Stand up if you walked in the CROP walk last week, or sponsored someone. Stand up if you went to Sunday School this morning, or attended a weekly Bible study. Stand up if you went to youth group on Wednesday. Stand up if you belong to a civic group, or a school committee. Stand up if you think you have it reasonably together, stand up if you are a reasonably law-abiding citizen. Stand up if you came to church this morning. "Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt." Sit down if you know you stand in the need of God's grace and mercy!
If we are honest we have to admit that we don't really like this story all that much. For, if as most parables ask, if we try to place ourselves in the story where would we like to be? While we are basically good and decent people, we don't want to find ourselves as the Pharisee. He's not really a bad guy. After all Pharisees were exemplary in their following, and exceeding the requirements of the Law. One only needed to fast once a year according to Levitical Law. He fasted twice a week! One only needed to tithe on portions of possessions, this Pharisee tithed on everything! He's got it all. Problem is, he has it all…what does he need God for? And he prides himself on having it all by comparing himself to others who do not.
We don't want to be the tax-collector either. Tax-collectors were despised in their day. They were morally corrupt and oppressive. Tax-collectors skimmed whatever they could for themselves and lived the good life. A tax collector would have sat in the temple dripping with jewels, clothed in the finest, avoided by all. Dominic Crossan names this parable "The Pope and the Pimp." Surely we do not have to be like the tax collector in order to find ourselves with God in this text!
And what an appropriate text to be looking at during this election season! In just over a week we will finally be voting, putting an end to the back and forth bickering of all the politicians who go back and forth at the expense of each other, each one claiming the righteous road, thanking God they are not like their opponent. Wouldn't it be refreshing if just once, one of them would admit that perhaps they don't have all the answers. That one of them would say, sure I'll make mistakes, but we'll work it through together.
So, what are we who gather this morning, "the in-crowd" supposed to do with this story? The parable first reminds us of the danger of coming to church, the danger of religion. Whenever the church community defines itself in terms of its enemies, in terms of what it is not, it runs the risk of becoming the Pharisee-we begin to shore ourselves up by denigrating others. We walk around full of self-righteousness. What do we need God for then? It also does not do to walk around debasing ourselves…we do not need to become the tax-collector before we realize how much we stand in need of God's grace and mercy.
Len Sweet, one time dean of the School of Theology at Drew almost always opens his sermons with "Good morning saints, good morning sinners!" A reminder we are a mixed bag. The Jewish Theologian, Martin Buber put it this way, saying that our spiritual natures have two pockets. When we reach into one pocket we pull out smallness-we are nothing but dust and ashes. If we reach into our other spiritual pocket, we extract greatness-for our sake the universe was created. We are probably at our best when there is a healthy balance of the Pharisee and tax collector in us. A sense that we are indeed both saint and sinner. It is then that we begin to grasp the wonderful mystery we so often proclaim in reading that text in the third chapter of John: "for God so loved the world he gave his Son." It is there we realize the vision of who we are as God's people. No better or worse than the person sitting next to us….we are all simply and marvelously a part of God's loved creation. We are created as the words of the Psalmist says: "who are we that God is mindful of us, yet God as made us little less than God."
We live with this sense as we grasp the vision proclaimed in the Hebrew scriptures today. Joel, a temple prophet writes this text around 400 BCE during a time when Israel and Judah lay in waste. A time when the people were very much in touch with the tax-collector side that knew their unworthiness. Gone were the days when they knew what it meant to be a people set apart, and chosen by God. But here comes Joel, dreaming big, proclaiming a beautiful vision of restoration. And most importantly a time when God's people would be filled with a sense of the spirit moving and working in their midst.
In these times I don't know where you find yourself. Much we once thought secure is in question. These are difficult and trying days in which to be the church. Religion is bandied about, used to divide, used to prove one side right and the other wrong. Churches set themselves apart from another…thanking God they aren't like the liberal churches, thanking God they aren't like the conservatives….thanking God they aren't like the other who has it all wrong. All claiming God is on their side. It is difficult and trying to be this church. We are rightfully proud of much. (ask) At the same time, we are worried about much. (ask)
What will get us through these days is what Jesus really is asking in the parable. In the end it is not trying to emulate the Pharisee or the tax-collector…and we really don't want to be either! What we are called to do is to know that we stand in need of God's grace and mercy day by day. And that is what calls us together to be the church. And that is what calls us to cry out to others to join us. The church is at its best…we are at our strongest when we know our need, and hear Jesus calling us…softly and tenderly. And then we turn to face the world so that others may hear the call and join us.