Genesis 4:1-15; 1 Corinthians 15:1-10; St Luke 18:9-14
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, unlike the parable told by our Lord Jesus two weeks ago - the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward - this parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector is simple and straightforward. Its exaggerated extremes serve to make Jesus’ point rather obvious. It’s easily conveyed in a didactic icon like the one on your bulletin cover. And that pictorial sermon can help us later. In fact, it’s hardly a parable at all. But if we don’t come to its proper conclusion on our own, St Luke has, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, graciously revealed to us its intent and meaning: Jesus told this parable to some who persuaded themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.
In order to arrive at this correct conclusion, though, you need to hear this parable with First Century Hebrew ears and not see it with 21st century American eyes. Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Not unlike the recent false allegations against Laura Ingalls Wilder, this Pharisee was no racist for pointing out the tax collector. To First Century Hebrew ears the Pharisee was a cultural hero and the tax collector a traitor. He was the man who retained the old ways of ancient Israel, who kept the honored traditions in a time of Roman occupation. He was admired and respected. He had a modicum of faith when most of Israel had become pagan secularists.
By comparison the tax collector was a Jewish-sellout who worked for the enemy. He took money from his compatriots by the point of the sword. He was despised the ridiculed. He wasn’t the bottom rung of the Pharisee’s ladder, he was below it. In our day it might be akin to a story beginning, “Two men went to Church for Divine Service; one a pediatric heart surgeon for Doctors without Borders, the other a sex trafficker.” You know which of these two guys you’d want picking up your daughter for the prom.
Now these two men go up to the Temple to pray. Outwardly they could not be more opposite. This is Jesus’ exaggerated way of making His point. The same is true concerning the content of their prayers and the dispositions of their hearts. Its not as though the Pharisee’s prayer was all bad. He gives thanks to God - eucharisto - a sacrifice of praise as the Second Commandment teaches and the psalmist sings. Perhaps you don’t realize it, but you pray the same way. What goes through your mind when you pass the homeless man or woman and children on the exit ramp? “Lord, have mercy; there but for the grace of God go I.”
We all have our crosses. Be thankful you have the ones you do and not the crosses of another. Yours are given to you. Like the yoke of an ox yours are specifically fashioned for you by our Lord.
But the point is not “appearance can be deceiving,” or “you can’t know a man unless you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” The problem is not the words of the Pharisee’s prayer, necessarily, but the motivation. It always dangerous and never a good idea to judge the motives of another. You don’t know their heart. But you do know their confession, both in word and deed. Like those at the beginning of the account who “trusted in themselves”, the Pharisee stands by himself; which is to say, he stood before God alone, without an Advocate, Savior or Redeemer. Just him and God.
As seen in the icon, he exalts himself above others. He’s got his life together and doesn’t commit any manifest, outward sins. He fasts twice a week. By comparison, most Israelites fasted twice a year. He tithes not only off the gross, but of all his possessions, right down to the spices in his cupboard.
Outwardly he’s a good guy. That’s not the problem. Those works aren’t the issue. God commands and expects such works. But the fact that he trusts in his works, in his goodness, that’s the issue. Do you know that most Americans, even Christians, when asked, “Are you going to heaven?” answer “Yes.” But then the follow-up, “Why?” and they’ll say, “Well, I’ve been pretty good.”
Pretty good?! St Paul writes to the Christians in Ephesus, You were once dead, miserable corpses, lifeless flesh in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world (Eph 2:1-2). Worse than the drug-slinging, child-pornographer of a tax collector. Dead. That’s a far cry from “pretty good.”
But I know what you’re thinking, “Pastor, I’m not like that guy. I’m not like that Pharisee who thinks he’s better than other people. I know I’m a sinner.” Except that you do. The irony is its easy to look down on the Pharisee even as he looked down on the tax collector and get caught up in that sick spiral where you think you’re better than him because you think that you’re better than other people like he does. That is our sin. We don’t think we are better than the tax collector. We think we are better than the Pharisee.
This is the moment when our Lord comes to Cain. So too He comes to you, in His Word, read and preached, calling you to repentance. This is the sin that is most commonly crouching at our doors: pride. The sin of arrogant, self-righteousness. Persuading ourselves that we are better. That we’ve earned the favor of the world, therefore we must also have earned some favor with God.
But do not think more highly of yourself than you ought. God is not impressed with your good works over against another. He doesn’t eat the food the Pharisee fasts. He doesn’t spend the money the Pharisee tithes. He is not impressed with the handful of weeds you picked up on your way into church and call them flowers.
Rather, be gathered here. Come up to the Church, the Temple of the true and living God, to pray, which is to say, to worship. Not to offer your good works and point out to God how much you’ve done. But to beat your breast with the tax collector; to lament your wretched, sin filled heart. How with every beat it sends coursing through your veins the pride and arrogance and self-righteousness inherited from your first parents, Adam and Eve, and handed down to their children, not only Cain, but also Abel.
His sacrifice was accepted and the Lord had regard for him without any merit or worthiness in him, but only on account of His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, for the sake of the righteousness of another, by the mercy and atoning sacrifice not of the fat portions of shepherd Abel’s flock, but by the once-for-all Sacrifice of the the Good Shepherd, whose Blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
This is the sacrifice for which and in which the tax collector prayed. That simplest and yet deeply profound prayer: Kyrie eleison, Lord, have mercy is a plea for the atoning Blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world to cover you, hid your sin, and allow you to stand in the presence of God in the righteousness of another imputed to you.
Do you see the curtain on the didactic icon on your bulletin? It represents the curtain of the Temple, the veil, behind which resided the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant with His people. Atop the Ark was the Mercy Seat. The place between the wings of the cherubim, upon which the blood of the lamb was sprinkled. The other half of the blood being put on the people. This is the physical presence of the Lord God among His people and the constant reminder of His mercy to dwell with His people in love and forgiveness because of the atoning sacrifice of Another.
And this is what the tax collector pleads in his prayer. It’s translated mercy, but really its better rendered, propitiation. As in, “God, be propitiated toward me the sinner!” Or, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith (Rom 3:25). Or, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:1-2).
Jesus Christ is the Mercy Seat Sacrifice for your sins. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His shed blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, even as you hear in the Words of Institution, “This is My Blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” This is what you need. This is why you come to the Lord’s House for prayer, for worship. For here God comes to you in mercy and love, in His Word and His Sacraments, and justifies you by grace through faith in the Blood of your Redeemer and Advocate.
And so the tax collector stands, as St Paul reminds the Corinthians, in the true and saving Gospel of the vicarious suffering and death, the victorious resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do his words not sound remarkably similar to the Apostles’ Creed. His confession of sins is the same as yours. His confession of faith is the same as yours. This is the beauty and fidelity of the historic liturgy. It puts you in the place of the tax collector from the moment you enter: “O, almighty God, merciful Father, I a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have every offended you.”
But in His boundless mercy and for the sake of the innocent, suffering and death of His beloved Son, your Father in heaven has forgiven your sins, cleansed you from all unrighteousness, given you His Holy Spirit, rescued you from everlasting death, and raised you up, exalted you in Himself, in His own Body, whether you were like other men, unjust, adulterers, or even tax collectors. For in truth, everyone exalts himself. But only One humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a Cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted Him, and in Him, Christ your Head, you are also exalted; raised up as your brother the tax collector pictured in the icon. He begins low, standing before the Altar and the Ark in a posture of humility, in contrition and repentance, then raised up - do you notice the halo? - to stand before God in the righteousness and purity and innocence of the blessed Lamb, Jesus Christ, whose blood atones for His sins.
So too you, dear brethren. You are raised up in Christ, made alive together in Him, and seated with Him in the heavenly places. Hold fast this Word, come forward to receive the gifts of His Sacrifice, and do not receive in vain the Body and Blood of the Lamb, given and shed for you. For here you are brought to stand not only in the Temple, but within the very Holy of Holies, heaven here on earth, to receive grace in time of need, in life and in death.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Dear people loved by God, unlike the parable told by our Lord Jesus two weeks ago - the Parable of the Unrighteous Steward - this parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector is simple and straightforward. Its exaggerated extremes serve to make Jesus’ point rather obvious. It’s easily conveyed in a didactic icon like the one on your bulletin cover. And that pictorial sermon can help us later. In fact, it’s hardly a parable at all. But if we don’t come to its proper conclusion on our own, St Luke has, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, graciously revealed to us its intent and meaning: Jesus told this parable to some who persuaded themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.
In order to arrive at this correct conclusion, though, you need to hear this parable with First Century Hebrew ears and not see it with 21st century American eyes. Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Not unlike the recent false allegations against Laura Ingalls Wilder, this Pharisee was no racist for pointing out the tax collector. To First Century Hebrew ears the Pharisee was a cultural hero and the tax collector a traitor. He was the man who retained the old ways of ancient Israel, who kept the honored traditions in a time of Roman occupation. He was admired and respected. He had a modicum of faith when most of Israel had become pagan secularists.
By comparison the tax collector was a Jewish-sellout who worked for the enemy. He took money from his compatriots by the point of the sword. He was despised the ridiculed. He wasn’t the bottom rung of the Pharisee’s ladder, he was below it. In our day it might be akin to a story beginning, “Two men went to Church for Divine Service; one a pediatric heart surgeon for Doctors without Borders, the other a sex trafficker.” You know which of these two guys you’d want picking up your daughter for the prom.
Now these two men go up to the Temple to pray. Outwardly they could not be more opposite. This is Jesus’ exaggerated way of making His point. The same is true concerning the content of their prayers and the dispositions of their hearts. Its not as though the Pharisee’s prayer was all bad. He gives thanks to God - eucharisto - a sacrifice of praise as the Second Commandment teaches and the psalmist sings. Perhaps you don’t realize it, but you pray the same way. What goes through your mind when you pass the homeless man or woman and children on the exit ramp? “Lord, have mercy; there but for the grace of God go I.”
We all have our crosses. Be thankful you have the ones you do and not the crosses of another. Yours are given to you. Like the yoke of an ox yours are specifically fashioned for you by our Lord.
But the point is not “appearance can be deceiving,” or “you can’t know a man unless you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” The problem is not the words of the Pharisee’s prayer, necessarily, but the motivation. It always dangerous and never a good idea to judge the motives of another. You don’t know their heart. But you do know their confession, both in word and deed. Like those at the beginning of the account who “trusted in themselves”, the Pharisee stands by himself; which is to say, he stood before God alone, without an Advocate, Savior or Redeemer. Just him and God.
As seen in the icon, he exalts himself above others. He’s got his life together and doesn’t commit any manifest, outward sins. He fasts twice a week. By comparison, most Israelites fasted twice a year. He tithes not only off the gross, but of all his possessions, right down to the spices in his cupboard.
Outwardly he’s a good guy. That’s not the problem. Those works aren’t the issue. God commands and expects such works. But the fact that he trusts in his works, in his goodness, that’s the issue. Do you know that most Americans, even Christians, when asked, “Are you going to heaven?” answer “Yes.” But then the follow-up, “Why?” and they’ll say, “Well, I’ve been pretty good.”
Pretty good?! St Paul writes to the Christians in Ephesus, You were once dead, miserable corpses, lifeless flesh in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world (Eph 2:1-2). Worse than the drug-slinging, child-pornographer of a tax collector. Dead. That’s a far cry from “pretty good.”
But I know what you’re thinking, “Pastor, I’m not like that guy. I’m not like that Pharisee who thinks he’s better than other people. I know I’m a sinner.” Except that you do. The irony is its easy to look down on the Pharisee even as he looked down on the tax collector and get caught up in that sick spiral where you think you’re better than him because you think that you’re better than other people like he does. That is our sin. We don’t think we are better than the tax collector. We think we are better than the Pharisee.
This is the moment when our Lord comes to Cain. So too He comes to you, in His Word, read and preached, calling you to repentance. This is the sin that is most commonly crouching at our doors: pride. The sin of arrogant, self-righteousness. Persuading ourselves that we are better. That we’ve earned the favor of the world, therefore we must also have earned some favor with God.
But do not think more highly of yourself than you ought. God is not impressed with your good works over against another. He doesn’t eat the food the Pharisee fasts. He doesn’t spend the money the Pharisee tithes. He is not impressed with the handful of weeds you picked up on your way into church and call them flowers.
Rather, be gathered here. Come up to the Church, the Temple of the true and living God, to pray, which is to say, to worship. Not to offer your good works and point out to God how much you’ve done. But to beat your breast with the tax collector; to lament your wretched, sin filled heart. How with every beat it sends coursing through your veins the pride and arrogance and self-righteousness inherited from your first parents, Adam and Eve, and handed down to their children, not only Cain, but also Abel.
His sacrifice was accepted and the Lord had regard for him without any merit or worthiness in him, but only on account of His fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, for the sake of the righteousness of another, by the mercy and atoning sacrifice not of the fat portions of shepherd Abel’s flock, but by the once-for-all Sacrifice of the the Good Shepherd, whose Blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
This is the sacrifice for which and in which the tax collector prayed. That simplest and yet deeply profound prayer: Kyrie eleison, Lord, have mercy is a plea for the atoning Blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world to cover you, hid your sin, and allow you to stand in the presence of God in the righteousness of another imputed to you.
Do you see the curtain on the didactic icon on your bulletin? It represents the curtain of the Temple, the veil, behind which resided the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant with His people. Atop the Ark was the Mercy Seat. The place between the wings of the cherubim, upon which the blood of the lamb was sprinkled. The other half of the blood being put on the people. This is the physical presence of the Lord God among His people and the constant reminder of His mercy to dwell with His people in love and forgiveness because of the atoning sacrifice of Another.
And this is what the tax collector pleads in his prayer. It’s translated mercy, but really its better rendered, propitiation. As in, “God, be propitiated toward me the sinner!” Or, All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith (Rom 3:25). Or, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:1-2).
Jesus Christ is the Mercy Seat Sacrifice for your sins. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His shed blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel, even as you hear in the Words of Institution, “This is My Blood, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” This is what you need. This is why you come to the Lord’s House for prayer, for worship. For here God comes to you in mercy and love, in His Word and His Sacraments, and justifies you by grace through faith in the Blood of your Redeemer and Advocate.
And so the tax collector stands, as St Paul reminds the Corinthians, in the true and saving Gospel of the vicarious suffering and death, the victorious resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do his words not sound remarkably similar to the Apostles’ Creed. His confession of sins is the same as yours. His confession of faith is the same as yours. This is the beauty and fidelity of the historic liturgy. It puts you in the place of the tax collector from the moment you enter: “O, almighty God, merciful Father, I a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto You all my sins and iniquities with which I have every offended you.”
But in His boundless mercy and for the sake of the innocent, suffering and death of His beloved Son, your Father in heaven has forgiven your sins, cleansed you from all unrighteousness, given you His Holy Spirit, rescued you from everlasting death, and raised you up, exalted you in Himself, in His own Body, whether you were like other men, unjust, adulterers, or even tax collectors. For in truth, everyone exalts himself. But only One humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a Cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted Him, and in Him, Christ your Head, you are also exalted; raised up as your brother the tax collector pictured in the icon. He begins low, standing before the Altar and the Ark in a posture of humility, in contrition and repentance, then raised up - do you notice the halo? - to stand before God in the righteousness and purity and innocence of the blessed Lamb, Jesus Christ, whose blood atones for His sins.
So too you, dear brethren. You are raised up in Christ, made alive together in Him, and seated with Him in the heavenly places. Hold fast this Word, come forward to receive the gifts of His Sacrifice, and do not receive in vain the Body and Blood of the Lamb, given and shed for you. For here you are brought to stand not only in the Temple, but within the very Holy of Holies, heaven here on earth, to receive grace in time of need, in life and in death.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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