It is certainly easy to read the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, and to say that we are the latter. Since we are Christians, we are the humble tax collectors who beat our chests and ask for God’s mercy to pardon our sins. And that the Pharisee in the parable represents the unbelieving world. Those who do not know Christ and the justification by faith in his incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. This would be a simple, cut-and-dry sermon. Christians are tax collectors, and everyone else is a Pharisee. Yet, this does not tell the whole story of the parable.
Notice that both men go to the temple in Jerusalem. They both believe in God, and they both fear his wrath. The Pharisee and the tax collector see that God is just as he executes judgment on the entire world. Therefore, they enter into the house of God to be in his presence as the Lord desires them to do. The temple was where God promised he would be. Between the morning and evening sacrifices for sin offerings, the courts of the temple were open for prayer and the study of God’s word. Both men feared and loved God enough to come into his presence. In other words, both these men attend church not much different than you or I.
The Pharisee comes into the house of God out of his own piety. For he sees himself as a righteous man, a very righteous man. He looks up to God with outstretched arms for all to see, pouring out his soul to God. As the man gazes down upon the people around him, the Pharisee declares that he is more righteous than these other men, “extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” He believes that he knows the sins of the people around him; their sins that are condemned, while he should be praised. He may be aware of his own sins, but he certainly sees his fellow worshipers as worse sinners than himself.
Still, the Pharisee sees himself as guiltless under the law of God. This Pharisee is supposed to be a scholar of the Hebrew Scriptures, and in his reading, he sees none of the commands and ordinances of God that he has violated and needs repentance. In this manner, the Pharisee has violated the first table of the law—the portion of the Ten Commandments concerning man’s relationship to God. These are the commandments concerning other gods, not misusing the Lord’s name in vain, and remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Meanwhile, the Pharisee also excludes himself from the other sinners who have gathered to pray. Yet, in this act, he is showing that he is no greater than these, for the law of God tells us that it is not simply kept by the letter but by the spirit. For he is like every other sinful man who has dishonored authority, hated brother, gazed with lustful intent, taken possession of another’s property in a dishonest way, told a lie to destroy someone’s reputation, or desired from the heart what they have no right to. Instead of being guiltless, he has violated the entire law of God.
We have no trouble looking down on this Pharisee, but are we much different than him? How easy is it to look at our own sins while also seeing the sins of our neighbors, our fellow Christians in the peripheral? Or to self-justify ourselves, saying at least our sin isn’t as bad as the person across the aisle from me or someone imagined in our mind’s eye. What about using another’s sin to justify committing the same transgression? No one can stand justified before God’s law. And just like the Pharisee, it becomes second nature to use our good deeds that are pleasing in the sight of God to somehow cover up our sins.
In our old nature, held captive by sin and death, even as we have been made new in Christ, we still seem never to fully put aside our Pharisaic tendencies. So what can we do? We can only do one thing. Look to the other man in the parable, the man who went home justified, the tax collector.
For this man, when confronted with the word of God, does not make excuses for his sins. Rather, he sees all his transgressions that offended God, including the money he stole from the people by seeking a cut of their taxes, lying to the officials about how much he collected, and not showing mercy to those who could afford what they owed. His sins have not only offended God, but also they have imposed suffering on his fellow children of God. And the same is true for us. There are many times in your life that you feel the weight of your sins as well, as if the burden was too heavy that even God himself could not lift it. Or when the world, the devil, or sinful flesh has taken us so far away from God that he somehow could never find us again. Even when we look at the filth of our sins, we wonder why God would ever want to cleanse us from our miserable state.
God is not so far off that he cannot find you or reach you or cleanse you. For God has sent his son Jesus Christ to do these things. Christ comes in flesh and blood that he may eat with sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes. He comes to wash away sin by his blood on the cross. Although He knew no sin, Christ Jesus became sin for us. The Son of God, who is blessed, has become a curse for us. He never ceases to seek out the lost to care for them and to forgive them. And just like the tax collector, he has given you the Holy Spirit who calls you daily to repentance and to live before God in righteousness and purity forever. This is not something you can find on your own in the world, but it is something that God has given to you for the sake of Jesus Christ.
Even on those days when we are knowledgeable of our sins and remain assured of God’s grace, Jesus always sends his Holy Spirit to comfort us that we are saved. Though we proceeded from the lions of Adam, we are made members of the body of Christ. As Christians, we are Christ’s hands and feet, his organs and members. For when God looks upon us, he only sees numbers of his Son’s body who are nurtured by Christ, our head, fed with his very lifeblood. For the members of Christ’s body, fed by his blood, are the most righteous of all men. And in us, God the Father only sees us through Christ.
As members of his justified and resurrected body, we cannot leave it up to yesterday’s forgiveness. For we daily sin much. God richly provides his forgiveness to you week by week, by words and sacrament, as organs and members require life from bread and blood. In the same way, God justifies and gives unto you a heart of a tax collector that has been broken by sin and comforted by God’s all-sufficient mercy. We, with the tax collector, can put our trust in his mercy, for there is nothing else in which we can be saved.
St. John's and Grace Evangelical Lutheran Parish 