Pharisee v Tax Collector                                             Luke 18:9-14

Have any of you heard of Sandra West? Sandra was the heir of her late husband Ike West’s oil fortune. When she passed March 10, 1977 her will stipulated that she be buried in a lace nightgown reclining in the front seat of her powder blue Ferrari because as she put it, “If I’m going to heaven, I want to spend eternity relaxed and looking good in my favorite car.”

Sandra had a vision of driving that car down the highway to heaven and beeping the horn at the pearly gates. We know that’s not how we get to heaven, driving your car to the front gate is just     unrealistic. But hers isn’t the only unrealistic idea about getting to heaven.

I talk to a lot of people and I’ve heard a lot of unrealistic ideas about how we’re going to heaven. One of the most common I hear is, “I try to live a good life.” Ok, none of us are horrible people but for those who rely on this I ask, whose standards are you judging by? I sped up the thruway at 75 but cars were passing me so I guess I wasn’t that bad; I really wanted Saturday to myself so I told my friend I was too busy to help him, I didn’t hurt anyone; I dropped the carafe on my new Kureig, I just brought it back to the store and told them it came that way, they charge too much anyway.

If we rely on our standard of good we can always come up with reasons to justify our actions and keep feeling good about it. God is perfect, his standards are perfect. Look at Jesus, in all the times I’ve read the Gospels I never read how Jesus made an excuse to feel good after doing something wrong.

Something else I hear people tell me, “I do right most of the time so God must be ok with me.” I guess this means they think if they do more good than bad they get to go to heaven and conversely if they do more bad than good they are consigned to hell.

God is holy; he doesn’t look at things that way. You’ve heard me speak of David Burkowitz; the Son of Sam killer, can he ever do enough to make up for the bad he’s done? To our human minds he deserves hell for his crimes but to a Holy God; he confessed his sins, begged forgiveness and turned his life to Christ. Maybe we don’t like the thought but I believe he will be seated at God’s table in heaven.

I don’t think mankind in general changes much over time. These ideas about getting to heaven were more than likely prevalent in Jesus day and that’s why he told this parable. As I read through it I think the Pharisee must have believed something like, “I’m good enough.”

Verse 12, “I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” I don’t think this is exactly the kind of prayer God is looking for. This man’s not praying to uplift another, he’s not praying for God to lead him to work in God’s name, he’s not even praying for the protection of Israel from their Roman occupiers. This man’s prayer is a list of things he does to prove to God he’s good enough. Yes when compared to some others he looks pretty good. He tithed as was expected and he fasted twice a week. At the time Jewish law required one to fast one day a year, The Day of Atonement. This man fasted twice 104 times a year. The funny thing is, everything he tells God is true; he was an upstanding religious leader doing more than was required. He was an example to others, or was he? His prayer is all about what he does, nowhere does he thank God for the blessings in his life, nowhere does he pray for others.

I have listened to others ministers; some give me great spiritual uplift. There’s nothing wrong with you listening to others besides me but when you listen to any minister including me, remember the warning underlining this parable.

I listen to others but I listen with an observant ear. One very popular minster on TV; I’ve even gone to see him in person, reminds me of this Pharisee. He told us that night how he and his wife wanted to buy a house but it seemed God kept putting up road blocks to prevent it until the house was sold to someone else. A few months later they bought another house which they sold two years later for three times what they paid for it. Praise God, he blessed me, he increased my finances, now I live in a multi-million dollar home and fly around the country in a private jet. Not once did he mention Jesus and the cross or salvation by grace. Not once did he say anything about using his “blessing” to help uplift those who suffer in life. All I heard was how God blessed him with finances.

We need to be aware of what we pray for and what we think is important, and what we should be thankful of God for. What I have doesn’t impress God, and trying to impress him with what I do is pointless. We impress God solely by what we believe, and that is Jesus life teaches me about the kingdom of heaven, Jesus death on the cross paid for my sins, and Jesus resurrection fulfills God’s promise of eternal life through Christ for all believers.

Let’s look at the first part of the Pharisee’s prayer; “God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even this tax collector.”

 He thought that his “religion” put him above others, above those he sees as sinners. The sad part is that he didn’t understand that in God’s eyes he was a sinner also, on the same level as those he mentions; and if he is justified it is only by God’s grace.

I have been talking to a young man who attends a church on the other side of the county. He thinks like this Pharisee. He’s going to heaven because he doesn’t drink, because he gives more than ten percent to the church, because he won’t even talk to someone who lives an alternate lifestyle. He is the perfect Christian. I just want to make this perfectly clear; I am not a perfect Christian.

When I politely pointed out that he lives with his girlfriend and they have two children together without marriage, isn’t he being a little hypocritical? He told me I don’t understand and that he and everyone in his church is going to heaven; and only those in his church because they are the only ones who get it right.

As Christians we need to see the truth that we really are no better than anyone else. We are faced with the same trials; succumb to the same temptations, and our salvation is not based on our actions but on God’s actions.

As a Christian there is no one that I should ignore or refuse to associate with. Do I have to be happy about everything they do; no, but to exclude whole groups of people because of what they do, I don’t see that as Biblical. To believe whole groups of people are going to hell and they have no hope, I don’t see that as Biblical. Believing people who accept Christ and then still sin means they are not sincere in their belief and therefore are going to hell, I don’t see that as Biblical. Jesus told the adulterous woman and the prostitute to go and sin no more, any chance they lived the rest of their lives never sinning again? I don’t think so. I accept Christ, God has done great things in my life. I try to live as Jesus taught and I still sin. As far as I know only one person ever walked on earth and never sinned, and I call him Lord.

Both James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 say, “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Our Pharisee didn’t know it but while he thought he was drawing himself nearer to God, he was actually distancing himself. We need to be aware and not do the same thing.

And now we turn to the tax collector. Here is a sinner who knows he is; verse 13, “He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner.’”  This man’s prayer, what I would call a prayer of conversion, is simple. It acknowledges his life, it acknowledges God as Lord, and it asks God for mercy.

And what did these seven words gain? ” Verse 14, “I tell you this man…went home justified before God.” They gained salvation.

What did the Pharisee’s prayer gain? One of my Bibles at home translates verse 11 as, “The Pharisee prayed to himself.” When our prayers are meant to point out to God all we do, when our prayers are meant to be self serving, when our prayers are self centered and not God centered; then they’re not really prayers at all.

In Matthew 22 Jesus gives us two commandments; love God above all else and love others above yourself. Jesus parable today revolves around these commandments. We cannot love God the way Jesus tells us if we put ourselves above him, and we put ourselves above him when we act like this Pharisee, when we forget to be thankful for what God does and try to prove to him how good we are.

We do not love God above all else when we do not love others above ourselves. If we put ourselves above others, if we condemn others to hell with no regard for God’s grace because of something they do, when we look at someone and say, “Thank God I’m not like them,” instead of seeing them as God’s creation and worthy of his grace, then we’re not loving our neighbors and we’re not loving God.

We are wrong to look at our own righteousness because it means nothing. The only righteousness that matters is Jesus righteousness that he bestows on us when we have faith in him. In Philippians 3:9 Paul writes how he doesn’t want people to see righteousness in him through his acts but wants people to see righteousness  “…which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.” I pray we all are so inclinded.

Amen