In the Right with God......or not.

In the Right with God.
Based on the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel reading for Sunday 24 October 2010.
Luke 18:9-14

We have before us this morning one of Jesus’ parables. I don't want to give it a title, because Jesus didn't, and sometimes a title can pre-condition us to receive a story in a certain way. We have read the story, and it's about two people who go to pray. By the end of their prayers, only one of them is in the right with God. I think it's reasonable to suggest that most of us, surely all of us, who go to the trouble of praying, would like to be in the right with God by the time we've finished praying. Is this parable suggesting that half the people who bother praying can actually be worse off by the end of it? Certainly in our story, it seems it would have been better if one of those chaps hadn't prayed at all….. he's in a worse position with God because of his prayer.

There is a right and a wrong way to pray, there is a right and a wrong way for you and me to be before God, particularly when we come before God in prayer. Let's see what we can learn from this story. As my text I have chosen verse 14 and I am quoting from the Good News Version of the Bible:

"I tell you," said Jesus, "the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home.”

But let's start at the beginning:

Verse 9: Jesus also told this parable to people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else.

Being in the right with God begins with asking ourselves: “am I sure of my own goodness… and… do I despise everybody else?” Or, to go deeper, “do I think I'm a good person (whatever that may mean)… and… are there people that I despise?”

You see, if this verse describes you or me in some way, then this parable is for you and for me. If this verse doesn't describe you, then you can leave now. If the verse said, "Jesus told this parable to people who could fly aeroplanes, or to people who could speak Swahili", most of us would correctly say.... oh well, this story isn't for me.

Jesus told this parable to people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else and the fact that no one has got up and left (including the preacher) seems to indicate that we recognise that we are sometimes sure of our own goodness, and that each of us has some kind of people that we despise.

And I want to say that that is good, because the acknowledgement of that truth about ourselves is the beginning of being in the right with God.

Verse 10: "Once there were two men who went up to the Temple to pray: one was a pharisee, the other a tax collector.”

Jesus chooses two people at opposite ends of the social scale of the day, two who would be considered at opposite ends of the moral scale. A pharisee… and a tax collector.

Today He might have said “a nun and a prostitute went to the temple to pray” and many would immediately place these two at opposite ends -- one a respectable person, the other a disgraceful person……
or He might have said “a bank manager and a pickpocket went to the temple to pray” and again we would place one at one end and the other at the other end of our respectability or morality or goodness scales.

The problem we have is that we have read the whole parable and we know that it is the tax collector, the prostitute, the pickpocket, that leaves in the right with God and if that doesn't leave you and me a bit uncomfortable, then I don't think we are listening.

It seems we can learn from the least among us, just what it means to be in the right with God.


Verse 11 & 12: The pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed, 'I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week, and I give you one tenth of all my income.'

The pharisee lists his merits: he first mentions vices from which he abstains -- I'm not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer.
Then he lists what he does do -- he fasts twice a week and he gives a tenth of all his income. He is, by all measures, a righteous person, a good person (whatever that may mean), someone we might be tempted to think we’d like to have in our congregation.

Verse 13: But the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his breast and said, 'God, have pity on me, a sinner!'

Both his actions and his words tell us what we already know about him, and about prostitutes and pickpockets -- they are unworthy. What can we possibly learn from them that will help us to be in the right with God?

Just this: they know they are unworthy. You and I don't let them forget it. Ever.

They know they are unworthy.

How about you? Is unworthy the word that comes to your mind when you begin to think of yourself prayerfully before God?

The tax collector confesses his unworthiness and pleads for God's mercy.

I was talking to someone this week about forgiveness, and she said to me: “You know, that person ripped my heart out by what he did to me!” And I was stung by that choice of words, it made me realise what our sin does, did, to Jesus. It rips his heart out, it breaks his heart, it leaves him broken. And I think the tax collector has this awareness, that his sin rips God's heart out, and that causes him to plead for mercy, and all this seems to explain why he is the one who leaves there in the right with God.


Verse 14: I tell you," said Jesus, "the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home. For those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great."

Now, let's make it quite clear. Not all pharisees were like the pharisee in the story, and not all tax collectors were like the tax collector in the story. Many a pharisee was humble, and many a tax collector was unrepentant.

As always, it is what is going on at the heart level that is important. Each of them describes himself, and neither of them lied about himself.
Each of them told what he thought of himself and it would seem that how we think of ourselves determines whether we are, or can be, in the right with God.

What do you think of yourself, who are you in this parable?

I find that I could be either man in this parable, and maybe we all feel this way. Sometimes we honestly believe we are better than others who call themselves Christians, sometimes we pat ourselves on the back -- I feed the poor, I tithe, I try to help others who need help. Notice how often the pharisee uses the word "I". The pharisee is the one who is at the centre of his existence, not God. Much as we might struggle to admit it, there is often pharisee in us, isn't there?

Hopefully there's also tax collector in me. If I'm honest with myself, as Paul is with himself (and the whole world) in chapter 7 of his Letter to the Romans, sometimes I do things I really do not want to do. A selfish part deep at my core hurts the people I love the most. Hopefully then, like the tax collector, I cannot even look to heaven, and all I can do is whisper “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” That is when transformation can begin, that is when God can begin and continue the work of transforming sinner into saint. That is when I can be in the right with God.

Are you…in the right with God?

“I tell you," said Jesus, "the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home.”

How will you and I go home today?

Let us be still and if, like the pharisee and the tax collector, we feel like praying, then pray, and may our prayers, today and always, be prayers that have us going home in the right with God.