+ + Jesu Juva + + +
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
God does not think like man does. His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s ways higher than our ways, and His thoughts than our thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9) For that we should thank and praise Him, serve, and obey Him because He does not treat us as we treat our neighbors. For our vision is limited; we see through a glass darkly. (1 Corinthians 13:12) Our judgments are tainted and clouded by sin and what we see is, more often than not, deceptive to our human flesh. Thus, if it were up to us, the Pharisee would go down to his house exalted. For the Pharisee is not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like you or me. (Luke 18:11) He is a holy man. He sits in the seat of Moses. (Matthew 23:2) His outward appearance is one of righteousness and it is this righteousness that we must exceed. (Matthew 5:20) He believes that he keeps the Law of God and in this keeping has opened the door to heaven.
The tax collector is just the opposite. He knows because of his sin how tightly closed to him are St. Peter’s gates. He cheats his fellow Jews, stealing from neighbor and relative alike. He serves the hated Romans and in serving them, he serves only himself. He is tarred with the same brush and, given the chance to judge, we would leave him in hell where he so obviously belongs with the rest of the unrighteous sinners.
But our Lord’s vision is not like ours. There is no eye as clear as His. His judgments are just. He cares not so much for the outer appearance of a man, “for He knows the secrets of the heart.” (Psalm 44:21, NKJV) All the dirty little secrets you reserve for the dark of night, all the dirty little secrets you would hide from your spouse and children; all the dirty little, and not so little, things you hope your mother never knows about you; all the juicy little tidbits that we thrill to when we witness someone fall, these Christ knows about you. There is no where to hide your misdeeds, your sins, where Jesus will not find them out.
And so I speak to you another parable. It is not a parable of Jesus, but Jesus could just as easily have spoken it. Two men went up to church to pray, one a pietist, smug and content in his self-righteousness, who sees the sins of others but because of the plank in his own eye cannot see his own. The other, was a thief, a liar, a murderer, a child molester, a rapist—take your pick or pick them all. The pietist raised his eyes to heaven and prayed thus with himself, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this thief, liar, murderer, molester, and rapist. I come to church every Sunday; I sit in the same pew as my family has for years before me; I put more money than anyone else in the offering every week. You and I have a personal relationship. I mind my P’s and Q’s and make sure that everyone else does too.”
The other man stood afar off. In fear of God and sick at heart for his sins he wouldn’t even raise his eyes from the ground. Instead, he prayed striking his chest, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (Luke 18:13, NKJV) Which of these men, do you suppose, went down to his house justified?
How would you judge these men? What would be your verdict? Since we are here listening to the Word of God I am sure you would pick the second man over the first to be justified just as Jesus picked the tax collector over the Pharisee. But the question I put to you, this day, is not what would Jesus do? We already know the answer to that question. My question to you is why? Why did Jesus do what He has done?
You see, the problem here is in understanding what it is Jesus is getting at, what He wishes for us to understand. Why was the tax collector justified over the Pharisee? Was it simply the pride of the Pharisee that caused his downfall? Was he not humble enough to be justified? Was he proud while the tax collector was humble? Was that the difference between the two? But if that is the case, I have to ask you, how does that make the men different in the eyes of God?
If it was the humility of the tax collector that gained the affections of our Lord, where, then, is the difference? Do you not see? Do we gain salvation by humility? Is that the path to heaven? Did St. Paul truly say, “It is by humility you are saved”? The answer to that question would be a resounding “NO!” and neither is Jesus saying that in the telling of the parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector.
Thus, if we believe that the difference between these two men is a matter of pride, one having less of it than the other, then, when it comes to their salvation, there truly is no difference between these two men, for the salvation of one over the other would be based on works—on how humble he can be—on his own individual merit. But we know and confess that we cannot obtain heaven by our own works or merit. We cannot obtain heaven by being more humble than anyone else. God does not absolve your sins because you are humble. Neither does God absolve your sins because of any good thing in you or because of any good thing you have done, but purely for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings, and death of Jesus Christ, His Son, upon the Cross for you.
So what, then, is the difference? What is the difference between the sinful Pharisee and the sinful tax collector or between the pietist and the detestable sinner of the parable I offered? The difference is their confession. In each case, both confess, but only one confesses rightly. Only one confesses his faith in the mercy of our God who alone raises the dead. Only one admits that he cannot obtain heaven by his own merit or good works, but purely through the grace and mercy of God alone. Only one admits that he is dead. Only one admits that he is dead and therefore his solitary hope is in the only one who can raise him from the dead.
Jesus is here, telling his listeners, and that means you, that outside of the grace of God in Christ, there is no hope to be found. Without faith in Christ Jesus alone, you are dead in your sins and there is no hope for you. Thus, what Jesus was telling you in this parable is that the tax collector confessed that he was dead—that he placed all his hope in a God he knew to be merciful, who desires not the death of a sinner but, “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4, NKJV) The tax collector is not merely asking for mercy, he is asking for the benefits of Jesus’ all-sufficient atonement for him upon the Cross. He is asking for Jesus’ absolution.
Repent! This is not the mercy you seek. Repent because you know precisely what the tax collector’s justification means and it frightens you. It means that you will never be free of your self-righteous works until you are dead to the whole business of justifying yourself. It is then, and only then, when you are able to admit, with the tax collector, that you are dead in your sin, that you will be able to stop refusing the grace of God.
The tax collector went down to his house full of life, redeemed and forgiven, for God desires “…mercy and not sacrifice. For [He] did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Matthew 9:13, NKJV) Jesus came to forgive sinners not saints. He is the Great Physician who comes to those who are sick, who make mistakes, who fail, who regret, who lose control and behave badly, who gossip and slander, and in a thousand other ways hurt themselves and those they love; He comes to those who are like other men. He comes for sinners like the tax collector and He comes for sinners like you and me. Jesus comes for those who feel the weight and pain of their sin, for those who will believe His promises and put their trust in Him. He comes with forgiveness for all who ask for His mercy.
That is the great irony of Christianity: that those who are without sin in Christ, those who have been Baptized, given His Name, that belong to Him, that are forgiven all things and declared saints of God, those such as you and the believing tax collector, the great irony is that they feel their sin most acutely. You feel it because you know what should be, and yet, cannot be achieved by you in this life. You know the struggle to give up your works for the works of Jesus. You know you have failed time and again. You know, and it hurts. It is shameful and awkward and you struggle against it. Meanwhile, those who are in sin, those who embrace it and seek to justify themselves, those like the Pharisee, they are satisfied and comfortable. Neither their conscience nor Satan bothers them.
This is the way of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the Kingdom of Heaven is a Kingdom of great reversals. In the Kingdom of Heaven the proud are scattered in the imagination of their hearts, the mighty are brought down from their thrones, the lowly are exalted, the hungry are filled with good things while the rich are sent empty away. (Luke 1:51-53) In the Kingdom of Heaven God humbles himself and becomes man so that He can exalt man, raising him up and seating him at His right hand. In the Kingdom of Heaven, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NKJV) In the Kingdom of Heaven the blind are made to see and the deaf can now hear. An instrument of shame, torture, and death, made from the dead limbs of a tree, in the Kingdom of Heaven, becomes for us the Tree of Life. In this Kingdom we die in the waters of Holy Baptism to be brought forth to newness of life in Jesus’ resurrection. (Romans 6:4)
So come now, like the tax collector. Come with your pain, your fear, your worries, your shame, your loneliness, and your doubt. Come to where God promises to be, where He extends His mercy. Come to where He gives of Himself to you. Come to the Temple made without hands, torn down by men, but rebuilt by God in three days. Have the Holy of Holies, that embodiment of God’s grace and mercy, placed onto your tongue, that when you depart from here this morning, you go down to your house knowing that you are justified, for you will have received that which satisfied the wrath of God; the Body and Blood of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, given into death for you, raised from the tomb for you, ascended to the throne of heaven for you. You can return to your homes justified because you have confessed your sinful wretchedness before God. You have pleaded, just as the tax collector, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” Even today you have made this plea and you have heard Jesus’ precious Words of absolution in His answer: “I forgive you all your sins.”
In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
Rev. Raymond Parent
Hope Lutheran Church, Bellaire, MI
08/3/08 A+D