St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church
Two Kinds of People
A sermon about the sort of people God works with
Jesus says he tells the story in today’s Gospel for the benefit of two particular kinds of people: first, for people who trust in themselves, who feel well satisfied with the quality of their own lives; and second, for people who contemptuously look down their noses at others. Because Jesus lumps these two attitudes of self-satisfaction and contempt together, we’re safe to assume that they have something in common, that there is some link between complacently putting up with our own behavior, while putting other people down. Let’s take a close look at the two poster children Jesus gives us for these attitudes, the Pharisee and the tax man.
We meet these two clambering up parallel staircases to the Temple, each intent on praying in the holiest place on earth. One strides forward with confidence and enthusiasm, having every reason to believe that God will be expecting him. He is the Pharisee, a member of the spiritual elite who is known to avoid the kind of people, places and things which sully someone’s holiness. You and I are much more laid back about religion than he is; we hardly give a thought to where we’ve been or whom we’ve been with before we come to church. But the Pharisee takes the scriptures to heart: God is holy, so he must be holy. The Pharisee is onto something important here: he realizes that God really does care about the way he lives, and so he makes it his business to follow the good habits formed by his forebears in faith. These are not only what you and I today would call “religious” habits like tithing and going to church, but everyday good habits like knowing what to eat and how to dress and what sort of job to get.
The Pharisee doesn’t associate at all with the hoi polloi, the careless masses who just take each day as it comes. He’s focused and principled about every thing he does, dedicating it all to God. This day on the Temple mount he stands aside by himself as he prays, thanking God that he’s been given to know right from wrong, and that he manages to be right a lot of the time.
Meanwhile another man drags up another Temple staircase with a heavy heart, longing to feel the satisfaction with his own life that the Pharisee feels. He is a tax man, an out-sourced contractor for the Roman bureaucracy. Even the hoi polloi avoid him because everyone knows he’s a parasite, making his living by gouging them. He lives as a perennial outcast, and when he reaches the top of the Temple mount he is required to stop right inside the gate, and go no further. There he lines the wall with other social misfits like crooks and adulterers. He knows that God is holy, and that he is not.
As the tax man takes his place he catches the eye of the Pharisee passing him by, on his privileged way to the inner court. For a moment their gazes lock, as if they might have something to say to one another… but then the moment passes, and both men turn to their prayers. After all that’s why they’ve come to the Temple, to pray. The tax man buries his face in his hands and cries out to God, “Forgive me, I know I’m worthless, just please forgive me!”
These indeed are the very different poster children that Jesus gives us. One man leads a very good life, an exemplary life, honoring God from dawn to dusk with prayers and holy habits. He anticipates every detail of the day in terms of God’s highest hopes for him, and disciplines himself to respond. The other leads a very bad life, a disastrous life, dishonoring God from dawn to dusk by the very way he makes his living. He can’t afford to consider any part of his life in terms of God’s highest hopes for him, for he knows he is bound to fail.
Both raise their hearts and souls to God at the exact same moment; both know how miserably the tax man has failed: prays the Pharisee, “God I thank you I am not like this tax collector”…prays the tax man, ”God be merciful to me a sinner!” Both speak with conviction that God will hear. We are shocked, then, to learn that it’s the tax man, the bad guy who knows he’s bad and fears that he is done for, it’s the corrupt man who sounds better to God.
Why? Because the righteous Pharisee suffers from one fatal flaw. So taken is he with everything he has been doing—his praying, his tithing, his eating habits, his work habits—that he has subtly turned himself into a little god. He’s built himself a little mental pedestal and helped himself up onto it. And from there he looks down with contempt on those who are less accomplished, even as he pays tribute to himself. Like some exulting Academy Award winner thanking all the little people, there is only room on the stage for him. His “Amen” leaves him feeling even more satisfied than before, and leaves God even less room in his life.
The tax man, on the other hand, burdened with so many things, at least is not burdened with this awful flaw. Another day Jesus will certainly want to talk with him about the unprincipled way he spends his days, about intentionally choosing a livelihood that takes him away from religious fellowship and preys upon his needy neighbors. But that will be another day, and that conversation will have to wait upon this day’s prayer, this heartfelt, breast-beating, hand-wringing prayer for God to forgive him for making such a mess of things. His “Amen” opens him to God’s ever-waiting compassion, and gives God room to work.
You and I come to the church to pray. Part of us feels fairly satisfied with the life we’ve been living, and we rightly remember the personal prayers we’ve been saying, and the good and generous deeds we’ve been doing, since we were last here. We get the feeling we’re doing okay because there so many other people we could name who haven’t been praying as they should, or sharing, or even coming to church. “Thank God,” we say, “that’s not us.” Yet part of us also feels discouraged with the life we’ve been living, especially when we remember how long we go in a typical day without even thinking of God, and how many opportunities we pass up to be generous and gracious with others. Truth is that the Pharisee and the tax man live within each of us; we are all a mix of spiritual accomplishment and failure, of inner satisfaction and desperation.
The Pharisee in us may want to rush forward and face God, believing that goodness is all that God expects to see. But the tax man in us knows better and holds back, and buries his face in our hands. For in the end it is trust in God’s forgiveness that saves us, leaving God room to work in our lives. Amen.
© Copyright The Rev. Ann Lukens 2004