Sermon. The Pharisee and the Tax Collector.

Sermon. 23 October 2016. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford.

Last Sunday After Trinity (Year C)

Luke 18.9-14

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Or (we may call it) 'the story of the confident person and the person at their wits' end'. Surely, it is that. And surely that is what makes this story one of the most attractive and accessible in the whole of the gospels. It is good to know that people at their wits' end – and we are all at our wits' end at times in our lives – can turn to Gd and be heard.

And, thank Gd, not the story but the underlying message is one that is found in other traditions which have to do with Gd. You'll find it not only in Christianity, but also in Judaism and Islam and elsewhere. The command: never despair of the mercy of Gd. Or, to put it the other way round: do not despair; the mercy of Gd is limitless, and can be for you, whatever the mess you are in. Or: if you have to be at your wits' end before you turn to Gd, still do it; Gd will hear you. I know that many of us hear can bear witness to that. Perhaps we would not be here if we could not bear witness to that. Well and good.

All of that said, today's gospel remains the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And one thing you may just have noticed about me is that, when the Pharisees are mentioned in the gospels, I like to make an effort to 'rehabilitate' them, to suggest that the traditional Christian portrayal of the Pharisees as 'the baddies' is too simple, and won't do. This is because the Pharisees were the forerunners of the rabbis and so of Judaism as we know it - but also, so historians tell us, actually the group closest to the Jewish Jesus movement, which became the Church. You might think I have my work cut out this time. But here I go.

The Pharisee offers to Gd a review of his life. He fasts, he tithes, regularly and fully. He also – clearly – prays. Fasting, tithing, praying. This means in terms of the three pillars of Jewish piety as the New Testament portrays things, he is doing it. He is pious, devout, faithful.

Perhaps you think he is showing Gd he has earned Gd's attention? That he believes that Gd is naturally distant, or angry, or both, but if he jumps through the set hoops (of which there are many), he can earn Gd's forgiveness and sympathy? The text nothing about this. And that's worth saying again. The text of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector does not say that the Pharisee thought he could earn good things from Gd by all his efforts. And we know from other sources – like, well, the Old Testament itself, that that was not what Phariseeism was about.

No, Phariseeism, like other forms of Judaism, was a religion of grace. Gd has graced the Jewish people with freedom, and undeserved love, and with guidance about how to live. Jews are invited to celebrate all of that by making their own the details of the guidance about how to live. By, for example, fasting, tithing and praying.

In other words, when the Pharisee is reviewing his life, he is doing just what people in the Catholic tradition may do today when they prepare for confession. They/we may even get little booklets to guide one through a review of one's life: Have you been regularly to mass? Have you prayed daily? Have you given to charity? And so on. If you have, and you have, and you have, then say it. Tell the truth. Be honest about it. Be glad that you've had the external opportunity and the internal discipline to fulfil some commandments, to be faithful in what you do.

But that is as positive as I can be about today's Pharisee. For to be clear: he does mess up. What does he get wrong? Not in fairly recording what he did right, but in comparing, or rather contrasting himself with another human being, with the tax collector. And also not like thieves, rogues, adulterers and others.

Brothers and sisters, to do that is spiritual death for any of us. The sin of pride, thinking ourselves above others. Underneath which is often fear. It's the fear (probably one we are not conscious of) that, deep down, life is like this. Life is a narrow ladder and we are a crowd, all competing, scrambling up the ladder. We fear that we can only do that by fighting with others, scrapping, climbing over them, pressing our feet down on their heads, to race up the rungs of the ladder. We may think of this as how this economic life, or how bankers working in the City may think about things. But today's message is that the spiritual life can also be like this.

This brings home to us that 'the Pharisee' is not some exotic alien from a couple of millennia. It's that part of us which thinks we have to compare, contrast, and compete. But there is good news here, because there is a way out. We simply have to note when we are led to compare, contrast and compete, and then cease and desist, resist, move away.

A friend of mine puts it this way. You know the phrase: Love the sinner, hate the sin? No! I haven't got time for that. I haven't got time to discern your sins, to hate them. I am too busy discerning my own sins. He's not saying he thinks he's a terrible person, drowning in sinfulness. He's just saying his own life is the own he has to judge, be discerning about. Other lives he is called just to love.

I have one question for you. What do you think happened next? We know what happened immediately, as Jesus tells us. The Pharisee, thinking himself smugly superior to those around him, goes home unchanged by his praying. The tax collector, at his wits' end and so pouring out his heart, knows the change that comes from being heard by Gd. 'Justified', in the rather technical language of the text.

But, then what? Did the same scene play itself out, day after day, week after week, year after year? We hope not. We hope the Pharisee would get the insight he needed to see that his dismissive attitude to others was killing off his otherwise decent-enough prayers. But do we hope that the tax collector might also change? Might slowly, slowly look at all the concrete ways in which he was a sinner, and work out ways, slowly, slowly no doubt, to change his life?

I think that is probably the import of the story as Jesus (as Luke) tells it. But Christian tradition has also done something else with this story. It has suggested that the bald, heart-felt (heart-felt, bald) prayer 'Lord, have mercy', is one we never leave behind. We know this. We know this because it's also our practice.

Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy...

Lord, in your mercy...

Here we are in some ways echoing the sinning tax collector of today's gospel.

And some, many (many, especially in the East, but by no means only there) many place this prayer for mercy very close to the heart of their own spirituality. What do I mean? I am thinking of the 'Jesus Prayer'. It has different versions. Two especially popular ones:

'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of Gd, have mercy on us.'

'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of Gd, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

It is the prayer of the heart, repeated over and over again. There's an Orthodox monastery not far from here where they recite it daily. They were told to limit it to two hours a day. It is typically recited in line with breathing:

Lord Jesus Christ Son of Gd (in-breath)

have mercy on us (out-breath).

And a traditional posture is to be seated and bend forward. Some say this is the origin of the phrase, 'contemplating your naval'. It looks that way. But really the one praying is adopting the position of the tax collector in today's story.

And I offer it to you. I will share this from my chaplaincy work: it can work against anxiety, if you repeat it, slowly. Just to add: when we pray for mercy, we are not praying just for forgiveness. This is mercy as a much richer concept. A prayer for grace, for grace in the form we need it. That Christ meets us at the point of our need, as the loving, gracious one He is.

Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of Gd, have mercy on us [repeated ad lib.]

Evidence suggests that if we pray like this (like this in some way – I am not being prescriptive) we will find it that bit easier to pray from the heart when (Gd forbid) we are at our wits' end. Amen.