The Pharisee and The Publican

Is this just an ordinary sermon about humility or is there much more to it?

 Luke 18:9-14

"Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised everybody else.

Two men went up to the temple to pray: one, a Pharisee, the other, a tax collector.

The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed thus: `God, I thank thee that I am not like others are, greedy, unjust, adulterers - and I thank thee especially that I am not like this tax collector. 

I fast two days every week and I give thee a tenth of all my income.

But the tax collector stood a long way off and would not even raise his eyes to heaven. 

Instead, he beat on his breast and said, `O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.' 

I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other: 

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." 

In the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Now then. The first thing to get off the table is the notion that this parable is simply a lesson in the virtue of humility. It is not. It is an instruction in the futility of religion - in the idleness of the proposition that there is anything at all you can do to put yourself right with God no matter how long the list. It is about the folly of even trying. 

The parable occurs after a series of illustrations of what Jesus means by faith, and it comes shortly before He announces, for the third time, that He will die and rise again. It is therefore not a recommendation to adopt a humble religious stance rather than a proud one; rather it is a warning to drop all religious stances - and all moral and ethical ones, too - when you try to grasp your justification before God. It is, in short, an exhortation to move on to the central point of the Gospel: faith in Christ, repentance, relying alone upon His merits, and rebirth!

Consider the characters in this parable. Forget the prejudice that Jesus' frequently stinging remarks about Pharisees have formed in your mind. Give this particular Pharisee all the credit you can. He is, after all, a good man. To begin with, he is not a crook, not given to rock the boat, not a womanizer. He takes nothing he hasn't honestly earned, he gives everyone he knows fair and full measure, and he is faithful to his wife, patient with his children, and steadfast for his friends and community. 

He is not at all like this publican, this tax-farmer, who is the worst kind of crook: a legal one, a big operator, a mafia-style enforcer working for the Roman government on a nifty franchise that lets him collect - from his fellow Jews, mind you, from the people whom the Romans might have trouble finding, but whose whereabouts he knows and whose language he speaks - all the money he can bleed out of them, provided only he pays the authorities an agreed upon flat fee. He has been living for years on the cream he has skimmed off their milk money. He is a fat cat who drives a stretch limo, drinks nothing but Chivas Regal, and never shows up at a party without at least two $1,000-a night call girls in tow. 

The Pharisee, however, is not only good; he is religious. And not hypocritically religious, either. His outward uprightness is matched by an inward discipline. He fasts twice a week and he puts his money where his mouth is: his tithing--ten percent off the top for God and the Church. If you know where to find a dozen or two such upstanding members, I know several wards that will accept delivery of them, no questions asked and all Jesus' parables to the contrary notwithstanding. 

But best of all, this Pharisee thanks God for his happy state. Luke says that Jesus spoke this parable to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous. But Jesus shows us the Pharisee in the very act of giving God the glory. Maybe the reason he went up to the temple to pray was that, earlier in the week, he slipped a little and thought of his righteousness as his own doing. Maybe he said to himself, "That's terrible, I must make a special visit to the temple and set my values straight by thanking God." 

But what does Jesus tell you about this good man - about this entirely acceptable candidate for the High Council? He tells you not only that he is in bad shape, but that he is in worse shape than this tax-farmer who is as rotten as they come and who just waltzes into the temple and does nothing more than say as much. 

In short, he tells you an unacceptable parable. For you would - I know I would - gladly accept the Pharisee's temple recommend and welcome him to our midst. But would you accept me for long if I had my hand in the church till to the tune of a BMW, fine wine and a couple of whores?

Would you, the local, or the general authorities think it was quite enough for me to come into church on a Sunday, stare at the tips of my shoes, and say, "God, be merciful to me a sinner?" Would the bishop commend my imitation of the parable, give me a temple recommend, and praise me for preaching not only in word but in deed? 

Jesus, to be sure, says that God would; I myself, however, have some doubts about you and the bishop. You might find it a bit too ... vivid. There seems to be just no way of dramatizing this parable from our point of view. That being the case, turn it around and look at it from God's. 

The Pharisee walks straight over, pulls up a chair to God's table, and whips out a pack of cards. He fans them, bridges them, does a couple of one-handed cuts and an accordion shuffle, slides the pack over to God, and says, "Cut. I'm in the middle of a winning streak." And God looks at him with a sad smile, gently pushes the deck away, and says, "Maybe you're not. Maybe it just ran out." 

So the Pharisee picks up the deck again and starts the game himself. "Acey-Ducey, okay?" And he deals God a two of fasting, a queen of tithing, and a king of no adultery. And God says, "Look, I told you. Maybe this is not your game. I don't want to take your money." "Oh, come on," says the Pharisee. "How about seven-card stud, tens wild? I've been real lucky with tens wild lately." And God looks a little annoyed and says, "Look, I meant it. Don't play me. The odds here are always on my side. Besides, you haven't even got a full deck. You'd be smarter to be like the guy over there who came in with you. He lost his cards before he got here. Why don't you just have a drink of water on the house and go home?" 

Do you see now what Jesus is saying in this parable? He is saying that as far as the Pharisee's ability to win a 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 sense to recognize the fact and trust God's offer of redemption and eventually, perfection. 

The point of the parable is that they are both dead in their sins, and their only hope is someone who can raise the dead. "Ah but," you say, "is there no distinction to be made? Isn't the Pharisee somehow less further along in death than the publican? Isn't there some sense in which we can give him credit for the real goodness he has, for living his religion?" 

To which I answer, you are making the same miscalculation as the Pharisee. Spiritual death is death. Given enough room to maneuver, it eventually produces forever spiritual death. In the case of the publican, for example, his life so far has been quite long enough to force upon him the recognition that, as far as his being able to deal with God is concerned, he is finished. The Pharisee, on the other hand, looking at his clutch of good deeds (his cards), has figured that they are more than enough to keep him in the game for the rest of his life. 

But there is his error. For the rest of his life here, maybe. But what about for the length and breadth of eternity? 

Take your own case. Let us suppose that you are an even better person than the Pharisee. Let us assume that you are untempted to any sin except the sin of covetousness, and that even there, your resolve is such that, for the remainder of your days, you never do in fact fall prey to that vice. Are you so sure, however, that the robustness of your virtue is the only root of your non-covetousness disposition? Might not a very large source of it be nothing more than lack of opportunity? In other words, quit looking at your deeds and ask yourself what is your real capacity for sin?

Have you never thought yourself immune to some vice only to find that you fell into it when the temptation became sufficient? The lady who resists a five-dollar proposition sometimes gives in to a five-million-dollar one: men who would never betray friends have been known to betray friends they thought were about to betray them. The reformer immune to the corruption of power finds corruption easier as he gains power. The people with the most seem to always want more. Take your dormant covetousness then. From now till the hour of your death, you may very well not meet that one situation that will galvanize it into action. 

But in eternity - can you say the capacity for covetousness or any of an unlimited number of sins is not there? Can you say in that state that your covetousness is not within you just because it was not manifested during your life? Can you confidently predict you will never want more than another? Is the armor of your religion so utterly without a chink? 

There, you see, is the problem as God sees it. For him, the eternal order is a perpetual-motion machine: it can tolerate no friction at all. Even one grain of sand - one lurking vice in one of the redeemed - given long enough, will find somewhere to lodge and something to rub on. And that damaged something, given another of the infinite eternities ties within eternity itself, will go off center and shake the next part loose. And then the next; and so straight on into what can only be the beginning of the end: the very limitlessness of the opportunity for mischief will eventually bring the whole works to a grinding halt. In other words to be in His presence their can be no grains of sand, only perfection, and only He can perfect us!

What Jesus is saying in this parable is that no human goodness is good enough to pass a test like that, and that therefore God is not about to risk it. He will not take our cluttered life, as we hold it, into eternity. He will take only the clean emptiness of our repentance in the power of Jesus' redemption and He will change us!

He condemns the Pharisee because he takes his stand on a life God cannot use; he commends the publican because he rests his case on a death that God can use. The fact, of course, is that they are both equally fallen and therefore both alike have been offered the gift of repentance, but only one accepts the gift. The other refuses the gift because he is 'living the gospel.'

But the trouble with the Pharisee is that for as long as he refuses to confess the first fact, he will simply be unable to believe the second. He will be justified in his death, but he will be so busy doing the bookkeeping on a life he cannot hold that he will never be able to enjoy himself. It's just misery to try to keep count of what God is no longer counting. Your entries keep disappearing. 

If you now see my point, you no doubt conclude that the Pharisee is a fool. You are right. But at this point you are about to run into another danger. You probably conclude that he is also a rare breed of fool - that the number of people who would so blindly refuse to recognize such a happy issue out of all their afflictions has got to be small. 

There you are wrong. We all refuse to see it. Or better said, while we sometimes catch a glimpse of it, our love of justification by works is so profound that at the first opportunity we run from the strange light of grace straight back to the familiar darkness of the law. 

You do not believe me? I shall prove it to you: the publican goes down to his house justified rather than the other. Well and good, you say; yes indeed. But let me follow him now in your mind's eye as he goes through the ensuing week and comes once again to the temple to pray. What is it you want to see him doing those seven days? What does your moral sense tell you he ought at least try to accomplish? Are you not itching, as his spiritual adviser, to urge him into another line of work - something perhaps a little more upright than putting the arm on his fellow countrymen for fun and profit? In short, do you not feel compelled to insist on at least a little reform? 

To help you be as clear as possible about your feelings, let me set you two exercises. For the first, take him back to the temple one week later. And have him go back there with nothing in his life reformed: walk him in this week as he walked in last - after seven full days of skimming, wenching, and high-priced Scotch. Put him through the same routine: eyes down, breast smitten, God be merciful, and all that. 

Now then. I trust you see that on the basis of the parable as told, God will not mend his divine ways any more than the publican did his wicked ones. He will do this week exactly what he did last: God, in short, will send him down to his house justified. The question in this first exercise is, do you like that? And the answer, of course, is that you do not. You gag on the unfairness of it. The rat is getting off free. 

For the second exercise, therefore, take him back to the temple with at least some reform under his belt: no wenching this week perhaps, or drinking cheaper Scotch and giving the difference to fast offerings. 

What do you think now? What is it that you want God to do with him? Question him about the extent to which he has mended his ways? For what purpose? If God didn't count the Pharisee's impressive list, why should he bother with this two-bit one? Or do you want God to look on his heart, not his list, and commend him for good intentions at least? Why? The point of the parable was that the publican confessed that he was dead in his sins, not that his heart was in the right place. 

Why are you so bent on destroying the story by sending the publican back for his second visit with the Pharisee's speech in his pocket? The honest answer is, that while you understand the thrust of the parable with your mind, your heart has a desperate need to believe its exact opposite. And so does mine. We all long to establish our identity by seeing ourselves as approved in God's and other people's eyes. We spend our days preening ourselves before the mirror of their opinion so we will not have to think about the nightmare of appearing before them naked and uncombed. And we hate this parable because it says plainly that it is the nightmare that is the truth of our condition. 

We fear the publican's acceptance because we know precisely what it means. It means that we will never be free until we are dead to the whole business of justifying ourselves. But since that business is our life, that means not until we are dead. For Jesus came to save us from our sins. Not to reform the reformable, not to improve the improvable ... but then, I have said all that. Let us make an end: as long as you are struggling like the Pharisee to be alive in your own eyes - and to the precise degree that your struggles are for what is holy, just, and good - you will resent the apparent indifference to your pains that God shows in making the effortlessness of death the touchstone of your justification. The Publican He can work with. The Pharisee He cannot.

Only when you are finally able, with the publican, to admit that you are dead in your sins will you be able to stop balking at grace and its grace-to-grace truth. It is, admittedly, a terrifying step. You will cry and kick and scream before you take it, because it means putting yourself out of the only game you know. 

For your comfort though, I can tell you three things. First, it is only one step. Second, it is not a step out of reality into nothing, but a step from fiction into truth. And third, it will make you laugh out loud at how short the trip home was: it wasn't a trip at all; He was already there, knocking on your door. You just needed to open the door! 

Credit Robert Capon his delightful words mingled with many of my own.

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