Text: Luke 18:9-14 (NIV)

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Prayer

Let us pray briefly before we dive in.

Lord, may Your words impact us deeply this morning. May we not turn away from the challenge that Our Lord poses us through this parable. Amen.

Context

This parable sits in a block where Jesus is teaching about the true nature of righteousness - how to be right with God and living out of that. He’s just taught about persistent prayer, he’s about to welcome the little children, and now he’s preaching a parable.

There’s a huge clue for the meaning of this parable at the start - “to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable”. These words were like bombs dropped over a specific target.

Because we know that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”, we can’t switch off and think there’s no application for us. Doctor Luke, ever the careful historian, wrote this story down for a very good reason. This parable cuts right to the heart of what it means to be right before God. It leaves us exposed, our efforts at picking ourselves up by the bootstraps looking futile, basically it leaves us in ruins - but, beautifully, it gives us one hand to clasp, one road to walk, one glorious promise to cling on to.

Two men

Many of Jesus’ stories include contrasting pairs; a this, and a that. A rich man and a poor man. A wise and a foolish servant. Older brother younger brother. Here, we meet two men; a Pharisee and a Tax collector, as they approach God by going to the Temple.

Guy 1: Pharisee

The word “pharisee” literally means “separated”. Notice the Pharisee is “standing apart”. The Pharisees were a Jewish sect who believed they were right with God on 2 grounds: 1. They were of the chosen race and (2) because they rigidly obeyed a code of laws. They were very harsh with all other people!

These guys get a terrible rap throughout the New Testament, and Jesus reserves His harshest words for them. The most common understanding in mainstream evangelicalism seems to be that Jesus’ big problem with them was that they were “legalists”. We have to be careful with terms here. Wanting to please and obey God, and loving and attempting to keep God’s good law, that is not legalism. Otherwise, the writer of Psalm 119 with lines like “Psalm 119:97 Oh, how I love Your law! All day long it is my meditation.” would have to be considered a legalist!

The sin of legalism is a more subtle and dangerous issue - that of seeking to be made right and shown to be right solely by keeping laws, without a God-wrought inward change, without relying on the lawgiver. Furthermore, the main problem with the Pharisees according to some scholars is that they were literally heretics - Jesus quotes Isaiah 29 “Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:

‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

Hear that last remark; “Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ” the Pharisees had the written Torah alright, but they also had what they considered an oral tradition, which they taught as the commandments of God. So, on one hand we have that which is God-breathed - the Holy scriptures - and on the other we have something man made. The Pharisees were alloying these things together, which is a violation of the 3rd commandment so for all their rulekeeping, they were ironically lawbreakers. These teachings of the Pharisees remain with us today as Talmudic Judaism - you can trace back through the rabbinic traditions to the Pharisees.

The Pharisee seems like a grateful chap - after all, his prayer is full of thankyous, and it’s good and right to thank God for all things - but look at way our Pharisee thinks of himself:

• Not greedy
• Not dishonest
• Not an adulterer

In summary: I’M NOT LIKE ALL THOSE SINNERS. The zoomers might call him the “Pick Me Pharisee”!

Whilst it is commendable that he is free of outright scandal, our thankful Pharisee demonstrates a more serious and subtle problem - pride. Remember, Jesus was preaching this to people confident in their OWN righteousness, who felt that they were impressive to God. Pride is deadly because it is antithetical to the Christian faith - if we think we can do it all ourselves, we blind ourselves to how sinful our natures truly are, and we cannot see our need for the mercy that God offers. Scripture says that if you break one of God’s laws, you’re a lawbreaker. Now, that doesn’t mean all sin is of equal severity, scripture doesn’t teach that, but it DOES mean that we are all in the same boat - we are lawbreakers.

In his prideful pomp, our thankful Pharisee doesn’t seem to appreciate this, as he is busy with his performative righteousness, sneering at another man in the temple.

Guy 2: Tax collector

Let’s move on to the next character in Jesus’ story, the tax collector.

To Jesus’ audience, it’s likely that there may have been something of a “boo, hiss” mentality at the mention of a tax collector. Some of us may have an element of that today when we see the deductions in our payslips, but steady on because I am currently contracting for HMRC myself! Jewish tax collectors of Jesus’ day were considered outright traitors. The taxes they collected went to the Roman Empire, which was occupying Israel, so the people felt they were involuntarily financing their own oppression!

Tax collectors were known for being scammers as well - they’d operate a bit like Judge Dredd, but instead of dispensing judgement on the spot, they would shake people down on the street. You could get ripped off by multiple tax collectors in a single day! They also often operated as loan sharks, further crushing poor people - the oft-forgotten sin known as “usury”. We see elsewhere in the Gospels that the tax collectors overcharged people, and extorted hush money out of them.These were not good guys doing an honest job - they were the enemies of God’s people.

The attitude of the Pharisees to the tax collectors is really key; if we look at the Babylonian Talmud, which is a Rabbinic Jewish text compiled around 200-600CE and remember descends from Pharisaic teachings, tax collectors were ranked amongst murderers and robbers. Their testimony was considered invalid in court - in fact, they were excommunicated. It wasn’t even considered sinful to lie to them, because they were scammers, loan sharks, weasels and traitors. So, only crooks became tax collectors - because it removed one from the assembly of God’s people. They were considered apostates - opposed to God and His people. One of the criticisms levied at Jesus was “he eats with tax collectors and sinners”!

Knowing this makes it all the more arresting that a tax collector was even in the temple to pray! This man, a crook, a thief, an usurer, a liar, a traitor, a reject from God’s people, a pariah in his community. Surely the most uncomfortable place for him is in God’s house. With all his courage, he walked through those doors. Some of you might be able to relate to that - it can be HARD to come to the Lord’s assembly. He sees Mr Squeaky-Clean Pharisee, he senses the sneering. Our tax collector stands at a distance, feeling the weight of his sin. He beats on his chest, signifying deep sorry, and asks God for what only God can give - mercy. He knows he can’t fix this himself.

Application

So that’s the players on the stage.

I think before drawing out the key meaning of the text, I’d like to focus on what it DOESN’T teach.

What it DOESN’T teach

Having heard about the Pharisees, it’s actually easy to stick to the same flypaper with which Jesus catches His audience - we can easily sneer at the “legalistic” Pharisees. “What a bunch of fools with their silly rules and regulations! WE are under GRACE ,we can do WHATEVER we like and then go rolling over to the nearest den of iniquity just to prove our point. Well, sorry, that’s a heresy called “antinomianism”! It’s the idea that under grace means we can sin all we want. Paul says “by no means!”

Conviction for God’s word burns within His people - we call that “zeal” - and it’s right and good to love God’s ways and seek to obey. All of God’s children will naturally want to obey Him, although we acknowledge we can’t do it perfectly and we need His help at every step of the way.

A second pitfall is that one can easily extrapolate parables beyond Christ’s intent. It’s clear pharisee sneering I don’t think that we can make any kind of case that this parable is to say we cannot make moral judgements! We cannot live without doing so! “This is right, this is wrong”. We have tove particular action! We can belies and beliefs of others are wrong; that does not make us “a Pharisee”. We must not overlook that when Our Lord said to remove the plank from our eye before removing the speck from our brother, that it is a good and righteous thing to remove the speck - provided our plank is dealt with and it’s done in genuine loving concern for the other!

What it DOES teach

Let’s move on to the critical lessons of this passage.

Who we are before God

This parable is primarily about our posture before God, and secondarily about our posture before one another. This is the foundational basis of rightly relating to one another - to relate rightly to you, I should first relate rightly to our Creator, and then I can view you correctly; I can view you in light of what God says about you. However, the relationships are not equivalent - you and I are moral equals. We are both finite, contingent beings. God, on the other hand, is the all-powerful, all-knowing, good, pure, Holy ancient of days - the judge of the whole world, the rightful owner of our lives, the very standard of goodness and beauty! And you and I have sinned against Him, repeatedly, wickedly and consciously - the Bible says that “all have sinned”.

As such, this parable teaches us to rightly remember who God is, and who we are before Him. This parable, as we let it sit uncomfortably upon us, will crush any self righteousness. This parable shows me that there are sometimes individuals or groups that I look down upon.

Analysing the Pharisee

It’s our instinct to compare - to grade on a curve - to say like the Pharisee “at least I’m not THAT guy!”. But surely this is to forget who we the judge is! Let’s remember who God is. the creator of all things, who is so set apart that the angels themselves throw themselves on their faces, and cry “Holy Holy Holy!”, who is so pure that the prophet Isaiah cried ““Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”” (Is6:5), that Moses removed his shoes around, that Peter “fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8)” The God who cast Satan and his minions from Heaven. The God who caused the earth to swallow up the sons of Korah when they rebelled against Him. The God who struck dead a man for touching the Ark of the covenant in the wrong way. The God who says “be Holy for I am Holy”. OK, I’m going to stand before THAT God and say “thank you that I’m such a super chap”? Like I’m not riddled with sin? Like I don’t struggle with lust, or pride, or contempt for my neighbour? Really? I’m gonna give myself an A+ report card?

Let’s remember our target audience - the ESV has it that “Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt”. Let us never for a minute think we’re too big to fail, too sorted to sin, too righteous to repent. Tragically, for all his social standing and saying thank you, this Pharisee did not go home justified, meaning he was NOT right with God. He went home lost.

Analysing the tax collector

And let us also consider our tax collector.

Those that remember who God is and who we are before Him will be inclined to act like our tax collector friend before God. Our sins may not be so obvious as his, but “if we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”.

The tax collector’s short prayer is “God,have mercy on me, a sinner”. I am reminded of the Preacher of Ecclesiastes who said “Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.”. The tax collector knows he is a sinner, and he asks God simply and humbly for mercy.

Through this parable, God the Holy Spirit urges us to consider our lives, and to cast ourselves on the mercy of God, won for us by Jesus’ death on the cross, not on our own performance.

We are never too much of a villain for Christ’s mercy. One of Jesus’ very disciples, Matthew, was a tax collector. Remember the hated little tax collector Zaccheus up in his tree, and his total change of heart in the light of Jesus’ mercy and kindness to him. Some commentators believe this parable is ABOUT Zaccheus, about his repentance, because it is told just before Luke’s account of Zaccheus and has many parallel themes.

Believe me, if you relate to the tax collector, if you feel the weight of your sin, if you know that you need mercy from your creator, there is hope for you. The lifeblood of the divine son of God ran down a cross 2000 years ago for men like that tax collector, wicked sinners like me, and people like you too. The Bible has a beautiful promise - “anyone who is thirsty, come and drink”, meaning anyone desiring grace, desiring eternal life, wishing to forsake sin, come to Jesus. He will receive you. This tax collector, with his simple, earnest prayer, went home justified before God - in right standing with God, at peace with God, spiritually alive. If you don’t know what that could mean for you, please speak to somebody here, perhaps one of the elders of the church. Don’t let it go.

Living in the light of this parable

All scripture has practical application and this parable is no exception.

As is often stated, Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners. Unlike the poser Pharisees, Christ was genuinely holy, genuinely set apart for God’s work, but He wasn’t physically separated from sinful people who needed His help.

Now, that doesn’t mean keeping unwise company - the Bible is clear that bad company corrupts good character - but we Christians can’t disappear from the world, floating above it like some ascetic Holy Joes. For the Christian, there is no untouchable caste. Be wise; it may not be prudent to stroll into a crack den waving some pamphlets, but what I’m saying is - don’t write people off as unsaveable. You can’t know that the wicked person in your life won’t one day be standing, broken under conviction of sin, at the back of church, thirsty for grace. Pray for them, share the Gospel with them, live your life around them in a way that honours Christ. Let them see Him.

We must make moral judgments every single day - discerning between what is God’s will, what is sin - but we must remain tender towards lost people. Whilst we must stand firm for truth and righteousness and be salt and light, let us do so like Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, not like Jonah raging over Nineveh. Aside from the grace of God, we too are lost, so let us remain humble and compassionate alongside our zeal and conviction. We need to hold ALL these things together as God’s people.

Jesus saves Pharisees too

One final thing - Jesus saves Pharisees too. One of them was known as Saul of Tarsus. His Greek name was Paul and he wrote much of the New Testament. If you’ve been a religious hypocrite, if you’ve been a legalist, so sure you were keeping all the rules just right but your heart is stirring with conviction now, repent, and receive mercy. If you’ve been an antinomian libertine, growing comfortable with your sin and writing off those that yearn to keep God’s good commandments as “legalists”, repent, and receive mercy.

That’s what this passage does, it searches our hearts, as scripture says “Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble.” (prov 3:34). This good word humbles us. It shows us who we are, before Him.

Take heart, all of us! Let’s finish where Christ does, saying as He says multiple times in the Gospels, “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Matt 23:12).

Closing prayer

Let us pray in closing:

Father, may Your word convict us, encourage us, nourish us and guide us. May we, Pharisees and tax collectors alike, know Your goodness and our fallenness, and so find mercy through the finished work of Jesus Christ, that may we live Godly lives of peace in the light of Your grace. Amen.