Our text for this morning is Luke 18:9-14.  Let me read it, and then I will tell you why I find this such an annoying text.  And why you should be annoyed with it too.  Then, hopefully, we can make our peace with it.

 ⁹To 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. ¹¹The 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. ¹²I 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."

          I imagine there are a few of you who will be able to identify with me in my reaction to this text.  Here is this Pharisee—a religious leader—like the pastor!  He’s a good person!  He fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of all he receives to the church.  And Jesus says God is simply not impressed with him.

          The tax collector, who knows he is a sinner, cries out to God asking for mercy.  This scoundrel has probably just ripped off a hoard of people and spent their hard earned money on himself.  Tax collectors certainly were known for skimming off plenty for themselves, and this guy admits that he is a sinner.

          So he ought to beat his breast and beg for mercy, don’t you think?  Shouldn’t he be afraid to look up at God?  He ought to hang his head in shame.  Everyone knew that tax collectors were the worst scoundrels around.

          And then there’s the Pharisee.  He has probably been attending Sabbath school since he was a child.  He went on to study with the Rabbis as a young adult.  He learned the commandments, and he worked day and night to follow every one of them.  When the other guys were out partying, he was at home reading the Torah.

          So can you blame him for looking with a bit of disdain at this miserable tax collector, who, in his not so humble opinion, shouldn’t even show his face in the temple?  Can you blame him for pointing out to God how much better he is, just in case God has forgotten:  “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

          Doesn’t this sort of remind you of that old saying, “Nice guys finish last?”  We’ve all heard men complain that women all seem to go for the bad guy who’s really a jerk.  And you might not hear it as often, but women also notice that men seem to be attracted to the worst kinds of women.  So the nice guys sit at home reviewing how to tie their Boy Scout knots and drinking root beer floats, and the nice girls sit at home embroidering pillow slips while drinking tea. 

          And now Jesus seems to be telling us that even God doesn’t like the good ones all that much.  Never mind that they’re the ones who show up in church week in and week out, rain or shine; they’re the ones who always bake something for the bake sale; they’re the ones who give a tenth of their income—how else do you think the church stays afloat?

          So what’s the deal?  There seems to be a huge disparity here, doesn’t there?  To begin with, God gives us the commandments, telling us to be good.  And some of us, like the Pharisee, are doing a pretty good job of following the commandments.

          But Jesus comes along and turns everything upside down and backwards.  Jesus, who is God incarnate.  Jesus, who does not just speak for God—Jesus is God.  Jesus comes to earth and his greatest criticism is not for the sinners and the scoundrels.  No, Jesus’ greatest criticism is for the religious leaders.  The ones who read the Torah—the Law—morning, noon and night without fail.

          So where does that put us?  We’re the ones sitting here in church, after all.  Is Jesus telling us that we’re wasting our time trying to be good?

          Not really.  The issue here is not whether or not we are good.  The fact is, God loves all of us—the good, the bad; the religious and the unbelievers; the nice guys and girls and the scoundrels.  We’re all a part of God’s creation, and he loves all of us.      

          But here’s the thing that Jesus is getting at.  God wants all of us, whether Pharisee or tax collector, to understand that we are sinners in need of God’s mercy.  The reason God responded to the tax collector by forgiving him was that the tax collector realized that he was a sinner in need of God’s mercy.

          The problem some of us Pharisees, pastors, good church members, and other assorted goody two-shoes have is that we really don’t think we need God’s mercy.  In fact, we might be inclined, like the Pharisee in the story, to want to point out to God just how good we are, in case he hasn’t noticed lately.

          Well, you might ask, what’s wrong with that?  After all, you might say, I’ve been pretty good, and I hope God does notice.

          Here’s the scoop.  God is not impressed with our version of goodness.  Our goodness only goes so far.  No matter how good we are by human standards, we fall short of God’s standard of holiness.  That is because we all have a sinful nature.  Even the best behaved among us, underneath it all, is self-centered and self-serving.

          There have always been people who made a concerted effort to live lives of purity.  Probably there are no better examples than the monastics of the Middle Ages.  They set themselves apart and lived in monasteries and dedicated their lives to ridding themselves of all worldly influences.  They fasted and prayed and lived extremely austere lives.  They were very, very good.  But still, most of them were tortured by their own sinfulness.  Often, they would beat themselves in order to subdue the desires of their fleshly nature.  They wanted to be pure in God’s eyes.  They also tortured themselves with the question of whether or not they were good enough, in God’s eyes, to earn their salvation and receive eternal life in heaven.

          Martin Luther came out of that tradition.  He tried very hard to be righteous in God’s eyes, but he always felt that he fell short of what God was asking of him.  He studied scriptures and did everything a good monk should do, but he was tortured by his own sinfulness.  He knew that his heart was not pure.  Finally he had a spiritual breakthrough when he suddenly understood the meaning of God’s grace.

          He realized that God did not require moral perfection of us, because our salvation is based on God’s grace alone.  He finally understood in his heart what it says in Ephesians 2: 8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so than no one can boast.”  This salvation that is completely dependent on God’s grace rather than our goodness is freely offered to everyone, from the tax collectors to the Pharisees.

          For Martin Luther, this was an amazing breakthrough, and it not only changed his life, but that of all Christendom.  Of course, it was there in the Bible all along. 

          It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t appreciate the efforts towards goodness that the Pharisee was making.  It was that the Pharisee was basing his salvation on his own goodness.  In fact, the Pharisee thought that because he was so good, he really didn’t need God.

          And that’s exactly where you and I get in trouble, too.  Deep down, we want to justify ourselves.  We want to make a ledger of our lives and add up the good things and balance them with the bad things.  We want to be sure that we do more things on the good side of the ledger than we do on the bad side, because somehow we think that must be the way it works.

          But the reality is, that’s not the way God measures our worth.  That’s not the way God determines our salvation.

          Our salvation is only because of Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.  Jesus took our sins on himself when he died on the cross, and when he rose from the grave, he rose triumphant over sin and death.  Period.  Forever.  That’s all there is to it.  Our goodness—or our badness—has nothing to do with our salvation.  Whether we have lived a good life or a terrible life, our salvation is dependent on Jesus Christ alone.

          Nothing good that we do can merit salvation.  That’s why Martin Luther got so excited when he discovered the wonderful gift of God’s grace.  He had struggled for a long time trying to earn his salvation with his own goodness, and he realized just how impossible it was.

          Then, he came to an understanding that his salvation did not depend on his own works, but on God’s grace.

          Jesus wanted the people to understand this, and that is why he told this story.  The first sentence explains why Jesus told this parable:  “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable.”  Likewise, when we are confident of our own righteousness, and when we look down on other people who are less righteous than we are, Jesus would certainly say the same thing to us.

          Jesus is telling us that if we want God to hear our prayers, we need to recognize our own unworthiness and throw ourselves upon his mercy.  The reason God heard the prayers of the tax collector was not because God favors scoundrels, but because the tax collector was the one who cried out to God saying “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”   

          So you see, even if you are like the Pharisee and you fast twice a week and tithe all of your earnings, you can still cry out to God and say, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”   Because all of us, no matter how “good” we are, stand in need of God’s mercy.

          So does this mean we should live our lives however we please, and stop trying to be good?  Does this mean it makes no difference in God’s eyes how we live?  Of course not. 

          When God saves us from sin, he wants us to turn away from sinfulness.  Our goal should be to become Christ-like. 

          Let’s look one more time at what the Pharisee said:  “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.”  He started out right:  “God, I thank you…”  That’s a good way to start our prayers—by thanking God.  But he didn’t get very far, did he?  He should have thanked God for God’s goodness to him.  Instead he thanks God that he is better than other people.  Not what God wants to hear!

          Is it good to be good?  Yes, yes, yes!  Be good!  But remember that everything you have; everything that you are is a gift from God.  If God has blessed you with the ability to live your life well, make sure you give him the glory.  Don’t take the glory for yourself.    No matter how good you are, you’re probably not quite as good as you think you are.  So throw yourself on God’s mercy, and if you find some of God’s goodness in your life, give the praise to God.

          And as far as my question, “Who does God love best?” I think the answer is that it doesn’t matter, because God has more than enough love for all of us.  God’s infinite love is enough for all of us.

          There is a reason we so often use the word “father” to describe God.  It’s because God is in so many ways like a parent to us.  If you have siblings, you may remember a time when you argued over who Mom or Dad loved best.  Unfortunately, with human parents, sometimes one child truly is favored over another.  But God is the perfect parent, who loves all of us.  So you can imagine how it must break God’s heart when we, his children, look down on each other.  His love is big enough for all of us, and he wants us to return that love by loving one another.

          As people who have been saved by God’s incredible grace, we want to live our lives as closely as we possibly can to God’s perfect will for us.  We want to live lives that reflect the goodness and love of God, our Father.

          What a wonderful thing it would be to come to the end of our lives and be able to look back at what we have done, not with personal pride, but with gratefulness to God for what he has done in and through us.

          In 2 Timothy 4:6-8, the apostle Paul gives such a reflection.  He says, ⁶For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. ⁷I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Prayer:

          Gracious God, your love is sufficient for all of us, and we thank you.  Lord, there may be some here, who like the tax collector, feel they are not even worthy to look at you.  God, may they know your love that reaches out to them and longs to invite them into fellowship with you.  You have already paid the price for all of our sins.

          Others of us have known your grace for a long time, and as we have walked with you, we have begun to think we deserve credit for our own goodness.  Remind us that we are wholly dependent on your grace for our salvation.  Remind us that in your eyes, we are no better than anyone else.  Help us to love our brothers and sisters.

          God, may we all know that your grace is the only thing that saves us, and that your grace is enough for every one of us.  Thank you for your great love and your great mercy towards each of us.    Amen