Bible Text: St Luke 18:9–14 | Preacher: Rev. Andrew Richard
Faith and love are the two chief marks of the Christian life: faith in Christ, and love for the neighbor. Pride is the enemy of both. Pride turns faith in Christ into trust in self, and pride turns love for the neighbor into contempt for the neighbor. Jesus spoke today’s parable “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Lk. 18:9). We’d all like to think, “I’m not that kind of person.” But we have to square with three things: First, Jesus told this parable to man to begin with because man is unfortunately perfectly capable of trust in self and contempt for the neighbor. Second, the Holy Spirit recorded this parable word for word in Sacred Scripture, meaning that there was a need for the Church to continue hearing it. Third, our fathers in the faith, many centuries ago, decided that, while many of Jesus’ parables would not be heard in Church on an annual basis, this parable would be. God and our forefathers have understood very well just how dangerous pride is to man, and we do well to take their concern for us seriously.
But let’s get into the parable. “Two men went up into the temple” (Lk. 18:10). These two go up to the temple at the same time because, like churches today, there were set service times. At the temple there were two daily services, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. At these services the priest would offer a lamb on the bronze altar in the courtyard and incense on the golden altar in the Holy Place, and the people would pray. It was an occasion to see a foreshadowing of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and to reflect on the mercy of the Lord, and to ask for and receive that mercy. In a sense, it was very much like our services today: it was all about the Lord’s mercy shown us through the Lamb of God.
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” They went to pray, one in fact, the other in mere pretense. There’s a poem that the students at the school memorize called “Two Went Up into the Temple to Pray” by Richard Crashaw, who was a 17th century English poet. It goes like this: “Two went to pray? O rather say / One went to brag, th’ other to pray: / One stands up close and treads on high, / Where th’ other dares not send his eye. / One nearer to God’s altar trod, / The other to the altar’s God.”
I love that second line: “One went to brag, th’ other to pray.” It puts a fine point on what’s happening in the parable, because the first thing we hear when we get to the temple with these two men is not the praise of God or a confession of sin or an actual prayer, but the Pharisee standing there, presumably praying, but merely tooting his own horn. Now it is very important to a proper understanding of this parable that we know exactly where the Pharisee went wrong, because there are many things that came out of his mouth that every pious Christian should want to say. He thanks God that he has not gone the way of the world. When you see someone who has wrecked his life with sin, you should thank God that you’re not that guy. You also want to be able to say before God with the Apostle Paul, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27). When the Pharisee says that he fasts twice a week and tithes, that’s but an example of holding the body in subjection and teaching the flesh not to love earthly things. We want to be able to say these things before God. The alternative is to say, “I’m a complete worldling and have no self control.” We don’t want to say that. God doesn’t want us to say that. We want to be able to say what the Pharisee says.
But we know we shouldn’t say it like the Pharisee said it. You know that he went wrong somewhere, but where exactly? The short answer is, as the Scripture says, he trusted in himself. He was proud. He knows how to sound like a saint, but he isn’t one, and both his posture and some of the things he says betray this. First, he takes a stand in the temple as if he has a right to be in the house of God. Then he stands by himself, as if he has nothing to do with the rest of the sinful rabble. He prays in order to be seen and heard by others. Finally, he drags the tax collector into his prayer, as if he would turn him from a fellow sinner into a mere point of comparison, apparently under the delusion that God grades on a curve. This is so horrifyingly wrong that we too easily think that we would never begin to think that way. And that is why it’s so important for us that Jesus told the parable, that the Holy spirit recorded it, and that we hear it every year, because we are too close for comfort to this Pharisee.
Pride comes naturally to us. This goes back to the devil’s first temptation of man and our first sin. The devil said, “you will be like God” (Gen. 3:5), tempting man to exalt himself. But believing this lie brought us down, not up, and we call it “the Fall” for good reason. Nevertheless, our sinful flesh continues to believe the lie, such that we always want to be higher than we are. We want to be better than our closest friends, than everyone else in our family, than everyone else in our congregation, and indeed, so deep and rancid is the corruption of our flesh, that we want to be better than God Himself. It’s what the devil promised, and it’s what the sinful nature that was born from believing that lie still believes.
Now there are two very obvious obstacles to thinking we’re God, and as Christians we can thank God for these hindrances, though our flesh does see them as obstacles to be overcome. The first is that we are obviously dependent on someone else. We didn’t come from ourselves. The natural position of man is to have faith in God and cast ourselves on Him, because He is clearly our Creator, we have all things from Him and not from ourselves, and if we’re going to live, it will only be by His care and protection. There’s no escaping this reality, and again, as Christians we’re not looking to escape it, but the pride in us cannot stand being dependent, and sees as a suitable alternative trust in self. The Pharisee trusts in himself. He lists off all sorts of things that he’s done, or prevented himself from doing. In his eyes he is mighty. If he has fallen from anywhere, then he can pull himself up by the bootstraps. He needs no one. He is the self made man. But he cannot have faith in God, because that would be a mark of dependency and would admit being lower than someone else. He must trust in himself.
The second obstacle to thinking we’re God is that we are obviously not perfect. “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin,” as it says in Ecclesiastes (7:20). Even an honest pagan will admit this, and that even if his moral compass doesn’t point north. The Pharisee has to find a way around this, and so reasons, “I might not be objectively perfect, but at least I’m better than that guy over there.” And notice what this does to his attitude toward his neighbor. The more his neighbor suffers, the more the Pharisee says, “Well, looks like I’m doing something right, since that’s not happening to me.” The more his neighbor sins, the more the Pharisee says, “I’m even better than I thought I was!” The Pharisee doesn’t seek his neighbor’s good, doesn’t want to improve his neighbor’s life, and in fact wishes his neighbor harm and damnation, just so that when the niggling thought enters his mind, “You’re not perfect,” he can respond, “I’m better than this tax collector.”
Jesus “told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Lk. 18:9). That’s where pride leads: trust in self, contempt for the neighbor. It’s where pride must always lead, and it is good for us to hear this regularly so that we are on guard against our native pride, which would quickly turn us into Pharisees and land us in hell.
Jesus does not leave us with this miserable picture in front of us, but turns us toward a man who looks perfectly miserable outwardly, but is a true saint and has the peace of God. “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” (Lk. 18:13). This man is humble, which is nothing else than to say that he has a proper estimation of himself. Humility is the only attitude of the heart that makes any sense for fallen man. The tax collector stands at a distance, confessing that he is not worthy to approach God. He does not lift up his eyes to heaven, but is ashamed of his sins. He beats his breast, lamenting the inborn sin that lurks in his heart. He calls himself a sinner.
But he is not a hopeless sinner. Even if he stood at a distance, he nevertheless came in hope to the temple. Even if he did not lift up his eyes to heaven, he nevertheless had somewhere to fix them there on earth, for right there in front of him, its body consumed in fiery wrath, was a lamb, a male, a year old, without blemish, burning on the altar. And while he saw in the flames the punishment for his sin, he beheld the sacrifice as a pledge of the coming Savior, and took heart and did not despair of salvation. Likewise when you hear of the sufferings of Jesus you hear that your sins are no light matter, but deserve the wrath of God. Yet you also behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and your heart finds courage. From the altar it’s as if the Lamb cries out, “Be of good cheer! Your sins are forgiven!” “Yes,” the tax collector can tell himself. “The Lord instituted this service and this sacrifice, and He did so because He wants to have mercy on me.” And this prompts him to pray in faith, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
So also you have every reason to call yourself a sinner, but no reason to regard yourself as a hopeless sinner. The Son of God has become a man. Jesus has borne your sins. He has instituted the preaching of His Gospel. He has instituted the Sacrament of the Altar. He obviously wants to have mercy on you. So beat your breast, and lament over your sin-ridden heart, and cast down your eyes from heaven, and you too will see the Lamb on the altar, the Lamb who is merciful to sinners. And you will find with that Lamb a righteousness that is not your own “from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith” (Phil. 3:9).
“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other” (Lk. 18:14). To be justified means to be righteous before God, and the tax collector was righteous before God by faith in Jesus Christ. The tax collector was willing to be dependent on Christ, because he knew that if left to himself, he was a lost cause. Trust in self made no sense, and faith in Jesus was his only hope. The tax collector was willing to be imperfect, because that was simply the truth. He didn’t need to use other people to bolster himself. He made no mention of the Pharisee in his prayer, because there’s no sense trying to drag other people with you before the judgment seat. Contempt for others doesn’t help. Only Jesus helps, and the tax collector was not disappointed.
Notice that the tax collector is in the perfect position now to say everything the Pharisee said earlier, but to say it rightly. “I thank you God that I am not like other men.” “It is only by your mercy, O Lord, that I am not set on the path to hell, that I am not lost in sin, that I am not destroying my life by hating your commandments. I know that by nature I am a child of wrath, and it is only by your mercy that I am what I am. I’m not an extortioner, because you’ve shown me that you will provide for all my needs of body and soul, and Lord, forgive me for worry and covetousness. I’m not unjust, because you have taught me to love Your law, and in Christ not to stand in terror of Your just decrees; but most of all I’m not unjust because You have justified me, and I am righteous with the righteousness of Jesus.” The tax collector could also talk of everything he does to curb his sinful flesh and to teach himself that his greatest treasure is the Gospel. This is what Christians do: we look to overcome real obstacles that would hinder us from attaining eternal life.
But the tax collector doesn’t talk like the Pharisee does, even though he could do it rightly. It too easily becomes a dangerous business to compare ourselves to others or to meditate on our good works. I came across a great quote from Johann Gerhard, a Lutheran pastor from the 17th century: “It is indeed dangerous to think often of our good works and to boast of them. For one’s heart can easily be given over to arrogance. By contrast, it is of value to think often and much about our sins and to be troubled by them; for it is thus that we come to true humility.”
So in the end the tax collector doesn’t teach us to talk like the Pharisee, because that path too easily leads to trust in self and contempt for the neighbor. But the tax collector teaches us faith and love, the two marks of the Christian life. May we take him as our example, confess our sins, find refuge in the Savior’s mercy, and return to our homes justified to love and serve our neighbor. In the name of Jesus. Amen.