An elderly woman had just returned to her home from Church one Sunday morning when she was startled by an burglar.
Caught the man in the act of robbing her home of its valuables he runs towards the door,
"Stop! Acts 2:38!" The woman shouted
(Repent and be baptised, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven.)
The burglar stopped in his tracks. The woman calmly called the police and explained what she had done.
As the officer cuffed the man to take him in, he asked the burglar, "Why did you just stand there? All the old lady did was yell a scripture to you." "Scripture?" replied the burglar. "She had a cricket bat and a rolling pin”
The Gospel reading this morning is proof that Luke had no sense of comedy timing, and no idea how to inject irony into the scenes of the Bible. He was a Doctor after all; the report today is a little clinical.
“Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt”
Aaggh, that’s the punchline.
The issue in this part of the Gospel is one of self-righteousness. This was an important issue when Luke wrote. The Pharisees were still a force to contend with, and they had taken control of the Jewish religious tradition amongst the Diaspora as well as in the Jewish homeland.
Luke was almost certainly writing to Christian converts from Judaism with this parable. He would undoubtedly have known the ancient Jewish morning prayer which thanked God for not making him a Gentile, a slave or a woman. He was trying to get them to understand that self-righteousness was a hugely destructive force in the early church.
The story itself has a ring of immediacy about it. This makes it seem as if everyone who may have heard Jesus utter it may well have witnessed this very incident many times as they went to offer their own prayers in the temple. Note that the Pharisee stood off by himself to avoid contamination from anyone who might be in the temple courts in a ritually impure state. The tax collector, on the other hand, afraid perhaps of even daring to enter the sacred precincts, is "standing far off." In fact, this may refer to the fact that tax-collectors were regarded as unfit to enter the temple, and required to stay in the exterior Court of the Gentiles. Yet in Jesus' estimation the sincerity of his prayer far exceeded that of the Pharisee. He responded in repentance to the grace he hoped to find by acknowledging his own unworthiness.
One other detail of the story is significant: We are not told if the tax collector even knew he was forgiven. The word used is "Justified" (a typically strange Pauline word) with which Luke states this man's new relationship with God. (of course he was forgiven!)
Of the two men, he was the only one who had really prayed. For doing that he had been declared righteous, but not because he was good and the Pharisee bad, nor because he felt better for it. Rather he had the humility to do the one thing God requires: he had faced the truth about himself and asked for God's mercy and compassion.
Facing the truth is always a difficult task.
This isn’t all about us as individuals though, it’s also about how WE organize our shared life as a Church.
Being able to look at what WE do in our lives as CHRISTIANS, AND THEN organising our church life to affect those around us is very important!
SO HOW DO WE FACE THE TRUTH AS A CHURCH?
(It was at this stage that I made a coffee, looked out of the window and started to think about how we as a church could do things differently, how we could change…It was quite some time before I realised that it was nonsense – change for the sake of it is the sign of a church that has no idea what it’s doing).
I can tell you that this church is already very, very good at organising our church life to affect those around us. We have groups and clubs, events and talks, societies and services that include members of the community and the church in a seamless way – from cakes to churchmen and life groups to lunches. The Magor Church Centre is the centre of this and we should be really, really pleased!
Now I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t bother doing anymore, I’m just saying that through the hard work and commitment of people in this church we have started things that are really important.
People are starting to ask the question “what ARE they doing in there on a Sunday Morning?” they don’t think that it’s just “Vicar of Dibley, and the Parish Council”.
SO HOW DO WE FACE THE TRUTH AS INDIVIDUALS?
In the Gospel reading, the Pharisee was a good religious man, but did he have faith. He trusted in the Law and the Prophets, but did he trust in GOD. Had he, at some point managed to define GOD, and how RELIGION worked? The TAX-COLLECTOR was a bad man, and he knew it – he was in the temple waiting for the thunderbolt. He had little RELIGION, but he TRUSTED IN GOD and HAD FAITH.
Have you ever sat in church waiting for the thunderbolt? We can all feel that we are not RIGHT with GOD for some reason – and then we can judge ourselves against the PHARISEE and NOT the TAX-COLLECTOR.
Now sometimes people misunderstand this.
Are you the Pharisee or the Tax collector?
If you are the PHARISEE, your FIRST CONCERN will be more worried about remembering how many books there are in the Bible and whether the New International Version is a more faithful translation than the New Revised Standard Version. You will eventually pray to God, but in that ordered way that sounds like a church service, you will expect God to answer in riddles that you need to decode. When you get home, you’ll hate me for preaching this sermon because you thought it was all about you.
If you are the TAX COLLECTOR you’re happy that you are even here this morning because you’ve come to be with GOD and your church family in your own way. Your prayers before the service were thankful about stuff and also concerned with everyday realities – you know that you have to say ‘sorry’ to God, but it’s fine because (as a Christian) the price has now been paid for you, but you still need to ask for forgiveness. Your prayers did not have any real punctuation because they came from the heart. You have not read an article on the doctrine of substitutionary atonement this week, indeed you didn’t have enough time because you were probably worrying about people and life in general and doing your best to help. You trust other people to guide you in religion and theology and trust God to lead you in faith. You don’t care if this sermon isn’t speaking directly to you, because it might be good for someone else. When you get home you will feel as though you have been recharged.
I don’t know if we can be half and half! Tax collector or Pharisee, but isn’t it strange that we can leave church this morning thinking we have to be more like ‘tax collectors’.
I’ve been told that a good sermon should have a good beginning and a good ending, and they should be as close together as possible.
Therefore, this week;
May you leave this place recharged by the Holy Sacrament and the Word of God, May your love for others lead you into a deeper knowledge of God, May your prayers be messy but full of love, and May God speak to you in the words of others, the smile of children and the wonder of creation. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN
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