The
holy gospel according to Luke (18:9-14)
9Jesus
also told this parable
to some who
trusted in themselves
that
they were righteous
and
regarded others with contempt:
10“Two
men went up to the temple to pray,
one
a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
11The
Pharisee, standing by himself,
was
praying thus,
‘God,
I thank you that I am not like other people:
thieves,
rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12I
fast twice a week;
I
give a tenth of all my income.’
13But
the tax collector, standing far off,
would
not even look up to heaven,
but
was beating his breast and saying,
‘God,
be merciful to me, a sinner!’
14I
tell you, this man went down to his home
justified
alongside the other;
for all who exalt
themselves will be humbled,
and all who
humble themselves will be exalted.”
The
gospel of the Lord.
-----
Today’s
gospel provides us with an interesting juxtaposition. The tax collector, considered a traitor to his people as he
profits off of them and supports the occupying Roman forces in his work, is set
alongside the Pharisee, a leader of the people who does everything right—and
then some.
Both
the Pharisee and the tax collector are, as is often the case in Jesus’
parables, caricatures of their real-life counterparts. The Pharisee is an over-the-top
faithful one, adhering not only to the Torah, but adding a fuller tithe than
was expected of him and fasting twice a week! The tax collector himself would be a surprise to see in the
Temple at all, considering the sentiment toward him as a sell-out to the Roman
Empire.
Taken
together, they give us insight into confession and forgiveness, an important
part of our worship most Sundays.
After
taking a moment to prepare our hearts and minds for worship and calling
ourselves and each other into this particular worship, we together confess our
sins. We do this each week for a
few reasons.
Confessing
our sins—our shortfalls, the ways we fail to separate ourselves from oppressive
systems in our culture, and the ways we succeed in separating ourselves from others
in need—keeps us mindful that we live in an imperfect world. As part of this, each week I do my best
to make sure that we mess up at least once as a reminder that we are not
perfect. Usually I don’t have to
work at all to achieve this—we’ll call it a natural talent ;-)
When
we confess our sins during worship, it is a way of acknowledging that we are
not perfect. It also creates space
for us, both individually in our moment for silent confession, and communally,
to name the sins we carry with us.
We
confess the prejudice we carry, that we can favor our own comfort or security
more than the lives or well-being of others.
We
confess that we try to control others’ freedom.
that we trust too
much in violence to solve problems all over the world.
We
confess that we give into the fear we have been taught to carry
when we see
others who are not like us.
We
confess the ways we disparage others because of their race, religion, language,
age, gender, or sexual orientation.
We
confess our resentments and regrets.
Confessing
our sins as a group helps us know that we are not alone in falling short. We all mess up. Both our actions and our inactions work
to separate us from others and from God.
Sin limits our experience of the Divine in our midst and in our relationships
with others. Like the tax
collector, our sin impacts our whole community. Jewish New Testament Scholar Amy-Jill Levine points out that
the “concern for community responsibility [found in first century Palestinian
culture] means that the sin of one person can negatively impact everyone else.”[1] There are ripples from our sins just
like there are from the tax collector’s support of an oppressive empire and the
extra money he takes from his community, beyond what is required or
sustainable.
And
so confessing helps us recognize and turn from our sin to new and better ways
of being in the world. When we
confess our sins, then we cry out with the tax collector. “God, be merciful to
me, a sinner!” Confessing our sin
even functions as a corrective so that we do not fall into the trap of the
Pharisee and judge others as more sinful than us. Because that’s not what it’s about. It’s not a tit-for-tat game of who
sinned more or worse. We are all
sinners, we are all caught up in systems of oppression, and we all act in ways
that tear down ourselves and others.
And
so we cry out for God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness, God’s love. And God gladly and freely grants us
forgiveness. While confession and
forgiveness do not erase what we’ve done or not done—we still have to face the
natural consequences of our actions—through confession and forgiveness, God
creates the space for us to try again, to do better. That is part of the forgiveness in confession and
forgiveness—the guarantee that God forgives you entirely and the call to
do better in the future.
God’s
love is so great that it covers us all, from the Pharisee, who, though he is
righteous, falls into judging the other and trying to set himself too far
apart, to the tax collector, whose job betrays his community and supports
oppressive forces at work in the Roman empire.
God’s
love also calls to mind the ways we do
God’s will—the ways God is at work
through us, the ways we don’t totally mess up, the times when we are not
“thieves, rogues, adulterers.” Our
sin ripples out, affecting many, but so does God’s love. God’s love ripples out from each of us
and its ripples are far greater than those of our sin. As we receive God’s forgiveness, God’s
love surrounds us and spreads outward like water breaking through a dam.
God’s
love and forgiveness call to mind God’s covenantal relationship with us collectively
as a community of faith—that we are in this together. God’s love is for us altogether. That is the joy and celebration in our response to forgiveness—that
“this [one goes] down to [their] home justified alongside the other.”
We pray and confess together and we are justified together.
Our
sins are forgiven, our good deeds lifted up, and in all of that, we rest in
God’s love. We take comfort in trusting
that God’s love goes deeper than our worst shortfalls, our worst sins, our
worst regrets, and God’s love lifts us up together higher than we could ever
imagine or attempt to earn on our own.
It
is God’s love that binds us together in a covenant of forgiveness.
It
is God’s love that spreads from us throughout the world.
And
it is God’s love that brings justice and peace into the world.
Thanks
be to God.
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