22 Pentecost 07 Proper 25

If you were to casually stroll to your mailbox tomorrow and find the following mail, which would you open first – a bill from the local department store, an advertisement for insurance, a catalogue for men’s wear, or a brown envelope from the Internal Revenue Service? My guess is that you would open the brown envelope from the IRS first. I imagine your palms would sweat a bit, your mind would race and you would quickly take the letter out of the envelope to read it. You would also become more tense and anxious if the word “audit” appeared anywhere in the letter from the IRS.

Very few Americans greet an IRS audit with great excitement. WE wonder what we did wrong. We wonder if all our records are in order. We wonder how much more money we will have to pay the IRS to complete the process.

Now, imagine the person behind the desk at the IRS. Imagine that he is not only intimidating and questioning, but he is also corrupt. Imagine that he receives a percentage of the corrected amount and he will do almost anything to convince you of filing an insufficient tax form.

That was the way tax collectors operated during the time of Jesus. Tax collectors were among the most corrupt and criminal persons in society. They were out to get the people from whom they collected. Besides that, they were Jews despised by other Jews for collaborating with the Roman government that ruled over them. Tax collectors paid the authorities for the privilege of collecting taxes, and then overcharged the people, skimming money off the top to line their own pockets.

This parable is found only in Luke. If focuses on the type of people God blesses. What commends a person to God? Is it the qualities that the world emphasizes, like self-sufficiency and social status? This parable is really the parable of the two prayers. In those prayers appear two kinds of hearts, whose contrast is not only seen in the way they make their request, but also in the way they approach God.

This parable is directed at those who were confident in their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else. I would venture to say that none of us would identify ourselves in this way. I wonder if subconsciously we are like that. We like to think of ourselves as folks that are pretty good people. “We’re not really sinners,” we might think to ourselves. It is easy to compare ourselves with others and say, “Hey, I’m not as bad as they are. Surely that counts for something.” In essence, we are asking the question, “Am I as good as others?”

The problem is that this is a faulty question. We should rather ask, “Am I as good as God?” Isaiah recognized how far short he fell of the holiness of God when he said, “Woe is me, I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” The Bible says there is no one righteous, not even one.

We are like the Pharisees in many respects. We look down on others to whom we compare ourselves and conclude that we are more righteous than they. As we are dealing with the whole issue of homosexuality in the church, that can be especially tempting. Jesus is telling us to realize our need for his saving grace. Realize that nothing we can do can save us.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. You notice it says that he prayed. He really didn’t pray he was speaking to himself and to others who could hear him. “God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” He focused on certain sins that he did not commit and was saying to himself that he was basically a good person.

You and I can look down on those whose sins we find offensive and begin to think that we are better than they are. Jesus is reminding us in this parable that we all fall short of the absolute perfection required of us by God.

Jesus was not saying that extortioners, unjust people, adulterers and the like were okay. He was not saying that they did not sin in doing those actions. He was saying that there are some people who can recognize the sins of others, but they can’t recognize their own sins.

Then the Pharisee began to point to all of the good things he did. “I fast twice a week.” The problem with the Pharisees was not that they held firmly to the commandments of the Bible, the problem was that they added to the Bible things that it did not command. The Law only commanded fasting once on the Day of Atonement. The Pharisee, in order to show how spiritual he was, fasted twice a week and presented that as if that were the commandment. The Law required a person to tithe or give a tenth of their produce to the Levites. This Pharisee proclaimed he tithed a tenth of everything he had, again adding to the commandment.

When Jesus condemned the Pharisees in various places he never condemned them for keeping and honoring the Law of Moses. He condemned them because they added to the law and laid extra burdens on men that they themselves could not keep.

Often those who are committed to traditional Biblical teaching and belief are accused of being Pharisees because we hold firmly to the belief that the Moral Law of God is still applicable for us today. When we see the Episcopal Church changing or adding to the Law and we speak out against that, we are called Pharisaical.

The true Pharisee is one who disregards the written law of God and makes a law that fits the way they think things should be.

In our gospel lesson today, the point Jesus was making was not that keeping the law is a bad thing, but rather it is the attitude that we have while we are keeping it. Are we proud of our righteousness while we look down on the “sinner?” Do we reflect an attitude of humility like the Tax collector who could not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner?”

Here is a contrast of pride to humility. Commentator Darrell Bock writes, “Pride preaches merit, humility pleads for compassion. Pride negotiates as an equal, humility approaches in need. Pride separates by putting down others, humility identifies with other, recognizing we all have the same need. Pride destroys through its alienating self-service; humility opens doors with its power to sympathize with the struggle we share. Pride turns up its nose; humility offers an open and lifted-up hand.”

A lot of stories have been circulated about Abraham Lincoln. Whether they are fact or legend does not diminish their lessons. You may recall that one of the members of Lincoln’s cabinet once called the president a fool. Lincoln replied, “Well, Stanton is a wise man; if he called me a fool, I had better look into it.”

We live in an assertive society where pride (or at least subtle forms of accomplishment tied to it) often gets the accolades, despite what it does to relationships and character.

Many of you remember when Barry Switzer was the head coach of the Cowboys. When he came on board he asked to have Saturdays off to go see his son play college football, rather than attend the final team meeting the night before the games. The coach explained that his family came ahead of his job. As a father he wanted to show his son how important he was to him. The former head coach, Jimmy Johnson, was a man recognized as a “winner” and criticized his replacement for abandoning the team and risking defeat by distorting team values. For this former coach life was defined by winning, by sacrificing all on the altar of achievement, even wife and family. He already had lost his wife and sons years ago over his pride of achievement to be a winning football coach. But in the game of life, which coach had the distorted and losing values? What is amazing is how many people are blinded into siding with the “winner.” Pride means that the task is more important than the people. The objective becomes the obstacle to human relationships. Jesus condemned pride because it is so insidiously destructive.

Humility is harder to discuss because it does not discuss itself. It simply gets out there and serves, often with sacrifice. It does not claim rights; it tries to do what is right. It does not brag about integrity, it displays it. Sometimes it is easy to miss what does not point to itself. But God sees the humble heart and lifts it up in honor. That is Jesus’ challenge.

The Pharisee thought he was accepted by God, but because he trusted in his own goodness, was not. The Tax collector said, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” While he never knew if he was accepted by God, Jesus tells us he went down to his house justified. Just as if he were not a sinner before God.

Is your humility like that of Jeremiah in our first lesson when he said, “Though our iniquities testify against us, act, O Lord, for thy name’s sake; for our backslidings are many, we have sinned against thee?”

Because of Jesus Christ we can have confidence to ask our heavenly Father to act on our behalf for his name’s sake. We can have confidence that he will keep us safe to the end. Our job is to fight the good fight, to finish the race, and to keep the faith. As Paul did so, as he stood firm for the faith delivered to him by Jesus there were some who could no longer support him. He prayed to the Lord for them. He said, “But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim the message fully.”

As we serve the Lord and proclaim the full message of his word, we must do so with humility and an understanding that there will be pain involved. But in the end we will receive the crown of righteousness with which the Lord will reward us when we depart this earth to be with him forever.