Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Mike Cope, in his article "Righteousness Inside Out," tells of inviting a college student and his girlfriend back to his home after church, to have lunch with him and his wife. "When we got to the house, I took off my suit coat and invited him to do the same. The boy hemmed and hawed for a long time until he could pull me aside, and what he whispered to me then reminded me of the way I used to live when I was in college." It seemed he had only ironed the cuffs and collar of his shirt. If he took off his jacket, his girl would see the rest of his shirt and know what a slob he was. He had only ironed the parts that showed. That was one of the major, ongoing complaints Jesus brought against the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day. That they were phony. That they were not what they seemed to be. That they were hypocrites. That they only ironed the parts that showed. "You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others," Jesus told them, "but God's knows your hearts." They looked good on the outside, the parts that could be seen ("like white-washed tombs," Jesus said) but, inside, they were full of decomposition and decay. One of the strongest things Jesus ever said about anybody.

In today's parable - about the Pharisee and the tax-collector publicly praying -- Jesus' complaint against the Pharisees (against all sanctimonious people, for that matter) was even broader. Not only was the Pharisee a fake. Not only were his prayers self-serving. He was a pompous ass. He "trusted in himself that he was righteous," as Luke puts it, "and regarded others with contempt." He didn't understand the humility and simplicity of prayer: sorry, thank-you, please. Listen to what he prayed: "Thank you, God, that I am not like other men. I fast, I tithe. I'm not a thief, a rogue, or an adulterer. And by the way, God, thanks for not making me like that tax collector over there." The Pharisee doesn't ask for anything. He doesn't think he needs to. Spiritually, he has arrived.

I don't have to tell you about tax collectors. They took money from the people to support the hated occupying power: Rome. They received no salary from Caesar, but were permitted to add a little something more, a charge above what Rome required, for themselves -- whatever the market would bear. In other words, they skimmed the tax revenues before turning them over - and, in so doing, they took cruel and special advantage of the poor and powerless. So, in actual fact, this tax collector praying in the Temple was no saint. There were reasons, good reasons, to hate him. But his prayer was right. "God, be merciful to me a sinner." And when he went home that night, Jesus said, it was he who had been made right with God and not the Pharisee. The tax collector prayed like the Psalmist: "I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me." Not, "Look how wonderful I am," but "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me." The Pharisee boasted but didn't ask, the tax collector asked but didn't boast. And it was the tax collector Jesus praised.

Luke always sympathizes with the lost, the last, and the least. Here it is a tax collector. In the story just previous (you may remember from last week) it was a poor widow who couldn't get the judge's attention. In the next story it's a group of little children who almost don't get to see Jesus. Luke's prejudice in favor of the poor and powerless begins at the very start of his Gospel when Mary can't get over the fact that God should "regarded the lowly estate of his handmaiden," that he should choose someone like her, with no credentials whatsoever, to be the Mother of God. "Henceforth all generations shall call me blessed," she marvels. In Luke's Gospel, it's not kings and princes who make news, with their money and power, but the poor and ordinary people who make news (Good News!) with their courage and faith.

This is no Marxist-Leninist doctrine of class-struggle. Nor is it simply an appeal to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. It is that, but it's worse than that! Much worse, from our perspective. (We could deal with that!) This is the radical belief - shared, really, by all the early Christians -- that, when the final chapter is written, and the last ding-dong rings, and Gabriel blows his horn, the "losers" will be the winners and the "winners" will be the losers. That's the meaning of, "The first shall be last, and the last first." So if we want to get on the right side, we should begin today - do you understant? - we should begin today to live like losers: praying with humility, emulating little children, taking seats at the foot of the table, washing each others' feet, not seeking to be served but to serve. Which is precisely what Jesus did. Surprise, surprise! The earliest critics of the church referred to Christians as "those people who are turning the world upside down." Actually they were turning it right side up." They were getting the world, and themselves, aligned with what they knew to be true in God's eternity.

Of course, the Pharisee and the tax collector in this story, are characatures. They exemplify not only the wrong and right way to pray but also the wrong and right way to live. The Pharisee, I'm sure, was trapped in his pride and self-righteousness. I can almost feel sorry for him. He thought he could create his own salvation, by his own good works, and was prevented, by that very belief, from asking God for help. All he could do was boast. He was also trapped, by the same belief, into a negative and contemptuous view of other people. (Self-righteousness is worse than the bubonic plague! It's a worse death.)

Once we say, "I'll get into heaven by living right," -- once we've said that, we have started down the slippery slope of holier-than-thou religion. Next we will contrast our holiness with the holiness of others. Then we will need ways to measure holiness, some kind of holiness scale on which we can place ourselves and others. In other words, we will let the law back in - the very law which once imprisoned us and kept us from experiencing freedom in Christ. Why would we be so foolish? Why would we return to legalistic religion, religion of rules and regulations, of check lists, of a thousand dos and don'ts, when we have experienced the wonderful freedom which comes to us through faith in God? -- that freedom in which we are free to throw away what others expect of us, and even what we have expected of ourselves. -- that freedom in which we are free to be what we really are. -- that freedom in which we are free to love and to serve. The Pharisee, hoisted on his own petard, didn't know that. He was a prisoner of pride.

But when we learn, as that no-good tax collector learned (somehow), that our being saved depends not on our goodness but on God's forgiveness, that his love always comes first and ours is always in response to his, that we can never deserve nor repay God's grace, nor is there any gift we can bring to right whatever has gone haywire between us and him - when the truth of our impossible dilemma finally dawns on us ("Hangs my helpless soul on thee."), then we are suddenly and truly free. Trusting in our own goodness is just as foolish as trusting in riches, or brains, or hard work. They are all "partial" as Paul would say. Only God, who is complete and eternal, can save.

Albert Switzer was laboring one day, under the hot African sun, building his hospital at Lambarene. A large timber had to be raised into place, and try as he might, Switzer couldn't manage it. He looked up and saw a well-dressed African man standing in the shade of a tree, and asked him to lend a hand. "O, no," the man said, "I don't do that kind of work. I am an intellectual." And Albert Switzer, with five earned doctor's degrees, said, "I used to be an intellectual, but I couldn't live up to it." When we are Christians we don't have anything to live up to, no pretenses to maintain, no privileges to guard. We can't be too low in the eyes of the world. We can't be losers enough. There is a wonderful peace and freedom in that.