A Pharisee & a Tax Collector

Sermon planned for Sunday, October 31, 2010

I invite you to turn with me, in your bibles, to the gospel according to Luke, chapter eighteen, beginning at verse nine. Last week, Tim Wiebe spoke to us about being grateful. He helped us to see that being Christian is about looking at life, in all of its ups and downs, through the lens of what God has done for us – and that this perspective makes us grateful. This morning, our passage has a similar message, but it comes at it from a bit of a different angle. We’re looking at Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. And so, what I want to do with you this morning is look at what Jesus was communicating to his listeners in this parable. And then I want to join you in asking what we can learn from this story; what are some practical things that we can take away from it.

One of the first things that comes to my mind when I read this parable is an experience I had when I was in my first year of bible college. The tax-collectors prayer of repentance reminds me of the time I asked for forgiveness from my friends. In 1998, my good friend and cousin was dumped by his girlfriend. He told us guys that it was all her fault and, being about as mature as a Saturday morning cartoon, I believed him. And so I was very angry at her for dumping him.

It was also about that time that I created my very first email account. That’s right kids, your pastor is so old that he remembers a time before email and the internet. I created an email account at that time that I still have to this day (marco_funk@yahoo.com). After that, I had an idea; since I really disliked open conflict and confrontation – and I still don’t enjoy it even to this day – I figured I could confront her anonymously. If I really wanted to get back at this girl for what she did to my friend, all I had to do was create an anonymous email account and then let the emails fly. And so that is why I did. I opened up a second email account and I wrote her several pieces of ‘hate mail’. To be honest, it felt good. I could say what I wanted to say and she wouldn’t know that I did it.

A few days went by; and then, one evening while I was hanging out with my pal who was dumped by this girl, he asked me if I had written an angry email to his ex-girlfriend. I denied it. But I was afraid. I didn’t think that it would ever come to light – that anyone would ever find out. A few days later, a group of my friends were hanging out. We were together in a room, and one of my pals shut the door. All of my friends were there, and looked me straight in the eye. They confronted me. They asked me if I had wrote this hateful mail to our friends ex-girlfriend. With all those eyes staring at me, I knew I had to confess. “Yes, I did it.” What happened after that I barely remember. My friends and I talked. I shared my feelings of anger. They told me to smarten up, and they helped me understand the whole thing from a better vantage point. I apologized to my friend and then talked to this girl, admitting my mistake and asking for her forgiveness. We’re still good friends to this day. Admitting my mistake – confessing my sin to this girl – was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do; but I am so glad that I had friends to hold me accountable.

The parable from Luke, this morning, is also about confessing sin. Jesus told this parable to a group of people who, the text says, ‘trusted in themselves, that they were righteous, and they regarded others with contempt’. This is a very specific audience, but it covers a whole lot of us today, doesn’t it. In the parable, it is the Pharisee who fits the description of those whom Jesus is talking to. It is the Pharisee, in the parable, who trusts in himself, who thinks he is righteous, and looks at others with contempt. And so, the clear goal Jesus has in telling this parable is to address this attitude in his audience. What attitude? Well, the people that he was talking to thought that they could do things on their own, but also that they were good and righteous, and they judged others. And then we have the Tax Collectors’ confession.

As a Mennonite pastor, I don’t hear a lot of confessions. Most Protestants have got it in their mind that all they have to do is confess their sins to God and that’s that. Now, to be clear, it is foundationally important that we Christians confess our sins to God – after all, if we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). But I think we could learn a thing or two from our Catholic cousins. From my experience of confessing my sin to my friends and my friends’ ex-girlfriend, I can tell you that there is something amazing and freeing when you confess your sins to another Christian. That’s maybe one of the reasons why the apostle James tells us to confess our sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that we may be healed (James 5:16). Christian accountability can be a beautiful thing.

Earlier I said that I don’t hear a lot of confessions. That’s not entirely true. Some of you folks, and numerous others from town, have no problem confessing sin to me – the thing is, more often than not, you’re confessing other people’s sins to me. You know what I mean? Hey Pastor Marco, such and such a person is doing this really nasty thing. Or, “so and so was really bad to me.” I hear a lot of confessions – but really, what it is, is a form of gossip. What I don’t get a lot of is, “Hey Pastor, you know what I’m really struggling with?” “Marco, I would love it if you could pray for me in this area of sin”. I don’t get a lot of that. I’m open to hearing people’s confessions in complete confidentiality – but it doesn’t happen that much. Try me… I think it might feel good for you to get some stuff off of your shoulders.

But most of the confessions I hear sound a lot like this Pharisee. He went to the temple to pray, but really he went to talk to himself – literally, in verse eleven, the Greek text suggests that he wasn’t even praying to God, but rather to himself. He was talking to himself. As one commentary I read suggested, this man’s prayers didn’t even make it past the roof of the temple – why? Well, because his prayers weren’t even directed to heaven. He just liked the sound of his own voice. I can get a glimpse of what God’s thinking when he hears prayers like this. God can see through all of the baloney – when we stand ourselves up on our own righteousness, God isn’t impressed. When we confess the sins of other people to him, he isn’t interested. In Psalm 51 we learn that what God desires is a humble and a contrite heart. Contrite just means repentant, sorrowful, sorry for what you did.

One pastor that I was chatting with about this text suggested that the Pharisee and the Tax collector are both extremes and that we have to find a middle ground. He said that the Tax Collector was grovelling and ashamed. He said that being stuck in shame is not a good place for us to be. He said that the point of the parable was that we should find a middle ground between the pride of the Pharisee and the utter shame and despair of the Tax Collector.

I might have believed him. But I know what it’s like to sin. Believe me, I’m quite good at it – if that’s even a way to say it. And I know how much shame and guilt is associated with sinning. You feel horrible. You feel dirty. You feel like a used piece of trash. Now, I think most of us have come up with ways of getting rid of this horrible feeling – but unfortunately, for most of us, it isn’t through repenting and confessing our sin. We try to get rid of shame and guilt by avoidance, distraction, or by somehow psychologising it away – as though if we somehow contemplate our ‘sinful’ deeds as learning opportunities that we can be thankful for them. NO!

The point of this morning’s parable is not all that hard to grasp. It’s precisely the Tax Collector, who knows he’s a sinner, who knows that God’s mercy is his only chance – it is his humble approach that is the binding solution for us Christians. It is he who went home justified, and not the other. The mid-way between dangerous pride and damaging shame is precisely the attitude of the Tax Collector. The Pharisee shows us a good picture of extreme pride. If you every catch yourself praying like he did – give yourself a slap on the cheek. But the Tax collector is not a picture of extreme shame. A picture of extreme shame and guilt is the person who hides from confession – a person who feels so down about their sin that they must avoid it altogether, or feel unworthy and then avoid standing before God in prayer. The Tax Collector may have been ashamed and guilty, but he had enough confidence in the Lord’s mercy to know that he could come before God in prayer – even if it was in a posture of absolute humility. “He was standing far off, he would not even look up to heaven, he was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ A middle-path between the extremes of pride and shame is the act of repentance and confession.

This morning, I want to encourage you all to confess your sins. There are at least three forms of confession. We confess our sins together as a community during worship – we do it in songs, in readings and in prayer. Secondly, we confess our sins to each other – one on one, or in a small group, holding each other accountable and praying for each other. And thirdly, we confess our sins to God, turning away from our sin and turning towards the mercy of God offered to us in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. But I want to focus in on the second and third form of confession. You and I are holding on to guilt and shame. We confess it to God, and he forgives us our sins. This is vital – it is crucial that we be transparent with God. Your sins are not too big for him. They are only a small speck compared to His great love for you – but you don’t want to have anything smudged between you and God. Confess them to God and he will forgive you your sins.

God has also given us friends, and people in this community of faith – brothers and sisters who are called to love each other. Talk to a Christian that you trust. Confess your sins to each other in confidence. Pray for one another. And if someone confesses their sin to you, it is your discipleship obligation to keep it in confidence, to pray for the person. If a person tells you something that is too dangerous or criminal for you to keep in confidence, tell the person who told you that you will need to speak to a church leader or pastor about it – but don’t do that without telling them. And it’s important to remember that the whole point of someone confessing their sin to you is not that you judge them, but that you help point that person to Jesus who forgives our sin. And if you feel you can’t trust anyone with your secret sin, but you know that you have to tell someone, I invite you to come to me and confess. Anything you tell me is confidential, and I will pray with you and join you, with God, to find a way through.

This morning, our example is this tax collector, looked down upon by his fellow Jews for being in cahoots with the Romans. But this tax collector knew he needed God’s mercy – do we know that we need God’s mercy? I leave you with the words of Christ: for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted. Amen.