IN GOD WE TRUST
Luke 18:9-14 Pharisee and the Tax Collector
A young college man went into a photography studio one day. He had a framed picture of his girlfriend and he wanted to have the picture duplicated. So, the picture had to be removed from the frame. The guy behind the counter removed the picture and noticed there was an inscription on the back of the photo. It said, “MY DEAREST JEREMY: I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART. I LOVE YOU MORE AND MORE EACH DAY. I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER. I AM YOURS COMPLETELY FOR ALL ETERNIT.” It was signed “Tasha.” And there was a postscript following. P.S. it said, “IF WE EVER BREAK UP I WANT THIS PICTURE BACK.”
How’s that for commitment? Kind of interferes with the romance a bit. Our son dated the same girl for 10 years before he finally married her last year. That wasn’t something she ever seemed to be rooting for but instead of nagging him about getting married she would always tell us over the last 6 OR 7 years or so when we visited: Firstly, “I’M FOCUSED ON GETTING MY DEGREE,” and later “I’M FOCUSED ON MY CAREER, BECAUSE I REMEMBER WHEN MY DAD WALKED OUT ON US AND MY MOM HAD TO SUPPORT US AND SHE COULDN’T GET A DECENT PAYING JOB.”
We all appreciate independence and self-sufficiency in young people but can a person become a little too self-sufficient and self confident? Maybe so. That is the impression we get from Luke the Gospel writer in our Gospel lesson for today. Jesus addresses this group of people and tells them a parable. And this parable is targeted for exactly this particular audience. In case the reader has any doubts about this, Luke describes this group for us. Luke calls them: “People who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else.”
Does that describe anyone you know? A lot of us feel like our elected leaders in Washington are a little too confident of their own righteousness and look down on the rest of us. Our elected leaders have made some pretty bold decisions in the LAST SEVERAL YEARS with OUR money. And they’re still at it. Like keeping interest rates artificially low in order to jumpstart the economy and get people back to work. We all hope it doesn’t eventually backfire. Meanwhile, our money says on it IN GOD WE TRUST, but we’re all being called to put an awful lot of trust in our leaders. Kind of begs the question. Do we really trust in God? I mean, really? Can we expect God to solve all of our problems? Isn’t that the coward’s way out?
Well, IN GOD WE TRUST doesn’t mean we don’t wear our seatbelts, or stop paying life insurance premiums, or stop recycling or getting our flu shot. What IN GOD WE TRUST does mean is that our faith challenges us with a broader and higher perspective and purpose in living. We have the wherewithal to take care of the earthly matters that are left up to us to manage. For instance, we can protect ourselves with expensive security systems, gated communities, high tech firewalls to protect our computers from hackers. We have government insured securities, pensions and investments, at least theoretically. Pre-nuptial agreements. No fault divorces. Everything in our calculated lives is designed to keep us maximally secure and minimally exposed.
But are these safeguards and assurances of a safety first, risk free life just a 21st century version of this Pharisee’s prayer? “I THANK THEE LORD THAT I AM NOT LIKE OTHER MEN?” We might not brag about how often we fast or how much we give to the church like this Pharisee did, but that pride factor still finds its way into our thoughts. We take pride in our ability to take care of business and be independent. How can we not? Furthermore, how can we keep from judging the worthiness of other individuals based on outward appearances, on level of self-sufficiency, on standing in society? Aren’t all men created equal? Does God intend for ME to suffer because YOU have wasted your God-given opportunities?
Election Day is coming up in just two weeks! The results may affect us all BIGLY. So, I have a list of three candidates here with descriptions and I’d like to ask you to choose one; A, B, or C. Candidate A associates with crooked politicians and consults with an astrologist, He’s had a couple of mistresses. He chain smokes and drinks 6 to 8 martinis a day. Candidate B – He was kicked out of office twice. He often sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey almost every evening. Candidate C – He’s a decorated war hero. He’s a vegetarian, doesn’t smoke, drinks only an occasional beer and has never cheated on his wife.
Which would you choose? A no-brainer, right. Candidate C would be your candidate. Well, let’s see. Candidate A was Franklin Roosevelt. Candidate B was Winston Churchill. Candidate C was Adolph Hitler. I THANK THEE, LORD,THAT I’M NOT LIKE OTHER MEN. A dangerous prayer indeed. It’s not really a prayer to God, is it? Instead, it is a prayer to self. Meanwhile, in the parable there is another man off to one side, a tax collector, standing at a distance. He’s praying, too. He’s not looking up, so likely most people wouldn’t even know he was praying. He’s not looking up because he’s too ashamed. And he prays, GOD HAVE MERCY ON ME, A SINNER.
We sit around an overflowing Thanksgiving Day table in our beautiful homes with wonderful friends and we pray GOD IS GOOD. We as a congregation have been blessed with the dedication and generosity of so many people who love the Lord and love Our Savior Church and School that we pray GOD IS GOOD. We come through a serious surgery successfully and are granted a new lease on life and we pray GOD IS GOOD. But when we look over there and recognize our friend the Tax Collector, who’s made some bad choices in life, who holds a very unpleasant job, and as a result has a pretty low standing in society, who probably cheated a lot of people who were much better off financially than he and justified it by telling himself, THEY CAN AFFORD IT. This guy now considers his sins, looks at the ground and asks God for mercy and forgiveness, trusts in God to help him turn his life around – and God hears him! Hears his feeble whimpering! Hears in his voice a heart of repentance! And God forgives him, because GOD IS GOOD.
Once more, the prayer of the Pharisee? “I thank thee, Lord, that I am not like other men?”How about, I confess to Thee Lord, that I am JUST like other men. The cross of Jesus proves that this is so. The sacrifice of Jesus was for the sins of the whole world; tax collectors and Pharisees, bankers, soldiers and schoolteachers.
The prayer of the tax collector on the other hand, in this parable Jesus tells; God have mercy on me, a sinner? This is a famous ancient prayer known in Greek as the Kyr-i-e El-i-e’-son. One of the oldest prayers in history. It first appears early in the history of man in the book of 1st Chronicles: God have mercy on me, a sinner. And God’s answer? Also found in the Old Testament, in Psalm 107. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good and His mercy endureth forever. GOD IS GOOD, AND HIS ENDURING MERCY IS WHY. Amen.
