The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Sermon by Jamie Howison on Joel 2:23-32 and Luke 18:9-14

We began today with a reading from the prophet Joel, in which Joel sounds first celebratory—Israel is being ever so richly restored by God, after a time in which they’d faced desolation due to their failings—and then more than a little cautionary—“The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” These writing gathered in Joel, suggests the biblical scholar Garrett Galvin, “seems to be a book of unknown origins,” in that it they aren’t easily pinned to any specific time or setting. But then again, from the time of the ancient kings right through the Exile and on to the return to Israel, the people stumbled. They stumbled into corruption, into various forms of idolatry, into unfaith, and into disorder. And always there was one of these prophets, naming that truth and often—not always, but often—proclaiming the promise of restoration.

There is, I believe, a fascinating tension between this text from Joel with its emphasis on calling the people back to live rightly, and today’s great parable from Jesus, the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Ask yourself, first of all, of the two characters in Jesus’ parable, which one could be seen as the most committed to the scruples of the torah? Which one, in other words, might be a pillar of the sort of faithful society Joel was longing for and calling for?

The Pharisee, hands down. Consider what we are told. He is not a thief, a rogue, or an adulterer. He fasts, he prays, he tithes. He is a member of a movement notable for its fidelity to the torah, and he’s prepared to put his money right where his mouth is. As Robert Capon has it, “If you know where to find a dozen or two such upstanding citizens, I know several parishes that will accept delivery of them, no questions asked…” This guy is a pillar and a rock-solid faithful believer… but one who just might have an attitude problem. “God, I thank you,” he prays, “that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector.” You can all but see him looking down his nose at that tax collector, who has the nerve—the raw nerve—to even come into the temple, given all he’s been up to.

So, sure, a bit of an attitude problem, but then again remember what it meant to be a tax collector. These were Jewish citizens, members of Judea, that poor little country that was being crushed under the iron rule of the Empire. All around them people were doing their best to survive Roman rule, and some, like the Jewish Zealots, were even willing to consider giving their very lives in rebellion against their Roman overlords. But the tax collectors? They were working for the enemy occupiers, collecting taxes on their behalf, and skimming off a good percentage for their own sorry selves. You’d be making some good money as a tax collector, yet would have no friends aside from the other tax collectors. And maybe even with them you would have had a hard time with respect or trust? Chances were pretty good that even your own parents didn’t like to admit what you were doing for a living, and shuddered when they saw you walking up to the door of their home. Oh sure, you might be supporting mom and dad with your dirty income, but how can they respect themselves for taking that money?

It is all messy, in other words. If someone were to craft a straight up moral lesson based on these two characters, the Pharisee would be lauded and the tax collector condemned, but Jesus was never much interested in moral lessons in that vein. As the Pharisee rehearses his potted speech praising his own faithfulness and staring down his nose at this man he considers a complete reprobate, the tax collector has his turn.

But 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!”

Defying all normal expectations, what does Jesus conclude?

I tell you, this man—the tax collector—went down to his home justified rather than the other—the Pharisee—for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.

“Do you see now what Jesus is saying in this parable?” Robert Capon asks.

He is saying that as far as the Pharisee’s ability to win a game of justification with God is concerned, he is no better off than the tax collector. As a matter of fact, the Pharisee is worse off; because while they’re both losers, the tax collector at least has the sense to recognize the fact and trust God…

Which we all really like of course, particularly since we have been conditioned by years and years and years of hearing these stories to write off the Pharisees as being hypocritical and problematic.

But we often have something else tucked into a corner of our imaginations to make the parable entirely palatable. We don’t mind seeing the Pharisee go down—he is representative of those to whom Jesus is directing the parable; those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.” But when it comes to the tax collector, don’t we all hold this little piece of hope or religious purity that says that he will now—now, right away as soon as he walks out of the temple—he’ll begin to reform his busted life? That somehow, this visit to the temple was the beginning of a new chapter in life, and one that Jesus was lauding? Why, asks Robert Capon, “Why are you so bent on destroying the story by sending the tax collector back for his second visit with the Pharisee’s speech in his pocket?”

All Jesus has given us here is this one moment, this one snapshot, which captures one man’s blindness to his own failings, and another man’s willingness to tell the truth of his life to God. It strikes me that while Jesus did care—and does care—about the choices we make in our lives, those choices aren’t about earning our way into his kingdom—they aren’t about somehow meriting grace—but rather are a response to the gift of grace we have been given. Whether or not Jesus’ fictional tax-collector would have been able to clean up his life is beside the point. What Jesus wants to show us is that one moment, when that character dared to be truthful about the mess he was making of his life. Full stop. It is enough.

But back to Joel for just a minute or two. Joel’s framework for understanding Israel and its relationship to God is a framework not dissimilar to that held by the Pharisees. Again, set aside some of the prejudices we’ve built up against the Pharisees, and remember that they tended to be committed to tithing, faithful to the torah, and rigorous in their exercise of faith. This is what Joel hoped would be ever more the case for Israel, as it limped back from a time of loss and corruption and began to launch into a new beginning in its life; a time when,

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.

If those words have a particular resonance for you, maybe it is because this passage from Joel is cited by Peter, as he preaches his first ever sermon out in the marketplace in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Peter grabs hold of this text from Joel, and he preaches. He tells that public gathering that all of which Joel had dreamt and all of which the prophets like Isaiah had proclaimed had in fact come to be in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And none of had to do with how well Israel was doing—how perfectly it kept the torah or did justice or had mercy—but rather it was all an act of sheer grace. Sheer grace, and all those people out in the town square had to do was grab hold and trust it. Trust it as surely as that tax collector in the parable trusted that his tears of remorse were held in God’s hands, whether or not he was able to set everything right in his sorry life. Trust it, hold on, and laugh at the sheer audacity of God’s grace.

May we always be enabled to laugh at the audacity of grace. Truly.