Going home justified

 Luke 18.9-14 The tax collector, not the Pharisee, went home justified

 

‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

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There is an apocryphal story of the Sunday School teacher teaching a class about today’s parable of the Pharisee and tax collector.

The Sunday School teacher retells the story of the ‘two men who went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector’. Of how the Pharisee stood praying by thanking God that he was so good and generous, not like other people, and not like the tax collector who stood a way off, not even looking up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

The Sunday School teacher concludes: ‘so children, thank God that we’re not harsh and judgemental like other people and just like that Pharisee…’

It’s easy to fall into…

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So, Jesus told this parable ‘to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt’.

I wonder if your initial reaction is like mine? ‘I don’t regard others with contempt’, this must be about someone else!

The first thing then the parable exposes is the typically human round of finger pointing, of noting the flaws and shortcomings of other people and disregarding our own.

Have I never regarded another person with contempt?

Have I never pointed the finger?

Have I never allowed the crowd to determine my views of other people?

Never?

I suspect, human as we are, that each of us have viewed others with some degree of contempt at some time.

Have you never murmured: ‘“God, I thank you that I am not like other people: bankers, estate agents, journalists, or even like…” insert the name of your preferred politician.

But it might equally be our colleague, neighbour, family member who we regard with contempt.

That is not worthy of us as Christians, and something, aided by God’s grace, that we need to conquer.

That project begins in prayer because this is a spiritual condition that needs addressing.

The parable helps us go deeper in pondering what prayer is, and what prayer is not.

Prayer is not about self-justification: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector’.

Prayer is not about seeking acknowledgment for achievements, spiritual or otherwise: ‘I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income’.

Trying to position yourself in God’s sight – even, or especially, through trying to assure God that you’re hugely devout and observant - is doomed to failure, for he searches the depths of the human heart.

Prayer is not an occasion for weighing our own merits and pardoning our own offences.

That is spiritually corrosive.

So let’s flip to the positive, to that which makes us whole and healed, that is about our salvation and justification.

First and foremost prayer is about giving time and attention to God.

It is about setting our relationship with God on a proper footing.

God ‘searches me out and knows me, he knows my sitting down and standing up, he discerns my thoughts from afar’ (Psalm 139).

That’s how Psalm 139 puts it.

There is no hiding place from God, yet, just like Adam and Eve in the Garden, we try to cover ourselves with fig leaves to hide our vulnerability and shame of who we truly are.

We try to deflect God’s gaze by pointing at the shortcomings of others.

So how do we address this human disposition to blame others and present an unreal self?

The parable’s answer is: humility.

Mind you even humility itself can be twisted.

Humility becomes a martyr complex when we habitually seek to put ourselves down as a way to feel “good” about ourselves.

That’s not humility.

That’s not what the tax-collector is doing.

Proper humility is when the fig leaf of smug self-justification, spiritual pride or contempt for others is put aside.

So the words of the tax collector are the words that can, and should, be on our lips.

‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

Those words bubble up from the heart and shape the movement of the heart.

‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

That’s not negativity; that is reality; even though it goes against what our contemporary culture tells us.

We fall short, fellow sinners, you and me.

To say ‘I am a sinner’ means that God has somewhere to begin in my life; I acknowledge that I am in need of healing and saving

After all, Christ came to heal the sick; to bring sinners to repentance.

‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’: that is a prayer in itself.

The Eastern Orthodox Christian prayer is known as the Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner’.

It is known as Prayer of the Heart, and is gently repeated, mantra like.

In so doing we stop gazing on our own image and the mask we wear and we turn our gaze to God.

As the Psalm puts it,

Hearken unto my voice, O Lord, when I cry unto thee : have mercy upon me, and hear me.

My heart hath talked of thee, Seek ye my face : Thy face, Lord, will I seek. (Psalm 27.8,9)

So let us fix our gaze always on Christ.

As you look at a crucifix, seek to gaze on the mystery of the depths of his love.

As you look at a statue of Mary cradling her Son, seek to gaze on the mystery that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

At the moment you hear Jesus’ words, ‘This is my body; this is my blood’, seek to gaze on Christ in bread and wine as they are elevated, lifted up for you to behold.

In prayer we turn our gaze to our heavenly Father and away from an introspective gaze at ourselves.

In prayer we don’t exalt ourselves but exalt him in our lives.

In prayer we stand, as sinners, asking his healing, salvation and peace.

‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

Then we can go home justified.