Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt. (Proper 25, Year C, from Luke 18:9)

I’m glad I’m not like those other people, you know, the ones who skip church on Sunday mornings because they just like to sleep in, or because they’re too busy with soccer and football and baseball and basketball, or because there’s this really great farmer’s market…What about you?

One of the most important aspects of any story is where we put ourselves. Are we neutral, omniscient third-party observers, like the author? are we eavesdroppers peeking in through the window? Do we identify as one of the characters? Our connection with the story, what we get out of it, has a lot to do with where we stand as we hear it. And frequently one of the most important aspects of the stories Jesus told, the stories we call parables, is that Jesus is trying to get us to change where we stand, to change our pre-disposed perspective on the characters and our familiar understanding of the moral, and to be surprised with a new understanding—a changed perspective that might change our lives.
 
Let’s think for few minutes about the characters in today’s parable. Our common understanding of a “Pharisee” character is someone who is rule-bound, pride-filled, and uncharitable. These are the folks who have been grumbling all summer about Jesus hanging around with sinners. Pharisees have become our favorite “bad guy” characters. Likewise, tax collectors have become our favorite sinners—we can relate to their job and why people would dislike them, and they’re way easier to talk about in sermons and Sunday School classes than that other big group of sinners the Pharisees accused Jesus of hanging around, the prostitutes…we’ll stick to tax collectors.
 
In reality, some of Jesus’ friends and followers were Pharisees. Jesus is frequently found dining at a Pharisee’s house. Unlike the Scribes, the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead, and their rules were for the most part, for most of them, an attempt to create a way for the average person to know that they were following God’s laws. The Pharisee today actually does more than those laws required: he fasts not once a week, but twice, and he gives 10% of everything he has, not just 10% of the portion required, not just 10% of his “after-tax” income. This is not a bad guy; he’s really a pretty good guy. He’s praying in the Temple and he even thanks God for his ability to give and lead an upright life. The tax collector, on the other hand…I’ve tried before in sermons to describe how awful these tax collectors were. They were hated because they contracted with Rome to pay the taxes due, to pay the required amount of tribute—by any means they came up with. They were personally responsible for the payment. So many of them collected whatever they could—as much as they could—most getting very rich themselves by collecting more than what they had to pay back to Rome. They were a lot like those mafia protection racket characters in TV crime dramas, extorting money with a “deal you just can’t refuse.”
 
So, while they’re both at the Temple worshipping, the morally good Pharisee, who does the right things and give the right amount, sees the tax collector on the other side of the room, and prays, “Thank you God, that I’m not like that sinner.” The tax collector doesn’t actually see the Pharisee, because he has his eyes downcast in humility; he prays, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” And Jesus says, “I tell you, the tax collector went to his home justified, rather than the Pharisee.”

I Thank you, God, that I’m not like that Pharisee…
 
I wonder if the Pharisee, in his prayer, is giving thanks for what we might call “moral luck.” You see, right after this parable in Luke, a rich ruler comes up to Jesus and asks, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus tells him, “You know all the laws, follow them,” and the ruler replies, “I have wholeheartedly obeyed them all since my youth.” Jesus tells him, “Then you still lack one thing: sell all that you have and give it to the poor and come follow me.” The ruler turned away, “very sad, because he was extremely wealthy,” Luke says. This is when Jesus has that famous line, “In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.” Moral luck: it’s easy to give, it’s easy to take the high ground, when we come from a place of plenty and security. That makes it easy to give without even feeling it, without any effort, essentially to give without cost.
 
What is it like to follow Jesus when it’s not easy? A bit later in Luke Jesus sees the wealthy dropping much, and a poor widow two pennies, into the Temple offering, and he says that the widow in her poverty gave more than all the others combined. What is it like to give joyfully when we have next to nothing? I mentioned Martin Rinkart in my last sermon: What is like to write, “Now thank we all our God,” in the midst of famine, war, and plague? What is it like when the only work you can get is a minimum-wage job that has no health insurance and doesn’t even pay enough to cover your childcare costs and leave anything left for utilities and food? What is it like to follow Jesus when it’s not easy? I have to confess to you that I don’t know. Most all of my life it’s been easy for me to think and say that I’m following Jesus. I think, like that Pharisee, I’ve had a lot of moral luck. The tax collector, though, makes me wonder: what is it like to plead to God for mercy knowing that you’re a great sinner?

Like I am…
 
Salvation is a gift of grace. We all know there is nothing any of us can do to earn our way to heaven. You, and I, and that tax collector, and that Pharisee, are all in the same sinking, stinking boat of sin. So why did Jesus say the tax collector went home justified, and not the Pharisee? “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted,” he says. The Pharisee was at the Temple; he was praying and giving thanks to God; he wasn’t a “bad person.” When the Pharisee prays, he says thank you, “…that I am not like other people.” There’s a common Greek phrase we still use today all the time: “the hoi polloi” – the crowd, the many, the folks—sort of the ancient Greek way of saying “all y’all.” Well, that’s not the phrase this Pharisee used. He used a similar phrase with a very different connotation that means, thank you that I’m not “like them” – like “those people” – like those “others“.
 

In Jesus’ Kingdom, in the Kingdom of God, there are no “others,” there is no “them”. I heard someone say this week that “poverty is a label we give people to mask their riches, and wealth is a label we give to people to mask their poverty,” And that made me think that perhaps similarly “sinner” is a label we give to people to mask the image of God they bear, and “Christian” is a label we give to people to mask their sinfulness. Maybe this thought is a way of getting at the point Jesus was trying to make. The tax collector, and the Pharisee, and we, all stand equally before God—equally poor, equally condemned, equally sinful. And the tax collector, and the Pharisee, and we, all stand before God equally loved and equally forgiven—equally rich, equally bearing God’s image. But I think only the tax collector understood that.

What is it like to give our wealth and to give ourselves even when it’s costly, giving because we know all we have is God’s? What is it like to live each day with humble hearts that don’t try to divide the world into “us” and “those others”? What is it like to follow Jesus even when it’s not easy? What is it like to plead to God for mercy knowing that we’re great sinners? My prayer for us this week is that we might all find out.