No Comparison
Luke 18:9-14
October 27, 2013
Not every
prayer is holy. Not every prayer is
honored by God, because sometimes, the Bible says, “we do not know how to pray
as we ought”.[1] We ask
God to do that, which what he would never do because it stands in stark opposition
to his nature and purpose. In the Bible
it is clear, God is pleased by some prayers, but dismayed by others.
In our
story today we will see the difference and maybe learn to pray in a way that is
more honest. We may come to mean what we
say when we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”[2] Let us prepare ourselves in prayer:
Lord, long
ago you noticed that we are all much better in seeing the flaws in others than
in ourselves. We are quick to offer
criticism and slow to take it. So, you
counseled us to remove the “log from our own eyes before we attempt to remove
the speck from the eye of another.”[3] But, sometimes our vision is so blurred and
our perspective so slanted we don’t know where to begin. “Open the eyes of the heart”, we pray, so
that “we may know what is the hope to which you have called us and what are the
riches of your glorious grace.”[4] Amen.
Almost everything decays over time. Houses need repainted, automobiles
repaired. Bodies, once young and
vigorous, soon lean on canes and reach for eyeglasses that become thicker over
the years.
Strange as
it seems, even goodness can go bad over time.
The Pharisees at the time of Jesus had come from godly stock. Their grandparents and great grandparents had
preserved and defended their faith against Greek occupiers who wanted nothing
more than to replace the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with gods like Zeus,
Athena, and Aphrodite. The Greeks had
desecrated the Temple, dispersed the people, and did everything in their power
to drive this faith in only one God off of the face of the earth.
Armed only
with a book containing the Law and the Prophets, the early Pharisees stood
against spear and sword and said in effect, “Here we stand, we can do no
other.”[5] They would not sacrifice their faith to fear,
nor sell it out for political ends. They
believed the scripture that promised, “God is our refuge and strength, a very
present help in trouble, and so we will not fear though the earth should
change, the mountains shake, and the waters roar and foam.”[6]
Had it not
been for those Pharisees the nation of Israel at the time of Jesus could well
have been populated by people who would have had no clue about what Jesus was
talking about when he said, “I have come not to abolish the law or the
prophets; but to fulfill them.”[7] They may have had no notion that “God is
one”, or that “the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding
in steadfast love.”[8] They may
never have heard the prophecy that spoke of a suffering servant who would be
“wounded for our transgressions, and crushed for our iniquities.”[9]
Those early
Pharisees did a good job. By the time
Jesus came, there was a foundation of faith for him to build upon. But, somewhere between the time of the great
grandfathers and the time when the great grandchildren were no longer
persecuted, but held instead positions of power and position - something happened – something changed
their faith. Something good went
bad. The fruit of the spirit spoiled and
became only works of the flesh.
Somehow the
“strength that came from the joy in the Lord” had been sapped and replaced by a
dull faith and a plodding mechanical going-through- the-motions reading of
God’s Word.[10] Those who had once been respected for piety
were now condemned for pride.
Jesus
parable catches this shift. “Two men
went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.”[11] The contrast, for Jesus’ audience, could not
have been more obvious. Although the
Pharisees were seen as a bit dour, they were at least, for the most part -
honest. They may have been a little too
preachy, but they were not pickpockets.
Tax collectors on the other hand were worse than thieves because they
stole your money with the permission and power of their Roman captors. A mugger, at least, made no pretense about
what he is doing, but a tax collector wrapped himself up in the Roman flag and
told you it was O.K. for him to cheat and steal your money. When Jesus said, “two men went up to the
temple to pray, a Pharisee and a tax collector”, Jesus audience knew which one
wore the black hat.
Jesus
continued, “The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying, “God, I thank you
that I am not like other people; thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this
tax collector.”[12] Notice, Jesus said he was “standing by
himself.” So, there is no indication
that his prayer was for public consumption, that he was just bragging and wants
everyone or anyone else to hear. Jesus did not say the Pharisee was pointing at
the tax collector when he prayed in order to put him down.
The prayer
may have been genuine because it is still quite common. Who has not glanced
sidelong with some spiritual smugness at someone whose lifestyle makes you with
all your flaws look like Mother Theresa?
You tell yourself, “I may not be perfect, but I’m not nearly as bad as
that guy”.
Seeing the sins in someone else
often make us feel better about ourselves because we have learned from the time
we were very young to measure ourselves against others. That’s the whole point of receiving a grade
for learning a subject. That’s how we know how well we are doing. Every class reunion is filled with sidelong
glances and veiled questions designed to determine which class mates have done
well in life and which ones haven’t.
This even
happens in Church. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve overheard one group of
Christians put down another group of Christians because their theology has a
different flavor and their witness a different emphasis.
Go to one side of the church and
you can almost hear people praying praying, “Lord, we thank you that we’re am
not like those Bible-thumping, right-wing, evangelicals who think that religion
is all about getting to heaven and that Jesus is the only way. We are the only ones who really care for the
poor and understand justice and how to make the world a better place. O Lord,
we thank you that we are not like them.”
Go to the other side of the church
and you may overhear another prayer, “Lord, we thank you that we are not like
those wishy-washy left-wing liberals who are so enamored with the things of
this world they never pay attention to the things of the next. We are the ones who rightly read the
scriptures and know what’s right and wrong. O Lord, we thank you that we are
not like them.”
That Pharisee’s prayer is more
common than you think because it springs from a theology that looks upon the
tax collectors in this world, the disappointments and failures not with “There
but for the grace of God go I”, but rather with, “There, but for my good
character, self-discipline, and right living go I.” This theology of works puts the power in our
hands to determine and secure our future and so removes the fear that we might
end up like those we look down upon. We
tell ourselves it could never happen to us because we are not like them – we’re
better than that.
It seems the only time the power of
that theology is shaken is when something happens that is entirely beyond your
control. You did all the right things,
obeyed the rules, planned ahead, but still something broke into your routine
and forced you to turn toward God once more.
You realized and recognized you just didn’t have the strength and
fortitude to do it on your own. It could have been anything, a broken marriage,
a bottle, a job that didn’t work out or even a nebulous shadow that settled
over your soul. For reasons you couldn’t
comprehend you had this uneasy feeling.
You needed help. You needed God.
Meanwhile back at the Temple, “The
tax collector was standing far off, which means he was barely in the door. He
knew he was a fish out of water and how others like the Pharisee might look at
him. He was afraid of their sidelong
glances, pointed fingers and whispers among themselves. So, he could not even
muster enough confidence to look up to heaven when he prayed because he felt
too embarrassed to look God in the eye.
There was no fancy church language in his prayer, no poetry. All he
could do was beat his chest and pray, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”[13]
He offered no excuse and no reason
why God should show him any favor at all.
He did not list a litany of religious duties he had completed, as did
the Pharisee. He did not compare himself
to others he thought might be worse in order to make him look good. There was nothing about his life he could
brag about or point to or rely upon – so all he had left was God.
All he could lean on was the grace
and mercy of the Lord, and Jesus said God would be enough, would be all he
needed.
Of the two at prayer that day, Jesus said,
only one left the Temple justified, right in the sight of God. Only one prayer was heard, and the other
never got past the ceiling.
One old preacher put it this way,
“Christ sends none away empty, except those that are full of themselves.”[14] That’s why self-righteousness is ultimately
self-defeating - it leaves no room for God.
Think of a closet, maybe your
closet, and it’s filled with clothes. I
mean it is stuffed, jam packed, crammed with jeans and sweatshirts, suits and
shorts – a lifetime of stuff. Some of it
fits – some of it doesn’t. It’s so full
there is not room for one more garment. Does that mean you’ll never go shopping
again? Well, probably not. Something will catch your eye, but before you
can hang it up you’re going to have to make a decision. You’re going to have to throw something out.
There’s a verse in Isaiah that
compares our righteousness, the things we think we can do to make God like us,
to “filthy rags”, to old clothes filling an overstuffed closet.[15] Zechariah picks upon on this image in a
vision he has of Joshua standing before the Lord clothed in these same “old
clothes”. Satan is standing next him,
pointing an accusatory finger, numbering his sins, cataloging his flaws, and
poking fun at the good Joshua thought he might have done in his life.
Joshua offered no excuse and no
reason why God should show him mercy. He
did not list a litany of religious duties he had completed or compare himself
to others he thought might be worse in order to make him look good. He relied only on the grace of God and that
it turns out is enough.
How did God respond? He rebuked Satan and sent him back from
whence he came, and then commanded an angel to take off the old clothes and put
on new clothes because he had removed his iniquity from him.[16]
In other words you only need one
suit in your closet, one dress. If you’re relying on blue jeans worn-out from
the hard work you did to make God like you, throw them out. If you are hoping your Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes
will get you into heaven, you’re going to be disappointed. If you’re counting on choir robes or pastor’s
robes – forget about it. If you’re
trying to stitch together your salvation with a carefully balanced blend works
and righteousness, then put down the needle and thread. Isaiah described it this way: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole
being shall exalt in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of
salvation and covered me with the robe of righteousness.”[17] God and only God can tailor your salvation.
Jesus concluded this parable with
an observation he made more than once, “For all who exalt themselves shall be
humbled, and all who humble themselves shall be exalted.”[18] The Latin root behind our English word for
humble is “humus” and every gardener knows what that is. It is the fertile earth that makes things
grow.
So, if you want to reach for the
heavens you need to be well grounded.
Eugene Peterson paraphrased it this way:
“If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up
flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you’ll become
more than yourself.”[19]
That’s why we include a prayer of
confession in our worship service. It is where we pray like that tax-collector,
“God, be merciful to me – a sinner.”
After every prayer of confession is
the Assurance of God’s grace. This is
wishful thinking or for psychological therapy.
We count on God’s grace because of the cross of Jesus Christ. That’s how we know it’s for real. The promise is sealed by his sacrifice. So, let us come before the Lord. Let us pray.
[1] Romans
8:26
[2] Matthew
6:10
[3] Matthew
7:1-5
[4]
Ephesians 1:18
[5]
Paraphrase of Martin Luther
[6] Psalm
46:1
[7] Matthew
5:17
[8]
Deuteronomy 6:4, Psalm 145:8
[9] Isaiah
53:5
[10] Nehemiah
8:10
[11] Luke
18:10
[12] Luke
18:11
[13] Luke
18:13
[14] Donald
Barnhouse
[15] Isaiah
64:6
[16]
Zechariah 3:1-5
[17] Isaiah
6:10
[18] Luke
18:14
[19] The
Message, Luke 18:14
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