Luke 18:9-14 David Ruhe
Des Moines
October 29, 1995
"Like the Others"
Today is Reformation Sunday. That’s why Martha and I are wearing our red stoles, and why we have the red paraments hanging here in the chancel. This is the day we set aside each year to celebrate the fact that the Holy Spirit is continually renewing the Church; that the winds of change blow afresh in each generation. We celebrate reform today because this is the Sunday nearest Reformation Day, which is October 31—and you thought it was just Hallowe’en! October 31 was the day when Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of Wittenburg Cathedral, touching off not the custom of trick or treating, but what would later be called the Protestant Reformation.
Reformation Day, October 31, is followed immediately by All Saints’ Day, November 1, a day when we celebrate the many and various ways that God graces us through the lives of the saints, both with a capital S and with a small one. I like the feel of celebrating All Saints’ Day along with Reformation Day; because otherwise our red stoles and paraments and rejoicing in reform gets to feel too much like giving thanks to God that we’re not Roman Catholics; and while it is true that that is not my tradition of choice, nor is it the choice of most of us here today, it was, when last I looked, a perfectly acceptable thing to be not only for countless people, but also in the eyes of God. The business of thanking God we’re not like other people is pretty slippery, and sounds like the work of the Pharisee we met just a moment ago.
Don’t see him as a blowhard. That’s too easy. We have no reason to doubt that everything he says about himself is true. Think, instead, that he is precisely what he claims to be: a sincerely devout person who tries very hard to do what God requires and more. The religious Law says one should fast once a year, at Yom Kippur; he fasts twice a week. The Law requires that he give one tenth of his agricultural income to the Temple treasury; he tithes on all his earnings. When it comes to the desire to please God, this man is in the top three or four percent. His piety sets him apart… really.
By the same token, don’t think of the other guy as some sort of spiritual hero.
That’s too easy. Instead, think that he is precisely what he claims to be: a sinner. He is a publican, a tax collector. He is a Jew who works on behalf of the Romans. Tax collectors were notorious for overcharging people to make themselves wealthy. Tax collectors had pretty much given up on making themselves popular. They were about as beloved as the French who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II. So this tax collector is no saint. He doesn’t promise to renounce his profession. He doesn’t promise to make restitution for all that
he has wrongfully extorted. He simply says that he is a sinner. He’s right. This is a man whose sinfulness seems to set him apart from other people. He is the real thing, the genuine article, a first class rat… really.
The one is certain that his righteousness gives him an in with God. The other is certain that his sinfulness leaves him out. They’re both wrong.
Perhaps from Day One, people have believed that the purpose of religion is to separate the universe into good guys and bad guys, redeemed and damned, us and them. In such an understanding, one does what one has to do in order to be counted among the saved. It may mean keeping the Law. It may mean performing the appropriate ritual. It may mean saying what you believe in exactly the same way as others say it. Insiders are separated from outsiders by dress, behavior and vocabulary.
Who is inside and who is outside is one of the major themes of Luke, and one of the treacherous undercurrents of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. This motif is revealed through the words used to describe the relationship of the two toward God. We get a glimpse of it in English through the interplay of the words "just," "unjust," and "justified": Jesus tells the story to those who trust in themselves that they are just; the Pharisee thanks God that he is not among the unjust; Jesus says that at the end it was the tax collector who was justified before God. The connections among these words are much stronger in the Greek; all are forms of dikaioo, "to be justified" or "brought into line." In the Greek the unjust are not merely those who fail to keep the Law. The term has connotations of "unclean," "unwashed," "outsider."
These are the ones with whom God-fearing faithful folks are not to associate, because such association produces contamination. People like the Pharisee are to separate themselves from people like the tax collector.
And so the story Jesus tells is dripping with irony. The Pharisee separates himself and says, in essence, "Thank you, God, that I am not like those on the outside, the unjust. Thank you, God, that I am right with you, and thereby able to live a righteous life." The tax collector simply acknowledges that he is a sinner. And Jesus says that it was the sinner who was justified, who was in with God. Outrageous! As affront to decent people everywhere! But the point of this powerful parable is this: when the Pharisee uses his piety to separate himself from others, he separates himself from God. When the tax collector acknowledges his sinfulness, his bond with sinful humankind, he acknowledges his need for God, and so finds God. To be counted in with the rest of humankind is to be counted among the sinners; it is to be counted among those for whom the gospel comes.
This same idea is reflected in another of the parable’s themes, the language of exalting and humbling. The final saying tacked-on as the moral of the story is familiar: "… for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." We tend to read this as foretelling a flip-flop of fortune: that the self-righteous windbag will be cast into outer darkness, while the groveling tax collector will receive the honored place at the table. But it doesn’t really say that. When we lower those from the top and raise those on the bottom, everybody meets in the middle. Those who experience only God’s judgment need to rediscover God’s mercy; those who trust in their own goodness needs to rediscover God’s judgment. But judgment and mercy together bring us to God… and closer to one another.
Similar imagery is found throughout Luke, and is introduced very early in the gospel. In the Magnificat, Mary’s song of praise to God for the salvation which is to happen through her as the mother of Jesus, we find this: "[God] has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, [God] has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly…" (Luke 1:51b-52a) All are on the same level before God.
The Apostle Paul expressed the bond of humankind a little differently: "… for there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…" (Romans 3:22b-23) And, as Paul observes elsewhere, "Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things." (Romans 2:1)
There’s the crux of the matter. The real sin of the Pharisee is that he presumes to separate himself from the rest of humankind. It’s all in that phrase, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people." The trouble is that it’s easy to see in the Pharisee, particularly when we see him as a caricature. We tend to magnify the Pharisee’s pomposity until he’s so puffed-up that we can thank God we’re not like him! Funny how that comes back around, isn’t it?
There are so many things we use to separate ourselves from one another! Take, for example, the simple matter of the way we tend to give thanks. How much of our gratitude is expressed in terms of the misfortunes of others, and our distance from it? We thank God that we live in a free land, that we have enough to eat, that we are healthy (if we are), that we have enough to get by. Does that not somehow separate us from those who live with oppression, poverty and illness? In thanking God for our privileges, do we not imply that God somehow intends to separate us from those less fortunate, to set us aside for favor? And how far from that is the notion that we must deserve what we get, just as those who do not have must somehow not be worthy? "God, I thank you that I am not like other people."
And, while we’re at it, God, I thank you that I have the blessings of the
Christian faith—not like the atheists; that I can think freely—not like those fundamentalists; that I know the Lord Jesus Christ—not like those heathen Muslims; that I am part of the life of a church—not like my backsliding neighbors who sleep in and watch professional wrestling on Sundays. This is almost hopeless. We can look down on those who don’t go to church or who go to the wrong one; the ones who never talk about the faith or who talk about it all the time; the ones who are too literal in their approach to the Bible or who never approach it at all; the ones who have to have the finest music or who wouldn’t know it they heard it. There are those who get involved in every social issue and those who never let their faith get out the door. You name it! We are capable of nearly limitless imagination when it comes to seeing the not-me in another person; and then it’s a short step to thanking God not for the richness of our diversity, but for the distance between us.
Some years ago I heard a meditation on this passage which represented a real break-through for me. It begins with the prayer, "Thank you, God, that I am like the others." Then you simply fill in the blank with the name of the person or persons from whom you distance yourself. Thank you, God, that I am like… who? Think of a person or persons whose politics or religion or personal habits or values you detest. No matter who it is, if you look long enough and hard enough, you can see yourself in the other. If we are not one with our enemies in the bond of love, at the very least we are one in the bond of sin. And that is no small bond.
The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector reminds us that to use our piety or supposed righteousness to separate ourselves from others is, ironically, also to separate ourselves from God.
Will you pray with me, please?
O God, I thank you that I am like the others: (name them)
We thank you for the common bond of humanity which links us to one another. We pray for grace to recognize our commonalities and to build upon those, rather than magnifying our differences. Secure in your love, O God, may we acknowledge our need for forgiveness, and so forgive others. This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen