The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Luke 18:9:

“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: “God, I thank you that I[’m] not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

“‘But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

“‘I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’”

Thanks be to God for his Word.

Two weeks ago, when we turned to the eighteenth chapter, I delayed—not purposefully, but I ended up delaying in talking about what was happening when we prayed. And as a result of that, the study that I had planned was skewed a little, and I determined that I needed to come back to verses 9–14, because we’ve referred to verses 9–14 so many times in our study of Luke’s Gospel as Jesus has addressed this issue of what it means to know his mercy and his peace.

The Shock Factor

And this, of course, is one of a number of stories told by Jesus, and it is a parable. We’ve dealt with a number of these, and the challenge that we’ve faced on each occasion is that we may not face the direct impact, the shock factor, that was inherent in the things that Jesus was saying in the telling of these stories. Because many of us have become very, very familiar with these stories, and therefore, we’re not hearing them for the first time; we’re not hearing them in the striking way in which the initial listeners heard them. And as a result of that, we may get ourselves in a situation where we just simply neglect the impact to ourselves. We come to a passage like this, and we say, “Oh yes, I know this one; I know who this is for,” forgetting the fact that God intends for it to be first for us.

Now, I’ve been helped in relationship to that when, every so often, I’ve found somebody who has been able to contemporize the story for me in such a way that it kind of drives it home. Because after all, none of us are familiar with Pharisees that engage in life as is described here. None of us have spent any time this week going up to the temple to pray. None of us are acquainted with anybody who works for the Roman authorities and collects taxes and cheats on the side. So we’re reading a story that is from another time and another place. It doesn’t make it any less relevant. It’s just more challenging in finding that we’re confronted by its impact.

One of my friends rewrote the story in this way, and I want to read it for you. You can sit and relax now and listen as he addressed it in this way:

Jack and Joe went to church one evening. Jack knew his way around. He’d been brought up in the place. He’d gone to Sunday school since the age of three and all that. He knew, too, that his parents would be there, sitting in one of the other pews, watching him proudly. He wanted to make sure that they saw him, so he walked right up to the front and sat in the front row. He bowed his head. He shut his eyes for a few moments. He’d seen his dad do that, and he knew that it looked holy.

Jack, you see, took his religion very seriously. He carried a big Bible, and he knew all the latest songs. He liked the image of being a highly principled young man, too. Unlike many of his peers, he never consumed alcohol, never smoked, did no drugs. He was also extremely self-righteous about sex. No messing around behind the school bike sheds for him. He and his girlfriend had intellectual conversations about vegetarianism and the nuclear issue. Instead of going to discos, they went to prayer meetings at the youth leader’s house. As Jack reflected on his life in those few moments before the service began, he glowed with inward satisfaction. How reassuring it was to know that you are a good Christian! Nothing to confess. Nothing to feel ashamed about. Nothing.

Good grief! It couldn’t be! Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a familiar figure who had just entered the church behind him. It’s Joe! he thought incredulously. What on earth is he doing here? He’s no right to come to church, old hypocrite!

But if he’d been able to read Joe’s mind, he would have realized that precisely the same thoughts were going through his head too. What right, Joe thought, did he have to be in church? He hadn’t been in church for years. In fact, he felt thoroughly uncomfortable in the place. He kept looking around nervously, as if he expected somebody in authority to appear at any moment and tell him he’d no business to be there. He was unsure where to sit or if there was some special ritual he should observe before committing himself to stay. Didn’t Christians cross themselves before they sat down? Or was it Muslims who did that? He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember. In the end, he slid cautiously into the very back row.

Oh no! he wailed inwardly as he looked forward. There’s Jack in front of me. He’s seen me! I’ll never live this down in the neighborhood. He crumpled up, tucked his legs under the pew, his head sagging down between his knees, trying his best to hide.

As you may have guessed, Joe was not the religious sort. In fact, he had a reputation as being a bit of a lad. If there was trouble in his neighborhood with the police, they usually came to his door. His fingers bore testimony to his involvement with nicotine and drugs. There was a distinct smell of beer on his breath. In fact, he’d been down the pub just fifteen minutes before the service began.

Why on earth did he come to church? Was it because of the row that he’d had that morning at home—thrown out by his mother because he’d been stealing from her purse again? Or was it the sense of humiliation he was feeling as a result of Julie slapping him around the face last night and telling him in unambiguous four-letter words to get out of her life, just because she’d discovered he was also sleeping with Karen? Yes. It was both of those things and neither of them. Somehow, as he tried unsuccessfully to drown his sorrows in the pub, he’d just been overcome with a sense of how dirty he was and what a mess he’d made of things. And suddenly, sitting in the back row, guilt and shame brought tears to his eyes, a blush to his cheek, a lump to his throat. “Oh God,” he sighed quietly into his clenched fists. “Oh God.”

I tell you: it was Joe who went home a believer that night, not Jack.

Well, here they are. Two men. Two prayers. Two destinies.

Two Men

“[For] some,” says Jesus, “who were confident [in] their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else”—actually, says Luke—“Jesus told [them] this parable.” In other words, we’re in no doubt as to why he tells the parable. He tells the parable because he is surrounded by many people who are absolutely convinced that they’re fine, absolutely convinced that their religious orthodoxy prevents them from any sense of need at all—indeed, the kind of people that are so frequently represented in the church services of contemporary American life. And because these individuals face the distinct challenge of being religious hypocrites, Jesus—in order to stir them out of their potential lethargy, in order to confront them with the gravity of their situation—he tells a story about two individuals in order that they might find a place of identification.

First of all, he introduces us to the Pharisee: “Two men went up to the temple to pray,” he says. “One was a Pharisee.” Now, immediately, that is a problem for most of us, because when we think “Pharisee,” we think of it in negative terms. If we only know a little bit about the Bible, we know this: that the Good Samaritan was a good guy,[1] and you don’t want to have anything to do with a Pharisee, because “Pharisee” has a negative connotation.

But in the minds of the listeners to Jesus’ initial telling of the story, there would have been no such reaction. The listeners would have listened with these ears: There is a Pharisee. Who or what was the Pharisee? Well, the Pharisee was a church man—a regular church attender. The Pharisee was a Bible student. He read his Bible. He knew his Bible. He was the kind of guy who had a Bible in one of those big leather bags with a zip. And when you opened it up, it had all these little tags on the side so that he could get at it immediately. And if you ever got close to him, it was double underlined in yellow and in purple and in green and had triangles and circles and diagrams, and it pointed into all points of the compass and made other people who had never opened a Bible look at it and say, “Why does he fool around with his Bible like that? Oh, he must be a holy guy to have such a big Bible in such a lovely leather bag with such an annotated description of it all!”

He was scrupulous when it came to the matters of the law. He was a philanthropist. He was the first guy out with his checkbook to help in the community. He was the kind of person who would have been well-known for his willingness to participate in all these different things. And he was at the same time a model of holiness. He had developed for himself a religious lifestyle that was apparent to all. And praying where you could be seen was a hobby for him. There was nothing he liked better when the people said, “Aha! There he is.”

Do the Pharisee’s shoes fit you at all, sir? Madam? Are you telling me you don’t like it if people think that you’re holy, religious, committed, Bible-reading, fundamentalist stalwart?

What reveals the real condition of the hearts of these men is, of course, the prayers that they offer.

The other character is referred to as a tax collector. He was a crook. He was a collaborator. If you watch old Second World War movies, every so often you find yourself confronted by some mayor in a provincial French town who is lining his pockets as a result of collaboration with the Nazis. And instinctively, you look at that character on the screen, and you’re disgusted by him. “How could anybody do that?” you say to yourself. That’s the same way that this man’s contemporaries felt about him. He was a collaborator with the Roman authorities. He was fulfilling a responsibility in such a way that he was able to line his own nest. He was in every sense the kind of individual that people loved to spit upon, they cursed the ground he walked on, and they would have lynched him on any occasion that they had the opportunity.

In terms of status in society, this individual was right down there with harlots and every other disreputable you might be able to think of. To have a tax collector in your family was a public disgrace. Your mother would be forced to say that you were out of town—to lie about it. You did not have to keep promises in this culture to murderers, to thieves, or to tax collectors. And tax collectors could not give their alms in the synagogue. And as a result of that, the contempt with which such individuals were held by the community tended simply to harden their hearts. They became embittered. They became disinterested in the things of God. They became removed from it all. And indeed, when you get to chapter 19 and you find Zacchaeus up a tree,[2] we tend to think that the reason he’s up a tree is because he was a small man. Part of the reason may be that he was up a tree for his own protection, for to be caught down amidst this group was not necessarily a good situation.

So what you have, really, in these two individuals are two men who constitute the extremes within Judaism, one man representing the pinnacle of religion and the other the epitome of wickedness. If we’d actually asked anybody—gone out in the community and said, “You know, we’ve got these two characters. Mr. X over here, he’s a very true believer. He’s a very righteous man. He’s involved in all kinds of philanthropic deeds. He’s routinely at the services. In fact, he hardly misses a beat. And then there’s another character over here, who has come out of a background of chicanery, and he’s a crook and a collaborator and so on. Which of the two do you think will go to heaven?” Well, people say, “There’s no… That’s an easy question. Religious people go to heaven! Therefore, if this is the religious man, then presumably he’s the one that’s going to heaven. This chap hadn’t got a hope in the world of going to heaven.”

If you like, the Pharisee went up to the temple to feel good about himself. People tell me all the time, “I like to go to church. It makes me feel good about myself.” That scares me—not that we desire that people would feel bad about themselves but that, just, it is so possible to use the mechanisms of religious formalism as a mechanism for somehow or another simply assuring ourselves of the fact that we’re absolutely fine. And what reveals the real condition of the hearts of these men is, of course, the prayers that they offer.

Two Prayers

So, look at the prayers.

First of all, the prayer of the Pharisee: “The Pharisee,” in verse 11, “stood up and [he] prayed about himself.” It may equally be translated, “He prayed to himself.” His prayer is so loaded with self-congratulation that it doesn’t actually ever get off the ground. The phraseology of the opening part of verse 11 (“The Pharisee stood up”) may equally be translated “The Pharisee took a stand”—probably right up front, next to the stone balustrade that separated the court of the laity from the court of the clergy. You have the women separated from the men, and then the men separated from the priests, and the men separated from the Pharisees. And this man, presumably, would take his place as close to the rank and file as he could in order that he might receive the adulation that would come from the people looking up at him and saying, “My, my, there is a wonderful example of humanity. There is a tremendous man.” And he prayed to himself. And he prayed in a way that is self-congratulatory. “He glances,” says Plummer, “at God, but [he] contemplates himself.”[3]

Now, in the way in which he prays, you will notice (or perhaps you will notice; you will once I point it out to you) that he majors on three elements of obedience. Number one, he majors on negative obedience: “I thank you that I am not…” Okay? “I’m not this, and I’m not that, and I’m not the next thing.” In other words, he seeks to comfort himself by reminding himself of the sins he has not committed—which, of course, provides for the human psyche a wonderful smoke screen to prevent us from being confronted by the sins which we have committed. But if the object of our exercise is to affirm ourselves, to feel good about ourselves, to reinforce ourselves, then we may follow the example of this Pharisee and begin by congratulating ourselves on our commitment to a negative obedience.

Also to a legalistic obedience. Notice how he is prepared to enumerate these things. (And presumably, Jesus is using this simply as an illustration. He could have gone on.) Verse 12: “I fast twice a week, and I give a tenth of all that I get, and I go up to the temple routinely to pray,” and so on. Here is another classic method of avoiding guilt within our lives. Some of us have developed a kind of obsessive behavior pattern which is actually a cover for our own guilt-ridden lives. And we have developed patterns of existence that are ritualistic, they are marked by extreme discipline—perhaps by self-denial, definitely by paying attention to petty rules that have often been developed by man—and as a result of the doing of all of these things, it helps us then to feel better about ourselves and to avoid being confronted by the issues that God is speaking to us about in our lives.

A negative obedience, a legalistic obedience, and also a comparative obedience. A comparative obedience. “I thank you that I am not like other men.” You see how subtle this is? A strategy of self-justification. The issue first of all for the Pharisee and the tax collector was not whether they were like each other, but it was what they were before the gaze of God. The issue this morning is not whether you are better than the person next to you or like the guy four in front of you. The issue is: Before the all-seeing eye of God, what does your life look like? And one of the great trips that the devil loves to take us on is the idea of coming to worship, routinely coming to worship, and finding in good things, finding in beneficial aspects of life, a covering which prevents us from facing the abject, central reality of my own condition before God. He felt all right, but his feelings did not reflect the condition of his soul.

You see what I mean about coming to church to “feel all right”? You come Sunday after Sunday, and you “feel all right”? What if the way you feel does not represent how you are? Then everything that you and I am employing to make us feel all right—legalistic obedience, comparative obedience, negative obedience—all of these things are actually preventing us from the very confrontation we require if we are ever to deal with the guilt that is at the core of our lives.

This individual, this Pharisee, is like somebody who goes to the doctor for his checkup. The nurse comes, takes him out of the waiting area, says, “Go in cubical number 3 and put this gown on.” So he goes in, he puts the gown on, he tries to tie it up at the back, but he might as well forget it, because it just gets more and more embarrassing as the morning goes on. The doctor comes in, says, “Good morning. How are you?” He says, “Well, frankly, Doctor, I’m absolutely fine. I’m in superb health. As I was driving here this morning, I was breathing in and out. I said to myself, ‘You know, my lungs are apparently functioning perfectly.’ Just last evening, when I came out of the shower, my wife said to me, ‘You know, your muscle tone is ideal.’ And Doc, I have to tell you that as far as I understand it, I’m eating like a horse. My digestive system couldn’t be better. My circulation is absolutely A1. And while you’re listening, Doctor, let me tell you: I have no ailments, I have no infections, and I’ve got no diseases—unlike some of the other poor specimens that you’re about to see later on this morning, because I was sitting with them out there in the waiting area. Oh, there are some bad ones coming in! But as for me, I need nothing. There’s nothing wrong with me at all.”

Before the all-seeing eye of God, what does your life look like?

He feels no need, he asks for nothing, and in his own mind, he’s a one-man beauty show. But if he would ever shut up long enough to lie down on the table and let the physician do what needs to be done, then the picture may change. For all of his affirmations about how well he is on account of his own self-assessment will very quickly be eroded when the hands of the physician begin to probe—when, after the band has been removed and the stethoscope clicks back on the back of the physician’s neck, and he says, “You know, your blood pressure is significantly higher than it should be”; when in the examination of his body he hits one spot, comes back to it, makes one of those medical groaning noises (“Um-hum”), and then comes back to it for a third time. And in that moment, the man should be feeling some uncertainty, because he says, you know, “What’s that?” And the doctor says—and he always says—“Oh, probably nothing, but we’ll just have it checked in case. And by the way, did you know you’re diabetic?”

The Pharisee says, “Hey, God, I’m fine. I’m here. I’m always here. You know me! I’m at the eleven o’clock service every Sunday. You can see my checkbook. You know the things I’m doing. I’m a good guy in this group!”

Now look at the prayer of the tax collector: “But the tax collector stood at a distance … would[n’t] even look up to [the] heaven[s],” and he “beat his breast,” and he “said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’” Actually, what he says literally in the Greek is “God, will you propitiate me?” Now, you say, “What does that mean?” Well, the word propitiation is a theological word which the Bible uses routinely to point to the fact that in the death of a sacrifice, there is not only the bearing away of sin, but there is the diverting of the wrath of God towards sin. Mr. Happy—the Pharisee, religious-conference-attending, church, magnificent song-singing chap—he’s over here in la-la land, apparently fine. This poor soul says, “I’m busted. I mean, unless there is a way for something outside of me to deal with my problem, then, God, I have no chance ever of knowing you, of being loved by you, and in living with you forever in eternity. So would you…”

And, you see, it’s in the context, remember, of the temple worship. He would be able to look up to the altar. He would see at least the blood stains of the sacrifice. He would be reminded of the fact that as blood speaks of death, so sin demands death. And the man is essentially looking away, and he’s saying, “I see the blood, and I understand the cost, and I’m asking you to have mercy on me.” He’s not appealing to God’s “better nature.” He’s laying claim to God’s own remedy for the sinner’s predicament.

There’s all the difference in the world, you see. “Oh, I go to church regularly, and I just—you know, I feel better about everything after I’ve been there, and I’m just banking on God’s good side, you know. I know I’m a bit of this and a bit of that, but I’m sure when he sees the notes that I have in my Bible; I’m sure that, you know, when he remembers that I’ve been doing that junior Sunday school class for some time; I’ve got no doubt that when he recognizes all the contributions that I’ve made—everything that I have here in the holdall of my life that I’m just putting together so that when finally I stand before the power of his judgment, I may be able to bring it and take it all out and present it to him and say, ‘See here, there’s every reason in the world why you should welcome me into your heaven.’ Unlike old Fred here, who doesn’t even have a holdall; and if he had a holdall, he would have nothing in it. What is he going to do? Just go up to the gate of heaven and say, ‘God, be merciful to me’? I mean, is that what he’s going to try and do? You mean like the thief on the cross? ‘Lord, remember me when you come into your heaven’?”[4]

Two Destinies

I think you get the point. Let me finish by asking you a question—because there’s two men, there’s two prayers, and there’s two destinations. Have you ever asked God to pardon you the way the taxman did?

Now, forget about the person on your right and your left for a moment. I’m asking you a question. It’s a question that is demanded of us by the text of Scripture, and with this we draw things to a close. This is a crucial question: Have you ever asked God to pardon you the way the taxman did—through the merciful provision of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus? Or are you seeking a righteousness like the Pharisees’, built on your religious reputation and your moral achievements? Essentially, upon what are you hanging your hat as you think of the reality of eternity? Have you ever asked God to pardon you the way the taxman did?

I don’t think there is any doubt, loved ones, this morning that there are many who attend churches regularly—and perhaps even at Parkside this is true—many who attend regularly who have never made this discovery. Deep down inside, they know that they’re guilty, but instead of resolving it in God’s way, they bury it. The only attempt that they make to deal with the sense of guilt is by trying to overlay it with these religious observances, so that even church itself becomes a mechanism whereby not that I discover the reality of my need of a Savior but where I find a nice group of people who make me feel good about myself, who make me feel that everything’s okay.

Listen! Listen carefully! You go to the doctor telling him everything’s okay; he puts his hand on one area of your body, and what you feel is different from the reality. You understand that. The same is true concerning our souls. The issue is not first, today or any Sunday, that you go from here feeling okay. The real issue is that you realize by the work of the Spirit of God that he puts his hand upon your life, and he says, “Listen: the reason you feel guilty is because you should. Because you’re a mess. Because you’ve done this. Because you’ve done that. Because you’ve broken God’s law. And when you take all of that, the worst of all is that you do not believe in God.”

Now, the way to deal with that is not to say, “Oh, well, I loved the singing, you know, and it was terrific. And let’s get off to lunch as quickly as we can.” You can do that! Many do. And I’ll tell you what they’re like. The individual who’s doing that—he may call himself a Christian; she may call herself a Christian—there are symptoms throughout the totality of their lives. These are not all the symptoms, but these are some. Such an individual constantly feels that they are no good at all at being a Christian. “I’m no good at being a Christian.” Who cares if you’re any good at being a Christian? That is not the first question. The tax collector is not put in the right with God because of how good he feels about what he’s been doing; he feels that everything that he’s been doing stinks. But when an individual doesn’t understand the reality of guilt and the experience of genuine liberation from it, then they’ve got nowhere to go, so they don’t feel good. They don’t feel excited about being a Christian. It’s false to them. They have no assurance of salvation. They seldom have any joy in worship. They have no enthusiasm in witnessing. And they wonder why it is.

And when they’re confronted by it, they may say to themselves, “And how do I get out of my predicament?” The answer is here in the text: stand where the taxman stood. Bow, if you like, where the taxman bowed. He doesn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven. He beats his chest as an expression of his contrition, and he says, “God, be merciful to me.” And look at what Jesus says: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified”—declared righteous in God’s sight, acquitted, set free. Why? Because of the amazing mercy of God.

If I’m going to pray the prayer the Pharisee prayed, I need to bow where the Pharisee bowed; I need to look where the tax collector looked. Where was he looking? He was looking away from himself. He was looking to the altar of sacrifice. All of his illusions of moral respectability had been shattered. All of his pretense of self-righteousness had been abandoned. He knew that he had nothing to say.

Have you ever asked God to pardon you the way the tax collector did? Have you ever bowed where he bowed? Have you ever looked where he looked? Have you ever heard what he heard—“This man is justified”? So that when we sing “It Is Well with My Soul” and you come to the verse

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to [his] cross and I bear it no more.[5]

What are we saying there? We’re not saying anything about ourselves and our feelings. We’re saying everything about who Jesus is and what Jesus has done and about the fact that we are resting in him alone.

Well, how are you planning on dealing with your guilt? For guilty you are, and guilty I am. Are you going to keep going for a little bit of religious therapy—Sunday by Sunday, week by week, just enabling me to feel better about myself? Or do you want to go for a radical cleansing of the real guilt that lies at the core of your being? Karl Barth, the great theologian, he said, “We dislike hearing that we are saved … by grace alone. We do[n’t really] appreciate that God does[n’t] owe us anything, that we are bound to live from his goodness alone, that we are left with nothing but the great humility … of a child presented with many gifts. … To put it bluntly: we do not like to believe.”[6] We would much rather do. The doing comes after the believing. The doing cannot take the place of believing.

And Jack had every reason to be there. He knew the songs. His Bible was marked. His parents were involved in the church. Joe, of course—stinky Joe—he knew he shouldn’t be there. And Joe went home a believer. And Jack went home stuck in the self-congratulatory nature of his own religious devising.

Let us pray together.

Perhaps a prayer like this would be helpful to some, who find themselves in a kind of “feel-good” Christian trip. They’ve been trying desperately to make it work, and it isn’t working. The reason is that they’ve never prayed the tax collector’s prayer. They never got down to brass tacks. Why not, where you’re seated this morning, just admit? Give up your rebellion. Throw up your sword. Say, “Jesus, I need you. I have got nothing to say in my defense. I’ve nothing to plead on my behalf. None of the things that get me into my clubs, that make me significant in my community, that give me accolades in my work—none of it works. Be merciful to me. Forgive me. Save me. Live in me. Take me. I’m yours.”

And the Bible says that the man or the woman who calls out to God in that way will in no wise be cast away.[7] God will save you. He will keep you. It’ll be apparent. You may not feel anything. You go for lunch, and it’ll be apparent in time. The buds will be on the trees. The songs will be in your heart. You’ll find you’re telling others about this wonderful story. And then you’ll say, “My, my, what happened to me?” And then you’ll realize, “This isn’t something I did. This is something God did. He showed me I needed him. And then he came in my need, and he saved me.”

Father, hear our prayers. And may the Lord bless us and keep us. May the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us. May the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us his peace, today and forevermore. Amen.

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[1] See Luke 10:25–37.

[2] See Luke 19:1–4.

[3] Alfred Plummer, The Gospel According to St. Luke, 5th ed., The International Critical Commentary (New York: Scribner’s, 1902), 417.

[4] Luke 23:42 (paraphrased).

[5] Horatio Gates Spafford, “When Peace, Like a River” (1873).

[6] Karl Barth, “Saved by Grace,” in Deliverance to the Captives, trans. Marguerite Wieser (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 40.

[7] See John 6:37.