Pharisee or Tax Collector?

Jesus seems to be targeting those among his own disciples

            who trusted in themselves that they were righteous

                        and who looked down on others!

If we identify ourselves within that audience of disciples,

            then which do you identify with – Pharisee or tax collector?

Oh, we can be very clear about not wanting to identify with the Pharisee

            and his self-righteous smugness.

Why is it that we can so easily recognize the Pharisee’s fatal flaw

            and have more sympathy for the tax collector?

Pharisees get a bum rap in the Gospels.

They weren’t bad people.

In fact, they were very good – 

            upstanding citizens and exemplary church goers

They were the back bone of their congregations

they could be counted on

they gave an excellent example for your children to follow

            about their moral behavior

They tithed! everything! the most generous givers 

            they could be counted on for that.

So why did Jesus pick on them so?

I think it was because he loved them

and so it pained him to see them missing the point 

            about what he was doing and what he was talking about.

So this story shows us the fatal flaw – the Pharisee’s own self sufficiency.

He’s done it all, all that is required in the covenant law, the commandments

and he is thankful that he has not succumbed to the moral cesspool 

                        that the tax collector lives in.

He’s been good, for heaven’s sake!

            And that should count for something, shouldn’t it?

Note, the text before us in Luke’s gospel says that the Pharisee prayed to himself.

He prayed to himself.  

We’re not just reading the words in the bubble over his head 

                        that reveal his thoughts.

We’re learning that the god to whom he was praying was in actuality 

            the idol of his own self-sufficiency, his own ego strength

            rather than God.

In his own success at goodness and righteousness he had isolated himself

            from the source of his life breath.

The tax collector – do we really want to identify ourselves with him?

These guys were scum bags, comparable in our culture and time with what? – drug dealers? those who sell arms to terrorists? 

            He was making money off of the fact that their country 

                        was under foreign occupation 

                        and was being subjected to financial rape.

tax collectors definitely were isolated from their community

            because of their collaboration with the enemy.

So here’s this tax collector exploiting his own people

            getting wealthy off of others’ misery

            exerting an uneasy balance between himself and his people

            able to lighten the load for those who would suck up to him

            or make things miserable by upping the taxes 

                        for those who might express their anger 

            over his collaboration with the enemy for his own financial benefit.

So both were isolated in different ways.

And spiritually the Pharisee was in as bad a state as the tax collector.

The tax collector appeals for mercy

            which is the wealth, the currency of heaven

Mercy that is abundant and free flowing, 

            a spontaneous flow of positive, creative life-energy

            a loving outpouring of compassion, care and service 

                        from God towards all of creation.

Mercy is so plenteous that it is indiscriminant in who it flows to,

                        those who ask,

                        those who recognize their need,

                                    and those who don’t.

Mercy is unconditional. 

Mercy is abundance of life overflowing to our poverty of life.

            And mercy is utterly dependable.

Mercy is what achieves forgiveness.

The effect of mercy is the cleansing of the self from what is contraction,

            what is limiting and isolating.

Both of them needed mercy.

The mercy was there for them both,

but only the tax collector asked for it.

So he was the one who went home justified, made righteous,

            that is, reconciled and in restored relationship with God.

I once led a meditation group at the state prison in Monroe.

I observed with interest the differences between 

            that meditation group and other groups I have lead or am leading.

This is what I learned:

These men in prison were quite motivated to meditate.

They wanted to escape from the intense and stressful environment 

            in which they are imprisoned.

Instead they had to sit with themselves,

            but some also discovered the peace, the silence in the midst of noise, 

            that meditation brings, and they relished it.

They knew their need for God’s mercy 

            and they were not ashamed or afraid to ask for it.

Those in meditation groups on the outside come for many reasons, 

            often the same reasons as those inside, 

                                                            although not as sharply focused.

They often do not see that the environment in which they live 

                        is self limiting, stressful and intense, 

They do not see the invisible prison in which they live and move about.

It’s like the Pharisee, who did not see his own isolation and need for mercy.

The tax collector was addicted to the money he could get 

            and the power he could exert over others. 

But the Pharisee was also addicted. 

            His addiction was to the righteousness he had accomplished 

                        by his own rigorous spiritual practice 

                        that carefully measured just how far he could walk on the Sabbath 

                        and how much to tithe of his crops right down to the smallest herb. 

He did not acknowledge that his righteousness, his being right with God 

                        was beyond his own accomplishment, try as he might, 

            for who can approach the perfection, the utter completeness of God. 

Righteousness is too important 

            for God to leave it all up to us to accomplish on our own. 

That’s why we have what is called salvation. 

The Pharisee addicted to his own efforts at attaining righteousness 

and the tax collector with his addiction 

                        to the power he could exert and the wealth he could attain 

            were not as different from each other was it would seem. 

Both were on dead end roads. 

Both needed that mercy, 

            that abundant, free flowing compassion, care and service 

                        already being poured out to them if the could recognize it. 

One did, and it was not the one we would have expected, 

            and thanks be to God because that is good news to us. 

We are about to engage in, first off brunch, 

            and then a time of discussion and listening and sharing

                        as a parish family.

For some of you there is a sense of anxiety about how that is going to happen.

And I want to say, don’t be afraid, fear not, be encouraged.

And it may help us all to come to the conversation with a sense of humility,

            of knowing that we need mercy all around.

Some of us can rejoice to see that the miserable rat of a tax collector

            had finally come to the point of not being able to stand himself

                        and had asked for mercy.

Some of us may feel that the Pharisee was judged too harshly,

            although his addiction to his revered status in the community 

                        was keeping him at a distance from others.

The mercy was available to both of them,

            but only one asked.

So I would like to ask you all to come to the brunch and stay for the discussion

            with an attitude of humility and for being open to listening and sharing

                        with the idea that we all are being bathed in mercy.

Can we use this time during our prayers together here in the nave

            and our coming to the altar rail to receive communion

be a time for self reflection about what isolates us from one another?

            and what brings us into communion, and how and why,

And how that might transform and blossom within us

            and flow more freely and generously from one to the other.

Jesus, Lamb of God, have mercy on us.