seeking God where God may be found – the temple.  They’re both serious about their seeking.  They are both coming to God in prayer.  Sin – going wrong or going sideways - can creep into the middle of a lot of piety.  The Pharisee is thanking God, and this is a good thing.  There is nothing wrong with thanking God for the work that God has done in our lives, in our hearts.  The problem with the Pharisee’s prayer is that it is directed at himself.  It’s about himself.  He says “I” five times!  He’s making claims about his own goodness.  Look at all the things I do!  There is a problem when we come before God with claims of our own – our own goodness, our own superiority, our own whatever.  It might make us feel that God owes us something.  It might lead to comparing ourselves to others with more or less to claim before God.  The Pharisee’s posture is upward (and there’s nothing wrong with such a prayer posture), but the Pharisee is praying sideways.  He is doing what humans have been doing since time immemorial.  We do it individually.  We do it based on ethnicity/economics/gender.  We love to do it online in a world where we say we’re beyond judgement and watch reels of people behaving deplorably and commenting about how deplorable they are And this is how sin creeps into the most spiritual of conversations between us and God.  The Pharisee starts off very well “God, I thank you that I am…”   God, I thank you that you have made me more loving, more generous, more merciful, more you fill in the blank.  “I thank you that you have done this, God.”  Instead of casting his gaze upwards, the Pharisee casts his gaze sideways.  I thank you that I am not like other people.  Those people.  You know what I’m talking about.  This is the language that we use.  “I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”  Luckily there’s someone nearby to serve as an object lesson while the Pharisee tells God what’s going on.  I am not like them. 

The Pharisee is measuring himself by this sideways.  It’s what we do.  We like to compare ourselves favourably to others.  It makes us feel better about ourselves.  The whole celebrity gossip industry is built on this premise, right?  They’re just like us!  Or even better, they’re worse than us.  Look at how bad these celebs look on the beach or read about the latest affair or breakup scandal or custody battle or Twitter war etc. etc. etc.  It makes us feel better about ourselves.  It can even creep into our relationship with God, into our piety, and we start to think, “God’s really lucky to have me when I look down at these other people.  I’m doing pretty well in this thing compared to them.” 

I want to pause here and consider a question.  What claim do I have to make before God?  What claim will I have to make when I stand before God one day?  Claims on my own goodness?  Really?  I know myself.  If we take an honest look at ourselves, we have no doubt as to why Jesus said, “There is no one good but God.”  Claims on my own goodness that would cause me to say, “You owe me God – look what I did for you” or “Well, at least I wasn’t as bad as…”

I have no claim to make before God.  The only thing I have to do before God is throw myself on his grace, his unmerited good, his undeserved favour held out to me in the outstretched hands of his son.  What else could I do but pray down, beat my chest and pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

On the other side, we have this rogue tax collector.  Expectations are turned upside down in this parable.  It would be something akin to saying a church deacon stood and prayed, “Thank you, God, that I am not like them.”   A little ways off, a sex worker would not even look up to heaven but was beating his chest and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”  This is how shocking this story was.  This is not primarily a parable about how to pray, but it does teach us how to pray, and we’ll come back to this in a few minutes.  This is the parable of God’s mercy.  It’s a parable that reminds us not to rush to judgement.  We can’t claim to know anyone’s heart.  We can’t claim to know anyone’s standing before God.  We can’t claim to know the circumstances of people’s lives.”  As one writer puts it, “We live between the future judgements we make now and the surprises which the last judgement will bring.”

What are we to do in the face of this? 

Look up. 

This is what the tax collector is doing - figuratively speaking, as he didn’t even feel worthy to look up literally.  I mean looking up and comparing ourselves to the matchless holiness of God.  Crying out, “God be merciful to me, a sinner!”   Knowing by faith that when we do so, we are receiving God’s welcome.  Knowing this is not a cry of despair or wallowing in our inability to do the good we know we ought to do, but knowing that this cry is met with the words “Welcome my beloved child.”  This is what God does.  God has mercy.  We’re not to come before God comparing ourselves to anyone, not looking around us but looking only to God.  The tax collector is not focused on how great he is doing at this whole God thing but rather on his need for God’s mercy.  The tax collector doesn’t pray, “Have mercy on me, but at least I’m not as bad as that self-righteous Pharisee over there.”  He mustn’t leave the temple and go back to money-extorting ways. To truly experience God’s mercy is to be willing to extend it to others.  In order to be instruments of God’s mercy, we need to be coming to God often and meaningfully and asking for mercy. 

This is a really good thing to pray every day.  Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.  Listen to how David prayed in Psalm 51:

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.”

When we pray this prayer, we’re being reminded that the source of our goodness, the source of our righteousness, the very ability we have to come before God in prayer in the first place, is from outside ourselves.  It’s a reminder that we’re called to extend the same mercy to others and not to stand in self-righteous judgement over them.  This is the thing about prayer that this parable teaches us.  Someone put it like this – “Prayer consists not in our telling God how things are but in allowing God to communicate to us the divine vision of life and reality.”  For Luke, it’s the great reversal.  Those who exalt themselves will be humbled.  Those who humble themselves will be exalted.  There is a warm welcome extended to those who recognize their need for something beyond themselves.  For those who wish to condemn, there is not.  One of these men went home justified, Jesus tells us.  The unspoken question here is, which of these figures are we going to be?  May God give us an ever-increasing awareness of our daily need for His mercy, a thankfulness for it, and a willingness to extend it to others.  May these things be true for each and every one of us.  Amen