Luke 18.9-14

“The Pharisee and the Tax collector” — that’s the traditional name of the parable we read today.

We’re in Luke 18 — If you’ve noticed, we’re on a long trip through Luke’s gospel, a trip we always take in Year C in the season after Pentecost

And over these these past few Sundays in Luke — well, it’s like being at an Elton John concert. Peter and I went to see Elton John a few years ago, and it was two solid hours of well-known hits. No warm up acts, no obscure songs – All killer, no filler, if you know what I mean? Hit after hit after hit!

Well, Jesus rattles off hit after hit in Luke — the Good Samaritan (Luke 10); the Wedding Feast (Luke 12); the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son (Luke 15); last week, the Persistent Widow, and now today — hit, hit, hit, hit; no warm ups, no covers, no B sides.

I want to look at this latest of Jesus’ greatest hits, the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, under three headings — players, point, and power:

• The players in the parable (who are they? why does it matter?); (2) the point of the parable (what it teaches us); and (3) the power of the parable (how can it change our lives?).

First then, the Players:

Two men went into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Two men; two very different identities. Identity is at the heart of this parable, as it is very much at the heart of Twenty first century life. It sometimes feels that we are in the middle of a great cultural identity migration. Gender roles are merging. Racial identities are being shed. In the last few years we’ve been made to see how trans and bi and poly-ambi-omni we are.

Everything touches on identity, even our very own selves  that some of us mediate through online social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, images of how we want the world to identify us.

If you asked the players in the parable “Who are you? What defines you?” you’d get two very different answers.

Who was the Pharisee? Even the name of this group is about identity — the Hebrew word it comes from, perushin, literally means “separated ones.”

Pharisees claimed their identity by being separate, set apart, holier than everybody else. So, this Pharisee prays: “God, I thank you that I’m not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, not even like this tax collector.”

Now put the question of identity to the tax collector.

Remember Rome was a long way from Palestine. It would take a

huge bureaucracy to collect taxes there, so Rome sub-contracted the job.

Some Jews became “tax farmers,” private citizens who collected taxes for Rome, and the system was set up so they had to collect more than Rome demanded to make their own profit. Nobody in Jewish society was more despised than tax collectors.

The identities of these two men couldn’t have been more different. Just think about how they prayed.

The Pharisee stands confidently before God, but away from the others in the temple.

He knew he was righteous, and his prayer was completely self-directed:“I thank God that I . . . I don’t steal or commit adultery; the law says fast once a week, I fast two; it says give ten percent of what you earn, I tithe even on what I buy.”

The tax collector prayed differently — He beat his breast, which some of us do at mass sometimes — it’s a sign of penitence. He looked down, a sign of humility. Rather than “God, look how righteous I am,” he said “God, have mercy on me because of how righteous I’m not.”

Two men; two prayers; two different identities. Those are the players.

So what about The Purpose of the Parable: Jesus says “I tell you, this man (the tax collector) went home justified rather than the other (the Pharisee) . . . .” This parable is answering a particular question. That’s its purpose. “Who is qualified to enter God’s kingdom?” And the answer was shocking — because It’s not the religious chap, the one who tithes and fasts.

May I just say something that probably should be clear but maybe isn’t? Fasting — is good. Jesus assumed his followers would fast. Tithing, sharing our blessings with the poor, serving others with our wealth — is good. Giving’s hard — but it’s good.

It’s not the Pharisee’s practice of tithing he has to change; it’s not his commitment to the religious practice of fasting he has to lay aside; it’s thinking that those things make him righteous. They don’t!

The one person who gets into heaven is the one who knows he doesn’t have to pay a price of admission. The purpose of the parable is to drive home one truth: Good works won’t buy a place in Gods Kingdom; His merciful Grace is the only game in town.

So, what about The Power of the Parable:

Almost every biblical commentator will tell you to watch out for a trap.

The story is dangerous because we could just adopt different criteria for righteousness before God.

“Ok, maybe I can’t keep all the commandments like the Pharisee, but . . . what if I look down my nose at all the religious types and flip the situation?” Still trying to justify ourselves, this time by our great humility, we find our mouths praying the words: “God, I thank thee that I am not like the Pharisee!” And that’s a sure sign that actually our hearts haven’t changed at all.

Who is the hero of the story? It’s not the Pharisee, and it’s not even the Tax Collector with the heart of gold — it’s God.

God saves not because we keep the law or even because know we can’t. Our God saves for one reason: He loves us.

And that, my friends, is the power of this parable. Power to change.

Understand that God knows you completely, but he loves you completely. God knows us — he knows how much we want to buy him off, how lots of times pride lies underneath our religion — he knows us to our depths, but he loves us to the skies. And that changes hearts.

As I end my sermon this morning, please just take a moment to close your eyes and listen.

Who are you? What is your identity?

You are not your CV and the jobs and roles you have held in the past.

You are not your online social media account.

You are not the rules you keep or what other people think of you.

You are not your sexuality or the relationships you have.

You are not your brokenness.

You are, quite simply, God’s beloved child.

God already knows all about us — our failures, how sometimes we’re unhappy, how we can feel awkward or out of place or alone. And he loves us. Love like that changes us — in fact, it’s the only thing that ever does. That’s the gospel — a God who won’t be distant. Who knows us to our very depths, but loves us to the skies — and he’ll call us home fully justified, if we will just let him.