Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 25C)

October 23, 2022

Text: Luke 18:9-17

            Last week, Jesus told us a parable to the effect that we ought always to pray and not lose heart.  This morning, Jesus teaches us how to approach God in prayer.  In other words, what should be our disposition toward God in our prayers, our posture?  And on what basis should we pray?  To answer these questions, Jesus paints a picture for us by means of another parable, and He makes His point by way of contrast.

            On the one hand, there is the Pharisee.  Now, we think of him as the villain in the parable, and we’re right, but we have to understand just how shocking this is to the original audience.  The Pharisee is the model practitioner of Jewish piety and religion.  Like someone we would look up to as a pious and respectable Christian.  In other words, the audience agrees with the Pharisee’s assessment of himself.  But Jesus wonders why a man who has it so completely all together, as the Pharisee claims he does, would even bother to pray in the first place.  He stands there in the Temple, apart from all the rest, and prays thusly: He thanks God… for himself.  He thanks God that he is not a poor, miserable sinner, that he is not like extortioners, or the generally unrighteous hoi polloi, or adulterers, or even like (as he casts a sidelong glance toward the man in the back) this dirty, rotten, traitorous, greedy, good-for-nothing tax collector.  Whereupon the Pharisee undertakes to list his own spiritual resume for God, essentially telling God all the reasons He (God) should be thankful for him (the Pharisee)!  “I fast twice a week” (Luke 18:12; ESV).  Now, the only required day of fasting in the Scriptures is the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, but the Pharisees, ever the overachievers, fasted every Thursday (because Moses was traditionally thought to have ascended Mt. Sinai on a Thursday) and Monday (because Moses was traditionally thought to have descended Mt. Sinai on a Monday).  “I give tithes of all that I get” (v. 12).  Not just the profit I make, but also the things I buy… you know, just in case the guy I bought the things from didn’t make his tithe.  And if he did, You get twice as much, God!  Thanks to me!  Aren’t you lucky to have me around.  The Pharisee doesn’t pray because he needs mercy and help from God.  He prays because he thinks God needs him!  He is essentially ungrateful and self-centered, self-obsessed.  And there is something else we must not fail to observe about this posture in prayer.  The Pharisee doesn’t pray God’s mercy for the needs of others, either.  No, no.  He despises others.  Self-righteousness, self-justification, always leads to contempt for others, and ungratefulness to God for anything other than the self, and what comes from the self.

            But then there is the tax collector.  We think of him as the hero in the story, and I suppose in some sense that is true, although not in the way that we usually think of heroes.  His heroism is not based on anything intrinsic to himself, but in his utter lack of intrinsic heroism.  He stands far off.  He will not even assume the traditional Jewish prayer posture, hands outstretched, eyes lifted to heaven.  No, his eyes are cast down, and his hands beat his breast in a gesture of sorrow and repentance, and he prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (v. 13), literally, “God, be propitiated toward me, THE sinner!”  He prays, not on the basis of any worthiness within himself.  He does not even consider himself worthy to be in God’s Temple, in the presence of those he undoubtedly thinks are more righteous and pious than himself, like this Pharisee.  He demands nothing.  He makes no claims for himself, other than his own sin and wretchedness.  But he needs God.  He needs mercy.  He needs propitiation, a sacrifice of atonement for his sins that only God can provide.  It is on that basis that he prays.  And it is for that reason, because he does not justify himself, but looks to God alone for justification and all mercy, that this despised tax collector goes home justified, declared righteous by God.  And, on the other hand, this fine, upstanding, respectable, pious Pharisee, does not.  He goes home still in his sins.  “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled”… by God!  And that is what we see in the Pharisee… “but the one who humbles himself will be exalted”… by God!  And that is what we see in the tax collector.

            In is not unlike the contrast between Cain and Abel in our Old Testament reading (Gen. 4:1-15).  What is going on there?  Remember that in the previous chapter of Genesis, after Adam and Eve had fallen into sin, the ground was cursed because of them (Gen. 3:17).  When Cain brings “the fruit of the ground” as an offering before the LORD (4:3), he is saying to the LORD, in effect, I am working within the curse.  Look at my works.  Look what I have brought forth in spite of Creation’s handicaps.  I am doing better than my parents.  It is not unlike Adam and Eve’s fig leaves… a futile attempt to manage sin and cover it over with our own efforts. 

            On the other hand, what does Abel present as an offering?  The firstborn of his flock and their fat portions (v. 4).  And in this way, he is reflecting on the way God covered over his parents’ nakedness, their sin and shame.  With garments of skins the LORD clothed them (3:21).  Abel is asking the LORD to do the same for him.  To cover him with the sacrifice of atonement.  He is confessing that he cannot overcome the curse of sin by his own works.  He must be covered by the LORD. 

            And where does each sacrifice lead?  Cain’s self-righteous sacrifice leads him to hold his brother in contempt, such that he lures his brother out into the field to murder him.  And still, he would justify himself over against God: “am I my brother’s keeper?” (4:9).  But Abel’s sacrifice… though it does not shield him from suffering and death… because it relies on God alone, and on His propitiation and mercy, leads to his very blood crying out from the ground.  That is, though dead, he still speaks.  Which is to say, he lives!  God covers his sin and shame.  God rescues him from the curse.  God rescues him, even in death!  And, of course, this is not by the blood of the lambs and goats Abel offered, but by the blood of the Sacrifice to which these point: The Lamb of God who takes away Abel’s sin, and the sin of the whole world, our Lord Jesus Christ. 

            And all of this teaches us how to pray.  We should not come before God as the Pharisee does, thanking God for the gift that we are to Him and to all humanity, and that we are not like others, especially those other people in the pews whom we know to be sinners, whose specks we can see perfectly well through the logs we refuse to acknowledge protruding out of our own eyes.  We should not brag to God about what great things we can do for Him.  Nor should we be like Cain, parading before God the various ways that we’ve worked around the curse, presenting the work of our own hands, our own righteousness, our self-justification.  These things lead only to contempt for the neighbor and ungratefulness to God.  And ultimately, they lead to eternal death. 

            Instead, we should be like this tax collector, which is to say, repentant and humble.  We should know our own sin and unworthiness, and confess them before God, “I, a poor, miserable sinner.”  We should plead simply and humbly for His merciful propitiation.  And we should expect to receive it, not for our own sakes, but for Jesus’ sake, and because our Father in heaven is good, and loves us, and wants us to be His own.  We should be like Abel, asking God to cover us with the skin of His Sacrifice, asking Him to cover us with Christ and His righteousness, His death on the cross, His resurrection, His forgiveness, life, and salvation.

            Which is to say, we should be like infants, baptized into Christ.  When Jesus says, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16), Luke specifies that the children being brought to Him are infants (v. 15), βρέφη in Greek, a word that could even refer to babies in utero, like little John the Baptist, who leapt in his mother’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice, pregnant as she was with our little unborn Lord (1:41).  Helpless infants make the very best Christians.  Whether we are baptized as adults, or as little babes in arms, we should all be little babes in the faith of Jesus Christ.  Even the most upstanding and respectable Christian, one who demands our admiration and imitation, should approach God in this way.  Which is not to say we don’t mature in the faith, and in our understanding of God’s Word, and in our Christian life.  But it is to say, as Jesus does this morning, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (18:17).  That is, as one who relies totally and completely on God’s merciful propitiation.  As one who is utterly helpless apart from God.  As one who expects all things needful, and every good and perfect gift, from Him alone.  Like a helpless infant, who expects all good things from Mom.  As a little child, who believes every word Dad says.  As the little ones who implicitly trust their parents to supply their every need, and rely on them for protection and guidance.  Not because they, the helpless little babes, are worthy of such help.  But because it is the nature of a parent to cover, and care for, and clean, and nourish, and shelter their beloved sons and daughters.  So God does for us, for Jesus’ sake.  And that is why we pray.  And that is our posture before our Father in heaven as we make our petitions.  Confession.  Humility.  And total reliance on His merciful propitiation.  One of my favorite prayers is the simple and ancient Jesus Prayer, based largely on the words of the tax collector: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  That is the humble prayer our Lord always loves to hear.

            And God answers.  He gives mercy.  He gives Jesus.  And when we pray, and when we live, in reliance upon Jesus alone, we go to our house having been justified by God.  And, far from holding our neighbors in contempt (a grievous sin for which we must repent), we pray for them, as fellow sinners in need of God’s same propitious mercy.  And, far from thanking God for ourselves and the gift that we are to God and to the world, we thank Him for His gracious, undeserved gifts to us, which He lavishes upon us for Jesus’ sake. 

            We ought always to pray and not lose heart, not because we trust in ourselves that we are righteous, but because we trust that Jesus Christ is righteous, and in mercy, He gives us His righteousness as a gift.  We are covered in the skin of His Sacrifice.  The curse is coming to an end.  By the offering of Jesus Christ, God’s first-born and the very best of the flock, God is making all things new.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.