How long did Jesus spend on the cross for you?

Luke 18:9-14

When I was a pastor in Ohio in the United States, I lived next door to a man who came right out of the movie The Deerhunter – which was filmed locally. He was a Vietnam war veteran and worked in one of the local steel mills. He was a huntin’ and fishin’, woman chasing, beer drinking, good old boy.

He was also the local deer butcher and on a monthly basis, he and his friends would clear out their freezers and there would be what I called a protein feast – with venison steaks, squirrel, rabbit and fish cooked on the grill. And we would play a card game called Euchre.

I became friends with this group and had the chance to talk about my faith with them on several occasions. Once a 15 year old boy and a 19 year old girl were killed in a gruesome motorcycle accident and I was asked to do the funerals. These two were known to these guys and we talked about the meaning of life and death together.

After a period of time, eight of them agreed to go through a Bible Study with me. We looked at the encounters Jesus had with individuals in the Gospel according to John.

Some of the church members heard that I was having this study with these men and let it be known that these men would not be welcome in the church. They were not respectable enough for our church.

I was furious and preached a few sermons after that and I can’t remember if I used this text, but if not, I should have.

“9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:  10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:” Luke sets the context for this parable.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Who are the players in this short parable?

In order of appearance, the Pharisee comes first. The Pharisees were a small, powerful religious sect whose primary concern was keeping the law in all its detail. When we hear the word “Pharisee” we hear “the bad guys – the ones who were against Jesus”. But these were not bad guys. To the people listening to Jesus, Pharisees were especially devout, godly people.

If your son was a Pharisee, you never had to hang your head when discussing your child with other parents. You were honored because your son was highly educated, and in a highly honored position.

To the hearers of this parable of Jesus, the Pharisee was the good guy.

Next in this parable comes the tax collector. No hearer of this parable viewed this person as the good guy. To Jesus’ hearers, the tax collector was as well liked as a robber or murderer. Tax collectors were thought to be traitors because they collaborated with the Roman authorities in order to become wealthy. Only the tax collector knew the tax rate required by Rome so he could charge as much as he was able to collect and keep the excess.

When you hear Pharisee, think respectable, honorable, decent, honest, educated, admirable.

When you hear tax collector, think of the French collaborators who cooperated with the Nazis during WWII. After the war, the heads of the women who had cooperated with the Nazis were shaved to make public their shame in having betrayed their country.

In my Norwegian heritage, there is a relative, Gulbrand Lunde, who was Propaganda Minister and second in command of Quisling’s WWII Government in Norway.  He was despised by his fellow Norwegians because of his cooperation with the Nazis and in November 1942 when they heard of his death they rejoiced in the news. His car was on a ferry when it slipped into the fiord they were crossing. The suspicion was that the chauffeur released the parking brake to allow the car to slide into the fjord. The skipper of the ferry dove down twice to the car and the jest was that the ferryboat skipper had made those dives to be sure the car doors were locked.

When you think of tax collector, think of the WWII French collaborators, think of Gulbrand Lunde.

The tax collectors were collaborators with the Romans and took advantage of their fellow Jews to become rich. They were despised by their fellow Jews.

Now we come to the scene that Jesus paints in his parable.

Two times each day, the priests at the temple offered a lamb as a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. At these services, people would gather to join in the liturgy and to pray.

Jesus says in the parable that the tax collector stood at a distance. From this, we can infer that the Pharisee stood as close as possible to the Most Holy Place in the temple because he assumed the right to draw near to the presence of God.

This Pharisee was a man who knew that he was a good person. He was confident of his own righteousness.

In the Talmud, a collection of interpretation and commentary of the Mosaic and rabbinic law, one rabbi was reported to have been so confident of his own righteousness that were only a hundred saved from judgement, he and his son would be among that number; if only two, then he felt that it would be he and his son.

This Pharisee has that confidence. As a good person and as a Pharisee, he feels it his responsibility to instruct others through his prayer. Because of his moral superiority, he believes that others will benefit from his prayer and example.

‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

We find this a strange prayer. Even if some of us might think like that, we would never say so in public. And yet this was not an untypical prayer for a holy man in the time of Jesus. As I said, he views it as his responsibility to teach others through his prayer and to hold himself up as an example. He does what he considers to be the right thing to do.

The Pharisee prays – instructs, “I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

Jews were required to fast once a year, on the Day of Atonement. Pharisees fasted every Monday and Thursday. All Jews were required to give a tithe of their produce but Pharisees tithed even things that were not required. From all appearances, this Pharisee is a commendable person. The performance of his religious duties, at least from the outside, is exemplary.

To the hearers of this parable of Jesus, this Pharisee was a wonderful man. How fortunate the temple was to have him present to add to the holiness of the daily sacrifice.

Now we come to the tax collector. He stood at a distance, too ashamed to be among them. In fact, he was probably aware that he was not welcome in this gathering. He did not lift his eyes to the heavens, but beat his breast. This was an uncommon action for a Middle Eastern man and indicated great anguish was being experienced. He pleads with God that this atoning sacrifice of a lamb at the temple might apply to him. He realizes he has no hope for himself. He has no pretense. He knows who he is, what he does and against all hope, pleads for mercy.

“God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

As I said in my last sermon, every parable of Jesus has a twist, something unexpected. Here is the twist in this one. The Pharisee is the bad guy and the tax collector is the good guy. Jesus’ hearers listened in disbelief as Jesus said,

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

People were gathered in the temple because they knew they were separated from God by their sin. The priest sacrificed a lamb to pay the price of death for their sins. The prayer of the people was to participate in the death of the lamb so their sins would be absolved and they would be made right with God. They would be righteous in the eyes of God.

The message of the parable is clear. It is not external religious acts that make a person righteous. The Pharisee, who was a model of excellent religious behavior, failed in his prayer to be made right with God. It was the tax collector, miserable sinner that he was, who was made right with God, because of his humble plea for mercy. It is when we realize that we have no hope apart from God’s grace and throw ourselves on his mercy, that we are made right with God.

Now here is the problem. When we come to Christ, we have an awareness of our sinfulness. We come to Christ and stand on the side of the tax collector. We may have led lives of obvious sin: drunkenness, drug abuse, improper sexual relations, theft and deceit. Or we may have led lives that on a relative scale, were pure. In either case, when we become
Christians, we have a sense that we are not what we should be, we are less than perfect, we are less than righteous, we stand on the side of the tax collector.

But then, as time passes, we read our Bible and pray, help the poor, teach Sunday School and sing in the choir. We no longer get drunk and have extra-marital affairs. We become distanced from our sinful past, from a time when we were aware of our sin. We move, over time, to the side of the Pharisee. We become respectable people. When we come to a new church, people are delighted to see us come. We are the kind of people that society needs more of. We are the decent, God-fearing, honest people the world needs.

We hear of a person who has an adulterous relationship and we shudder. “What a terrible person to do that.” We see a drunk by the side of the road and think, “What a mess! What’s wrong with that person?”

We differentiate between people: good Christian people and sinners. We move, over time, to the viewpoint of the people in my church in Ohio who did not think our church was the right place for these huntin’ fishin’, woman chasing, beer drinking, good old boys.

And so we begin to pray the prayer of the Pharisee.

‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

So, what is the corrective for this tendency?

Phil Yancy wrote a couple books with Dr. Paul Brand, In His Image and Fearfully & Wonderfully Made, in which he makes the point that pain is a gift from God. Dr. Brand worked with a leper colony and discovered that leprosy was not a disease that ate away flesh, but was a disease that destroyed nerve endings and took away the awareness of pain.

So, when a leper was sweeping the floor, when you or I would notice a blister developing because of the feeling of heat and pain from a sore spot, the leper would feel nothing and wear away the flesh on his hand. The leper felt no pain and so was unprotected against abuse of his body.

Pain is a gift God has given us to be aware that a problem exists that needs to be remedied.

In a similar fashion, awareness of sin is a gift from God because it makes us aware of our need for him.

Three weeks ago, I preached the first of the sermons on the parables of Jesus. That first parable we looked at was the parable of the Unmerciful Servant. The theme of that sermon was forgiveness and how we needed to forgive others because of how much we have been forgiven by God.

I preached that sermon with a clear conscience and left for the US two days later. At a brunch the day after my nephew was married, one of my five sisters sat down next to me and asked me how I felt about a family reunion. Would I come from Morocco? And feelings of hurt and pain flooded in and I became tremendously angry.

I’m not going to go into the details of this in this sermon. I am talking with a couple Christian brothers to work my way through my inability to forgive. Let it suffice to say that it is an issue concerning inheritance from an aunt.

I thought I had dealt with this and then, wham!

I had just preached on forgiveness and here I was, unable to let go of the pain I felt. As a Christian, I know it is only money and that what counts is what I will take with me to heaven, not what I accumulate here on earth. But inheritance is often tied up with emotional issues of acceptance and rejection and therein lies the struggle.

This is ongoing for me. I am still struggling. This past couple weeks, I have had no difficulty seeing myself as a sinner and I have been in the position of the tax collector, feeling unworthy and pleading for God’s mercy.

In a sense, my awareness of sin is a gift from God because it makes me aware of my hopelessness without him. I do not deserve God’s love. My sin makes me deserve condemnation. But God’s mercy and grace forgives my sin and offers me new life in him. Only in casting myself humbly before God do I have any chance at all of sharing in the atonement of Christ for my sins.

Awareness of sin moves me from identifying with the Pharisee to the position of the tax collector.

How much sin do you need to be a sinner in need of God’s mercy and grace?

Ted Bundy was a serial rapist and murderer in the United States. He was finally caught, put on trial and sentenced to death. While in jail, awaiting his death, he became a Christian and was interviewed by James Dobson, a well-known American psychologist who has a very popular Christian radio program. So here’s the question, who needed Jesus’ forgiveness more, Ted Bundy or you? Did Jesus need to die a lot on the cross for Ted Bundy and only a little for you?

Perhaps you have always been faithful to your spouse. You have been a loving and caring husband or wife. On the other hand there is Bill Clinton, President of the United States, who has struggled in his desire for other women and has had multiple affairs. Who needs Jesus more, you or Bill Clinton?

Perhaps you have never taken anything that was not yours. When you find a wallet, you search for its owner. On the other hand there are robbers who search for opportunities to take something from your car or home. Who needs Jesus more, you or the robbers?

I tell you this morning, although you may be unaware of this truth, you are in as much need as any person in the world of the cross of Jesus. As decent and respectable and honest as you are, you have no hope of eternal life apart from the death of Jesus.

The only reason you think of yourself as being such a decent, respectable person is that you have so little competition. In this world, you are a decent, respectable person. But when you come into the presence of God, all your efforts to be respectable will be insignificant.

To get to Morocco from New York City used to mean a lengthy sea voyage. Then with the advent of steamships, the time spent in crossing the Atlantic was reduced to just a matter of a few days. Then with the propellor airplane, it was just a matter of a day. Today, I can leave New York City and be in Morocco just seven hours later.

But how do any of these compare to the speed of light?

Although we see a great deal of difference in a sailing vessel versus a steamship versus a propellor plane versus a jet, compared to the speed of light, there is no significant difference between these other modes of transportation.

When you stand in the presence of the holiness of God, you will not be able to notice the difference between Ted Bundy and every other miserable sinner in the history of the world and yourself. There will be total equality in the presence of God. Think of the person you most despise in this world. In the presence of the holiness of God, you and that person will be indistinguishable. Let me point out that it will not be that someone else will not be able to see the difference. You yourself will see no difference.

Your only hope will be that you are in a relationship with Jesus and his perfect righteousness will allow you to live in the presence of a Holy God.

I went one time with a salesman in Toronto, Canada to an AA meeting – Alcoholics Anonymous. It was a powerful experience for me. When someone speaks to the group they all use the same introduction. If I were a member of AA and I stood to speak, I would say, “Hi. My name is Jack and I’m an alcoholic.” The response from those in the room would be, “Hi Jack.”

That is very powerful. It is a statement of the problem, I am an alcoholic and then acceptance, “That’s OK, we great you. We too are alcoholics.”

An alcoholic never forgets why they come to the meetings. In fact, there are frequent warnings. As soon as a person thinks they are OK and don’t need the support of AA, the temptation to drink becomes too intense and they are once again unable to resist a binge. There are people who have been going to weekly AA meetings for forty years and when they speak, they say, “Hi. My name is ____ and I’m an alcoholic.”

This morning I want to offer you the opportunity to speak to the congregation. We do not have enough time for everyone to do this. But if you feel led to do so, stand up and say, “Hi. My name is _____ and I’m a sinner, saved by grace.” The congregation will respond, “Hi _____.” We will respond with love and acceptance, because we too are sinners, saved by grace.

If it is difficult for you to say those words, “I am a sinner,” then I especially invite you to stand up. If it is difficult for you to say those words, you are in a dangerous position. You are like the leper who is unaware of the sensations of pain that protect his body. If you are unaware of your sinful position, you face the fate of the Pharisee who left the temple separated from God. Don’t leave this service today separated from God. Stand up and say, “Hi, my name is ______ and I’m a sinner, saved by grace.”

You need Jesus. You desperately need Jesus. You have no hope apart from Jesus. The sooner you realize that, the better off you are.

We will participate in the Lord’s Supper in a few moments. This is a meal for sinners. This is a meal for tax collectors. Pharisees need not come. The Lord’s Supper is for those who realize they have no hope apart from Jesus.

Hi, my name is Jack and I am a sinner, saved by grace.