KEEPING OUR HUMANITY IN MIND

 Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Sirach 35:12-17; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke  18:9-14]

A priest, a pastor, and a rabbi walk into a bar.  Soon after settling into a corner table and ordering their libations, they begin arguing over who was the best at what they do.  In order to come to a measurable judgment about such a thing, they lighted upon the notion that they all would go out alone into the woods and convert a bear to their respective religious tradition.

A few weeks later, they reconvened at the bar to compare notes and their experience.  The priest spoke first, energetically announcing, "I found a bear by the river, and I started talking to him about the Lord.  He liked it so much that he now comes to mass every week."

Responding to this news, the eyebrows of the other two clerics arched in quiet approbation.

Then, the pastor spoke.  "Well, I saw a bear in the clearing. I started reading the Bible to him, and he loved it so much that he is now going to be baptized in about a week."

The priest and the rabbi gently nodded their heads in courteous recognition of this accomplishment.

Then, it was the rabbi’s turn to make his report.  In the darkened bar the priest and the pastor hadn’t initially noticed that the rabbi had a broken arm in a sling, a fractured collarbone in a wrap under his coat, and several cuts and bruises on his hands and face.  Acknowledging his ordained colleagues’ wonderment about his appearance, the rabbi sheepishly said, “You know what?  Looking back, maybe I shouldn't have started with a circumcision.”

Two men went up to the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector.[1]

As you heard, this is how Jesus starts the telling of yet another of his parables, as he steadily moves along the road to Jerusalem and the cross.  As we have repeatedly reminded one another over the last two months of these gospel lessons from Luke, parables are “small stories with a large point”.[2]  As the late Frederick Buechner has taught, most of Jesus’ parables “have a kind of sad fun about them.” In their own, surprising way, Jesus’ parables are jokes, at least in their thrust to make the point that a silly question deserves a silly answer.[3]  Buechner further reminds us that, as with jokes and parables, “if you’ve got to have [their meaning] explained to you, don’t bother.”[4]

Nonetheless, treading where angels know not to go and fools irresistibly rush in, offering one explanation of the “Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector” is precisely what I want to do with this sermon.

You see, I do believe that if we had been with Jesus at the telling of this parable, the attentive eye would have noticed the faintest of smiles on the Lord’s lips, and perhaps with that careful attention might even have caught the wryest, “wait-for-it” wink toward a bemused Peter.

Two men went up to the temple to pray.

It is as if Jesus, in the comedic “stand-up” portion of his ministry, took two cartoons of the human condition; and in their incongruous comparison revealed a jolting message that produced, not a belly laugh, but an indicting, sobering surprise.  It was the kind of jolting surprise that all of Jesus’ parables contain: a jolting surprise that is meant to allow us to see ourselves as God sees us.

Two men went up to the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

Right away, we have the old saw-of-a-structure for a joke (as I illustrated at the outset of this sermon).  Two, incongruent, stereotypic figures, praying in the most sacred of spaces, the one where Jews believed that God abided on earth.  The content of their prayer reveals what happens when we lose a sense of our common humanity and, therefore, our life with God.

For instance, the Pharisee stands off by himself to offer his prayer, which in fact is nothing but a recitation of his successful resume.  He needs no intermediary or guidance, since he has done all things religious properly and to the full.  He has worshipped each sabbath and kept the prayers.  He has given ten percent of his income to the Temple’s good causes.  And twice each week he employed the spiritual discipline of fasting.  Yet, clearly, his cheeky-sounding statement that he is not like others – thieves, rogues, adulterers, tax collectors – clearly this is true.

I myself must admit that I wouldn’t mind more parishioners who participated in weekly worship, pledged their time, talent, and treasure to God in conscious proportion to what they spend on themselves, and who worked on their spiritual lives with discipline.  The Pharisee’s arrogance notwithstanding, there are elements to his life that are admirable and significant.

Yet, the truth is that most of what folks like you and me know about the Pharisees comes from the Gospels, and that report views this Hebrew sect as priggish, judgmental right-wingers, who consistently fight against Jesus and the movement he inaugurates.  While this is true, it is instructive to note that the Pharisees -- originally -- were the reformers in Hebrew faith-life, functioning bravely in a historical period when the “secular” pressures of those in power were threatening to overwhelm the life of faith as the Law and the Prophets expressed that God-life.

One of the sad ironies of history is that reformers of all stripes tend to forget how to keep the tradition they seek to preserve organic and alive, as opposed to calcifying into rigidity and roteness.

So, the Pharisee stood with his prayer of self-righteous thanksgiving that he was not like other spiritual slobs.  And he was right, but as my father would say, “There are more important things in life than being right” – such as remembering that God is the “Source of light and life”.[5]

In obvious contrast to the self-righteousness of the Pharisee, the tax collector knelt in prayer, beating his breast in heartfelt contrition and begging for mercy: that is, not to be given what even he recognized he deserved.  Because a tax collector was despised.  He worked for the Roman oppressors and gathered taxes to support their brutally oppressing regime.  He gained his personal income by collecting from his own people more than the tax actually required, which is to say that our tax collector had a lot to beat his breast about.  Nonetheless, as with the Pharisee, I would not mind in the least if St. Philip’s consisted of more people who were as honest about their spiritual frailties and needs, and willing to do something transformative about them.

The parable ends with Jesus acting like the omniscient narrator of the story, making sure that the point is clear.

I tell you, [the tax collector] went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.[6]

In case you missed the “joke’s” punchline – and I admit that it is easy to miss it, since our common interpretation of this parable easily slides into a morality play that depicts “good guys” from “bad guys”.  Yet, the punchline of this divine “joke” actually is about “good guys” and “bad guys” – just not the way we expect.

For the “good guy” (as it were) is God.  The “bad guys” are us – that is, that part of each of us that refuses to see ourselves in the Pharisee and the tax collector.  In their own way, both figures need “the gifts of God” so that they can be “the People of God”.  Both the Pharisee and the tax collector need God’s loving grace and liberating mercy.  So, do we.

And here's the parable’s point as I see it.  God is the Source of life with Whom we need to be in right relationship, if we are to have the life we truly need: that is, a life connected with God.  And being connected to God, being in Communion with God makes us “righteous”, that is, in right relationship with God and, therefore, with one another, and with our selves.

Another way of expressing this is we are “justified” by God because the Holy One loves us.  The most direct way I understand “justification” comes by way of using a computer’s word processor.  You know what happens when you justify a text on the screen.  Everything that we have done and put together (in this case, not words but our lives) – it all gets “squared away”.  Our lives are “justified”, “squared away” with God’s will and God’s life.

The Pharisee in each of us is tempted to think that we can earn that “squared away” life because we have become the source of our own standards.  On the other hand, the tax collector knows from the painful isolation and frustration of his own existence that he cannot provide himself the fruitful life he needs, the one that only God can give.  I think this is the driving reason that the tax collector (having hit bottom so to speak) comes to the Temple to pray in the first place.  The life we need is given by God because we belong to God – no matter what.

In a very real and sobering way, the parable’s joke is, in fact, on us!  That’s the reason we don’t laugh very much or for very long over its telling.  We can see the deadly spectrum of our humanity in both of the parable’s characters: The apparent “successful” Pharisee who has all that life’s trophies can offer; the tax collector whose only hope for life comes from a God of mercy and compassion for the screw-up he has become.

Here's some concluding questions.  Will the Pharisee accept to do his “religious” stuff from the excellence of an open, honest, and grateful heart?  Will the tax collector allow the mercy he himself so desperately needed to be expressed as compassion for others he meets?  Will they both see in themselves what God sees in them?  Will we see what God sees in us and laugh for joy in the divine love and humor?  Amen.

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[1] Luke 18:10.

[2] Frederick Buechner.  Wishful Thinking, p.66.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid. p. 67.

[5] Book of Common Prayer. Eucharistic Proper Prefaces, p. 377.

[6] Luke 18:14.