At a Distance

Luke 18: 9-14, page 742
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the others – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
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.’
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Sermon
Leaving one church and going to another is not easy at all.
As word has gotten out that I’m leaving Good Shepherd for 1st Presbyterian of Columbia, Tennessee, I’ve been honored by emails, phone calls, and face book messages – all of which make me wonder how on earth I’m ever going to be able to say goodbye to all of you.
But in addition to your kind words that I’ve been honored to receive, though some seem to me to be describing someone else entirely, I also have to go back through the examination process.
Just as when a lawyer goes from one state to another, or when a teacher goes from one district to another, a Presbyterian minister, going from one Presbytery to another, must once again go through the tedious process of examination on the floor of Presbytery, fielding questions from any of the 150-300 elders and ministers present who want to give me a hard time.
Last Wednesday I was driving up to Columbia TN, thinking about the examination to take place the next day in Nashville, and I was wondering to myself: should I be honest about who I am, or should I play the part and just get through my examination?
It’s a long drive up there, and in addition to worrying about how I would answer their questions, I was listening to the new George Washington biography that was published earlier this month, written by Ron Chernow.
This new biography portrays our first president in a revealing light – dispelling the myths that many of us grew up hearing. No, that episode with the cherry tree probably did not happen, as his father, who in this story rewards young Washington for refusing to tell a lie actually died long before his son would have ever been able to lift an ax. The other myth – that George Washington was able to throw a coin clear across that great, wide, river seems also to be a fabrication.
These stories, however, while they are almost certainly not factually true, do point to some truths of Washington’s character – he cherished honesty for the most part, and, standing at over six feet tall, Washington was probably taller and stronger than the vast majority of men of his generation.
His greatness aside, there is more to the story, as like all great biographies, this most recent concerning our 1st president works to dispel myths of character in the hopes of getting to the truth. So his biography tells the story of a young man, thrust into adulthood early by the death or his father and his older brothers, who drove himself up the ladder of Virginia aristocracy by inflating his military prowess to heroism, a military career that was in reality up until the Revolutionary War, scarred by mistakes and redeemed by luck. Though a champion of freedom, Washington one of the largest slave owners in the state of Virginia, though remembered as a great politician, his early political gains were bought through bribery by rum, and though generally thought of as a Christian man, was a steady attendee of the Anglican Church, and took leadership roles therein, he never took communion nor made any outright profession of faith.
Biographies have a way or undoing the images we place upon people – for in biographies you are invited to see people for who they truly are.
It’s good, then, that biographies are most often only written after their subject’s death, as only after death can our society’s heroes and villains stop being who we need them to be.
Our nation needed Washington to be a hero, to be larger than life, and so he was – but in death this newest biography offers him the freedom to be the person he always was, the person history has been reluctant to let him be – a human being – exactly what he always was before God.
Before God there is no reason to pretend to be larger than life – before God there is no reason to be anything other than yourself because God already knows exactly who are you.
It’s a shame then that none of Washington’s prayers survived to inform his newest biography – they may have shed light on who he was and what he truly thought of himself.
Prayers do survive though – two of them – one from a tax collector and another from a Pharisee make up important parts of our scripture lesson for today – and these prayers both certainly shed light on the character of these two men.
These two men are alike in so many ways. They are both Jews – we know that because they both are granted entrance into the temple. They are both religious Jews – wanting to go to the temple at all. And they are both important figures in ancient Palestinian society – one, a revered religious figure – the other, a despised tax collector.
We are given an intimate look into their person through their prayer – though – based on who they were characterized as by their world, I can’t say that we learn much of anything new.
The Pharisee is exactly who society needed him to be – he was supposed to be better than everyone else, and so, in his prayer, he thanks God that he is. His congregation needed him to be exemplary, and so, in his prayer, we learn that he really does fast twice a week and gives a tenth of all that he receives.
The tax collector is also exactly who society needed him to be – he was supposed to be worse than everyone else, a cheater, a thief, a bad person, taking more than was his while the Pharisee willingly sacrificed, greedily getting as much as he can while the Pharisee willingly gives a tenth of his income away.
While they are opposites in some ways, each taking their respective place on the ethical scale of their society, they are the same in that their society needed them to be who they were, and they both perform their parts perfectly.
Society needs people who are particularly holy, people who they can look up to, who they can believe are closer to God, and so the Pharisee in prayer confesses to be just that. In the same way, society needs villains, people to look down on, people who can populate the bottom of the barrel so that most folks can say, “well, I’m not that great, but at least I’m better than him.” We need our villains so that we can feel OK about who we are, and so the tax collector plays his part.
But where this parable goes far off track is when Jesus says, “I tell you, this man [meaning the tax collector] went home justified before God.”
Why? Why is he the one who went home justified?
In prayer they are both in line with their respective characterizations – the Pharisee is good, and thankful that he is so good – and the tax collector is bad, and ashamed that he is so bad.
They are both playing their parts, and societal expectations would surely say that the Pharisee went home justified.
But based on the words of Jesus, it would seem that before God, it is better to be repentant.
That in our world, where we favor heroism above villainy, holiness above sacrilege, benevolence above selfishness, in the mind of God there is only repentance – or dependence on God’s grace – and self-righteousness – or the idea that you are good enough on your own, and you don’t really need God for anything besides an ear to hear how holy you think you are.
Our society asks much of us – and we all have parts to play – but God only asks us to be who we are – sinners in need of God’s grace for our salvation.
When we go before God, what we learn from this parable is that it is always better to be repentant, because in being repentant we ask God to enable us to be something more than we can achieve on our own.
What matters is not whether you are good or bad in the eyes of yourself or this world – what matters in the eyes of God is whether or not you are on the road to being better. Our world divides us up into simplistic categories, but in the eyes of God, there is only the self-righteous and the repentant – those who are justified in their own eyes and those who are trying to be justified in God’s eyes. Those who are praying about their own holiness, and those who are praying the tax collector’s prayer: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
No matter who you are or where you’ve been – what matters in the eyes of God is where you are going. Are you happy with where you are, who the world says you are, or are you appealing to God to have mercy, trusting that your weakness is the foundation for God’s strength?
God, have mercy on me, a sinner the tax collector prayed – if this is your prayer than you can be sure that in the eyes of God you are justified.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.