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Rembrandt's Pen and Ink Drawing Stories Jesus Still Tells: The Parables of Jesus The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9-14) Pharisee and Publican mosaic, Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. Ravenna (Italy), 6th century Luke 18:9-14 9 Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 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. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 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!’ 14 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.” Why Doesn’t God Like Religious People? The challenge for Christians, and especially for those of us who preach, is that the more familiar a parable is, the harder it is to scrape off the barnacles that have attached themselves to it over the centuries in the popular mind. Today’s parable is a case in point. This parable, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (tax collector), is a simple story. One man comes before God with an arrogant prayer and is dismissed for his attitude. The other confesses his unworthiness and is praised for doing so. Too often our unconscious response is, Thank God, I’m not like that Pharisee! But of course such a reaction proves that we are indeed like him! If we are to scrape off the accretions from this parable, the place to start is to understand that this parable is more than simply a lesson in the virtue of humility. It is rather an instruction in the futility of religion—in the foolishness of thinking that there is anything at all we can do to put ourselves right with God. Indeed, it is about the folly of even trying. The parable comes after a series of illustrations of what Jesus means by faith, and it comes shortly before Jesus announces, for the third time, that he will die and rise again. It is therefore not a recommendation to adopt a humble religious stance instead of a proud one; rather it is a warning to drop all religious pretense—and with it all moral and ethical justifications, too—when we stand before God. It is, in short, an exhortation to confront the central point of the Gospel: faith in a God who raises the dead. To get to that point, we have to look closer at the characters in this parable. Forget the prejudice that Jesus’ frequent denunciations of Pharisees have formed in your mind. Give this Pharisee all the credit you can. He is, after all, a good man. A decent, stand up guy, really. He’s not a crook, a cheat, or a womanizer. He’s faithful to his wife, and loyal to his friends. He takes nothing he hasn’t honestly earned. He gives everyone he knows a fair deal. The Pharisee is not only good; he’s a pious, religious man. And not hypocritically, either. His outward uprightness is matched by his inward discipline. He fasts twice a week and he puts his money where his mouth is: ten percent off the top for God. Helmut Thielicke, the great German interpreter, says you can tell a person is serious about their religion when it affects two things: their stomach and their pocketbook. If that’s true, it’s clear the Pharisee isn’t just play-acting. He’s the real deal. But best of all, this Pharisee thanks God for his fortunate state, giving God the glory for his blessings. In short, this the kind of guy you want on your vestry, on your corporation’s board and leading your Boy Scout Troop. Now, contrast him to this scoundrel, the Publican. The Publican is the worst kind of crook: a legal one, a big operator, a mafia-style enforcer working with the Roman occupiers, collecting taxes for them while pinching his fellow Jews for extras. More than just a crook, he’s a collaborator, a quisling, a traitor to his people. He has been living for years on the cream he has skimmed off his people’s milk money. He is a fat cat who drives a Mazarati, who drinks nothing but Johnny Walker Blue Label, and who never shows up at a party without at least two $500-a- night escorts in tow. It’s clear who is the better man, who you’d want to look up to, to be friends with. And it seems safe to assume that the Pharisee is the kind of guy God favors too. In fact, it’s unthinkable to believe the contrary. And yet, Jesus says that, when it comes to their salvation, it’s the tax collector who gets God’s approval. How can this be? We might assume it’s because the Publican came before God with an attitude of repentance. Only, there’s nothing mentioned here about the Publican changing his ways, nothing about him giving up his extortionist career or giving away his ill-gotten gains. He’s no Zacchaeus. There’s nothing here that suggests he won’t be in the temple a week from now, bewailing his ‘manifold sins’ all over again. To say that he’s a changed man, that he’s had a conversion of the heart, is to say more than Jesus has given us. The Publican simply cried out for mercy in a time of need, which is religion at of the most primitive, self-centered kind. It’s certainly not something you can build a whole ethic around. Indeed, to do so would be to turn the mere admission of mediocrity into a virtue, and to applaud as heroic the one who says. “I do not live by any high moral code, but neither does anyone else. So at least I’m not a hypocrite.” But there is something quite upsetting, to be sure, about letting moral carelessness become the accepted norm. And there is something quite dangerous about dismissing all moral standards as futile. That this parable might seem to suggest that would surely have prompted opposition from Jesus’ hearers. Yet, Jesus was making a different, yet even more scandalous point in this parable. Let us remember that Jesus did not tell this parable to make the Publican feel better about himself. Rather, he told it, Luke says, “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” In other words, it is the “Pharisees,” the good, moral, religious types, he was speaking to, not the reprobate “Publicans.” And to the Pharisee, he is saying that as far as his ability to win the game of justification with God is concerned, he is no better off than the Publican. As a matter of fact, the Pharisee is worse off, because, while they’re both losers, the Publican at least has the good sense to recognize the fact and trust God’s offer to fulfill the debt they owe Him. “Ah, yes,” we may say, “But, are there no distinction to be made? Can’t we at least say that the Pharisee is a little less sinful than the Publican? Isn’t there some sense in which we can give him credit for the goodness he has?” That is, however, to make the miscalculation of the Pharisee. The point of the parable isn’t who is better. The point is that the Pharisee and the Publican are both dead, and their only hope is someone who can raise the dead. And that is precisely what Jesus came to do—to raise the dead. Not to teach the teachable, nor to reform the reformable, nor to improve the improvable, but to give new life to the dead. As long as we try to keep ourselves in the game like the Pharisee, to stay alive in our own eyes, we will resent the apparent indifference to our efforts that God shows in making the effortlessness of death the basis of our justification. Only when we are finally able, with the Publican, to admit that we are dead, will we be able to stop resisting grace and be resurrected. Quotes SAMUEL SHOEMAKER: The great Episcopal leader Samuel Shoemaker often tried to make this point with his congregation at Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. A person must turn to God, he said one Sunday, “not as a gentleman in search of a religion but as a sinner in search of salvation.” He went on to say: The wickedest people I ever talked to are not the out-and-out pagan sinners, they are the people who have grown too good ever to be open to conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit, the people who believe that, on the whole, they are all right, the people who enjoy a good reputation, and live on the flattery of neighbors. People like this can say their prayers a hundred times over, and confess their sins with all the unction in the world, and never become dimly aware of sins that are the standing despair of the people who live under the same roof or work in the same office, with them.
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