Come As You Are

(Scriptures: Joel 2:23-32, Psalm 84
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 Luke 18:9-14)

Today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel continues the theme of last week’s reading about prayer. Remember last week, we had the parable of the widow seeking justice from an corrupt judge, and confronting him and pestering him and nagging him until the judge finally relented and gave her what she wanted, not out of any feeling of love or justice or compassion, but just so she’d get out of his face and go away. The lesson we’re to draw is that if even a corrupt judge can be persuaded by the persistence of a widow, among the weakest and most vulnerable members of the society of the day, how much more will a just and loving God eagerly listen and respond to our prayers, to the cries of our heart.

And so today we’re given another parable about two people who came to God in prayer, but whose prayers came from very different places, very different life experiences. It’s a parable in which Jesus’ original listeners, and we who hear the parable today, may feel discomfort with both of the main characters – not sure I’d want to invite either of these folks to dinner - but will want to identify more with one than the other. But if we take the time to let the parable sit with us, we may find that our discomfort with the characters may lead us to feel discomfort with ourselves – and ultimately that discomfort may lead us to seek God’s grace at the feet of Jesus.

Jesus’ snapshot of the Pharisee is so repulsive that it seems like a cartoon, a satirical portrait of religious self-righteousness run rampant. The original Greek is a bit ambiguous, and different English translations portray the man’s actions a bit differently. The NRSV, from which we read today, says that the man stood by himself – stood alone - and prayed – in other words, the man was physically isolated and separated from others at the temple, perhaps out of concern that he would be ritually contaminated, made ritually unclean, if the other poor slobs at the Temple that day accidentally brushed up against him. We get that sense from the words of his prayer – “God, I thank you that I am not like other people, not like thieves or extortioners – the Greek adjective means ‘one who is ravenous, vicious, destructive’ – not unjust, not an adulterer, and certainly not like that tax collector standing over there in the corner. Who let him in here anyway? He’s stinking up the place” The Pharisee felt he was better than other people, and so he would not stand near other people. Other translations say that the man stood and prayed with himself – in other words, his words were ultimately not directed to God at all, but rather the man in his self-satisfaction was in effect just making noise talking to himself, as he reminded God – as if God needed a reminder – of how zealously he had followed all the rules, doing more than required: ‘I fast twice a week, I give 10% of all my income.’ Either way, the man’s self-righteousness cut him off from God and neighbor alike.

The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable is an easy character to make fun of, but just a few words in his defence: with his society under Roman rule, with the Jewish way of life under constant threat, the Pharisee took seriously his duty not to cave in to Roman customs, but to hold fast to the way of life prescribed by the Torah – the written law – and the words of the prophets, and the oral tradition of interpretation that had evolved in order to apply the law and prophecies written centuries before to an evolving society. The Sadducees – the Temple hierarchy – largely collaborated with Rome, so that Rome would give them space to continue the rituals of the Temple. So long as they were allowed by Rome to do their thing at the Temple, the Sadducees weren’t overly concerned with what Rome did outside the Temple. Of course, after the Romans destroyed the Temple in AD70, the Sadducees had lost their place in Jewish society. And the Essenes largely kept to themselves, not interacting with the larger society, and at some point faded from history, though in recent years some of their writings have been rediscovered. It was the Pharisees who loved God so much that they wanted to stay connected to their society, not to go along with the crowd, but to bring God’s laws and commandments into their everyday lives. It was from the Pharisees that present-day rabbinic Judaism evolved. But even though the Pharisee in this parable – and I want to emphasize that he does not stand for all Pharisees or all Jews; we’re just talking about the guy in the parable – though he interacted with the larger society, his sense of self-righteousness and entitlement before God had the effect of cutting him off from neighbor, bringing his good intentions to naught.

And then Jesus introduces us to the other character, the tax collector. Just as a reminder, the tax collectors in Jesus’ day would have been Jews who had agreed to collect taxes from their fellow Jews on behalf of the hated Roman government. And under the system of the day, so long as the tax collector turned over to Rome what Rome wanted, Rome didn’t mind if the tax collector charged extra and kept it for himself. If the Pharisee went a bit too far in trying to preserve the faith of his fathers, and in the process had become a self-righteous jerk, a legend in his own mind, the tax collector had totally caved into Rome and turned his back on his fellow Jews.

And so the tax collector is also standing alone, probably out of embarrassment, to avoid being seen by his fellow citizens that he had exploited. The tax collector’s body language is telling; he wouldn’t even look up to heaven – lest God strike him with lightning, perhaps - but beat his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” Again, the Greek is a little ambiguous; it can also be translated, “God be merciful to me, the sinner.” The tax collector made no excuses for himself, no comparisons to others – “well, a saint I ain’t, but I’m no ax murderer either.” Just a plea for mercy, just a leap of faith into the loving arms of God.

So Jesus gives us two extreme, super-sized examples, a super-religious person and a super-sinner. And then tells us that it was the super-sinner, the one who threw himself on the mercy of the court, who was justified. The word “justified” is a relational word, meaning “brought into right relationship with God.” That right relationship with God comes, not by handing God our resume of good deeds and waiting for God’s admiration, but by coming into God’s presence, just as we are, and imploring God’s mercy….which we do every Sunday in the prayer of confession.

As I said, both of the characters in Jesus’ parable make us uncomfortable. Though we’re not crazy about either of them, we want to put ourselves in the place of the tax collector. We certainly don’t feel a lot of empathy for the Pharisee. But Jesus’ parable may lead us into an uncomfortable moment of self-recognition. Remember that the downfall of the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable was in comparing himself favorably to those around him. And so, if we’re tempted to say that we’re nothing like him, we may come to find that we’re exactly like him. It’s a temptation into which longtime church members – and pastors – can easily fall – our long years of church work may give us a sense of entitlement: “this is our church, our place of worship. We’ve earned this. We’ve worked so hard to keep things going – God knows we’ve had little enough help from anyone else - and it’s only fair for God to bless our efforts.” We may compare ourselves favorably to other groups of Christians. C. S. Lewis wrote of those whose penny’s worth of imagined humility before God bought them a dollar’s worth of contempt for their neighbors. But in the words of the old hymn, the ground is level at the foot of the cross; Christ died for us all, and we all stand in need of God’s grace. Indeed, it is only by God’s grace that any one of us have a place to stand at all.

It was the tax collector who threw himself on God’s grace who went home justified, brought into relationship with God. The tax collector had made a fresh start with God. And so it can be for us, and for our neighbors. Our Old Testament reading from Joel describes this sort of fresh start. Joel’s words come in the aftermath of a plague of locusts which have devoured all the crops. “What the cutting locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust has left, the hopping locust has eaten. And what the hopping locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.” And our lives can feel like that, like we’re lurching from one disaster to the next. If our wanderings have taken us far from God, we may feel like we’ve wasted our lives, spent our time and money on things that have only hurt us, that the days and weeks and years of our lives have been eaten up by a swarm of locusts. What have we done with our lives? Where have the years gone? What do we have to show for them? But the prophet calls on the people, “Return to the LORD, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing. 14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him.” And God promises, if we return to him, “I will repay you for the years that the locust has eaten.” Whatever lies in the past for us – no matter who we are, or where we are on our journey through life – God is gracious to welcome us home from our wanderings. We can be restored to relationship with God and neighbor, so that, at the end of our lives, we can say, with the Apostle Paul – who also knew what it was to start over and begin a new relationship with God – “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” May it be so with us here at Emanuel Church. Amen.
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Whether you're a tax collector or a Pharisee, a saint, a sinner, or both, or somewhere in between, you're welcome at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). We worship at 10 am. on Sundays. www.emanuelphila.org.