Jesus' Mercy Justifies the Bad Guy

Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

August 7, 2016

Luke 18:9-14

Jesus' Mercy Justifies the Bad Guy

In the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Who's the bad guy in this story?

¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple complex to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee took his stand and was praying like this: ‘God, I thank You that I’m not like other people—greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of everything I get.’ ¹³“But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes to heaven but kept striking his chest and saying, ‘God, turn Your wrath from me—a sinner!’ (Luke 18:10-13)

So have you figured it out. . . . Yes, it's you. It's us. We are the bad guys who look at others and say, “I'm not like other people.” Maybe you think this at church. Maybe you say this at Wal-Mart. You definitely look around at home and say this.

We see others and judge them, not out of care or mercy, but in self-rightness. We think we are better than others. It may be when we are putting our offerings into the offering plate. It may be when we are cleaning the house. It may be when we are playing video games while others make supper for us. Few, if any, of us are fasting in the name of Jesus, but we are just as judgmental as that bad Pharisees in Jesus' story.

This Pharisees is like many of us today. They think that if they do extra credit, the Great School Teacher in the Sky is going to give them a gold star. In the time of the Old Testament the Lord had commanded fasting . . . once a year. This Pharisee was doing 100 times more than what the Lord had commanded. Wow! The Lord didn't require that your tithe, your ten percent offering, include the small herbs you had: mint, dill, cummin, rue. But this scrupulous Pharisee went big on fasting, but even paid attention to the little things: he gave a tithe of everything he got. He didn't cut corners with God. And he wanted everyone to know it, perhaps simply (putting the best construction on it) to inspire others to follow in his footsteps of godliness.

But he was trailblazing his way to hell. Notice how Jesus conspicuously doesn't mention the Pharisee in connection to being saved.

“I tell you, this one [the tax collector] went down to his house justified rather than the other [the Pharisee]; because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)

He was a bad man going to hell because he was so “good”. He trusted his own acts of righteousness instead of God's mercy. Remember to whom Jesus told this story.

He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and looked down on everyone else (Luke 18:9)

We trust ourselves. We look around and despise those who aren't as visibly good as us. We are unjust.

Repent! I forgive you for your self-righteousness, thinking that you are better than others, in the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I forgive you for thinking that you aren't self-righteous, that this doesn't apply to you, in the name of the Father and of the ☩ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And so we are the bad guys, but in Christ we are forgiven and made good in His sight. He makes us just. We trust in His mercy. We are alive in Him.

And now our fasting is not done to get His extra credit, but to His glory. Our offerings aren't a competition with others or a bribe to God, but instead a careful and cheerful gift back to the Giver of all that we have.

And the greatest gift and good work you have is the promise of Jesus received into your ears from your pastor's mouth, as the Catechism explains: Confession has two parts. The one is that we confess our sins; the other, that we receive absolution or forgiveness from the pastor as from God himself, not doubting but firmly believing that our sins are thus forgiven before God in heaven.

This is us, just like the tax collector. We are the bad guys, but Jesus speaks to us and makes us just and good in His sight.

God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

Alleluia! Amen!