Title: The Good Example of a Bad Man
Text: Luke 18:9-14
Thesis: Spiritual humility is pleasing to God.
Introduction
Do you remember the old Mac Davis tune?
OOOH… it’s hard to be humble
when you’re perfect in every way.
I can’t wait to look in the mirror
cause I get better looking each day.
To know me is to love me
I must be a ter – rif - ic guy.
OOOH… it’s hard to be humble
but I’m doing the best that I can.
Mac Davis, like many of us, are prone to making presumptuous assumptions about ourselves and others. I would like for us to approach the story today by examining some common assumptions as they emerge from our text today:
1. We assume that we can distinguish a good person from a bad person, by looking.
[Jesus said,] “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a dishonest tax collector.” Luke 18:10
Assumptions come easy for some of us. We assume that the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black hats. We assume the guy with the big car has money and they guy with the beater is broke. We assume the effeminate man is gay and the masculine man is straight. We assume fat people are undisciplined and skinny people are vain. We assume the tackily dressed person is trampy and the well-dressed is demure.
We like it when the lines are clearly drawn between good and evil. We like it when things are black and white.
• In the bible it is God and Satan, angels and demons, righteousness and unrighteousness.
• In Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins and Gandolf the wizard battle Sauron, the embodiment of evil, for a ring that will control the course of history, either for good or evil.
• In C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, it is a battle between good and evil in a magical fairy-land where the good lion Aslan faces the evil White Witch.
• In the Harry Potter series it is Harry the “good wizard” and the evil Lord Volemort, “master of the dark arts.”
• In Star Wars it is an inter-galactic war between the good and evil forces of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
This week I made a call down at St. Joseph’s Hospital… I happened to have a funeral later that morning, so I was dressed in a white shirt, tie, and pin-stripped suit. I immediately noticed that I was being treated differently, than when casually dressed. Everyone I met in the corridor and the nurse’s stations smiled and spoke to me. From now on, I’m going to keep wearing that stethoscope when I visit the hospital.
We make assumptions about people based on our perceptions of them. We may assume whatever we like, but the scriptures teach us plenty about assumptions. In I Samuel 16:, we are reminded that people look on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart or a person’s thoughts and intentions. In Jeremiah 17:9 the unseen human heart is described deceitful and desperately wicked and that only God can know what is in a person’s heart. In James 2 we are warned against forming prejudices based on a person’s appearance. There is wisdom in the old adage, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
Perhaps the problem of assumptions is not so much about what we assume about others, but what we assume about ourselves.
2. We assume a good person’s life is characterized by not doing outwardly bad things and doing good things.
“The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax-collector over there! For I never cheat, I don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery, I fast twice a week, and I give a tenth of my income.’” Luke 18:11-12
The problem with the Pharisee is not that he was a bad person because he was in fact, a very good person. He was doing all of the things expected of a religious person. He was honest as the day is long, he had no bad habits, he was faithful in his marriage, he fasted every Tuesday and Thursday, and he tithed a tenth of his income. What’s not to love?
If he was running a business, we would do business with him. If he was running for office, we would vote for him. If he was a university professor, we would want our children to enroll in his classes. If we were looking for an example of integrity, he would be our man.
His problem wasn’t that he wasn’t good. His problem was that he was proud of being good and in being so, looked down on other people.
In our Listening for God in Contemporary Literature discussion group we read a Flannery O’Connor short-story in which the main character, Mrs. Turpin, similarly thought well of herself. The setting is a doctor’s office waiting room. There are a number of people sitting around the room listening as Mrs. Turpin says to another lady, “If it’s one thing I am, it’s grateful. When I think who all I could have been besides myself and what all I got, a little of everything, and a good disposition besides, I just feel like shouting, ‘Thank you, Jesus, for making everything the way it is! Oh thank you Jesus, Jesus, thank you!’” That’s when the girl sitting across from her threw her book, striking Mrs. Turpin just above her left eye.
When the Pharisee said, “There but for the grace of God go I,” it was an expression of conceit in himself and condemnation of the other man.
The revealing part of his prayer is not gratitude to God that he is not a sinner… it is that he was peeking while he prayed. As he prayed, he squinted out of the corner of his eye and seeing the tax-collector, he prayed, “I thank God that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax-collector over there!”
We assume good people, who do not do bad things and do good things are good all the way through, but this good man had a chink in his armor. He was vulnerable to conceit, self-righteousness, spiritual pride, and a critical spirit, none of which was visible to anyone but God.
Just as we assume certain things about a good person, we make assumptions about bad people as well.
3. We assume the bad person’s life is characterized by sinful acts.
“But the tax-collector stood at a distance and dared not even to lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’” Luke 18:13
Tax-collectors, otherwise known as Publicans are never spoken of with affection in the scripture. In the parallel accounts of the call of Matthew/Levi (Matthew 9:9-13, Mark 2:13-17, and Luke 5:27-32), Matthew is not specifically referred to as being dishonest, but his dinner guests are referred to as his “fellow tax-collectors and other notorious sinners.” In the same context the critics of Jesus ask of his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?” The NLT identifies them as “scum.” When someone wanted to insult Jesus they would accuse him of being a “glutton and a drunkard and a friend of tax-collectors and sinners.” Luke 7:34
In Matthew 21:28-32 Jesus told some religious officials that they were less likely to enter the Kingdom of God than corrupt tax-collectors and prostitutes. In other words, one has to be pretty low to be lower than a corrupt tax-collector. One gets the idea that a tax-collector is a person non grata or an unwelcome person.
However, tax-collectors were not lost causes. In Luke 3:12 reference is made to corrupt tax-collectors coming to Jesus to be baptized. The story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10 tells of how one corrupt tax-collector turned his life around and made amends to those he had cheated.
There is evidence that the tax-collector’s life was indeed characterized by sinful acts. When the government needed to levy a tax, officials would sell the right to collect those taxes on ebay.com to the highest bidder, who then found creative ways to collect the tax at considerable profit. Tax collectors in Jesus’ day would find their counterparts today, not so much in IRS officials, but in government service contractors like Blackwater or Halliburton.
The tax collector had plenty to hide. He felt guilty for the way he conducted business and the fact that he stood at a distance is a dead giveaway. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, they hid. Lawbreakers flee. Criminals go into hiding.
When we lived in Red Oak, we had a semi-circular concrete patio in our back yard. Bonnie had planted a beautiful flower bed around the arc. Max, our Bassett hound, always tried to leap over the flower bed on his way to the back door but even though his front half cleared the flower bed… the back half didn’t. So, I put in a decorative picket border around the flower bed so he would have to use the walk like everyone else. One day when I came home the picket fence had been removed and bits and pieces of picket fence were strewn around the yard. I called for Max, but Max wouldn’t come… Max was in his dog house and he would not come out. Even our pets distance themselves when they know they’ve been bad.
The tax collector felt like he was in the dog house. He had a long laundry list of things for which he felt deep remorse and guilt. He kept his distance, unable to even lift his eyes toward heaven praying, “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.”
In the telling of his story, Jesus points out the irony of our assumptions about others and ourselves.
4. We assume that God is more pleased with the good person’s life and prayer than with the bad person’s life and prayer.
[Jesus said,] “I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored.” Luke 18:14
After church that day, both men went home. The next day, both men got up and went to work. We suspect that the Pharisee continued to be a good man and we hope that the tax collector became an honest man. Some commentators suggest that both men simply went back to doing what it was they did… and the tax collector would likely be back in church making his confession the following week.
However, that discussion is not the point of this story. The point of this story is that spiritual pride and a critical spirit does not please God, whereas humility and a broken and contrite spirit does.
After David had committed adultery with Bathsheba he prayed the prayer of repentance found in Psalm 51. He prayed, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalm 51:17
Jesus said, “I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored.”
This must have been quite an unsettling story for those to whom Jesus was speaking. It is reminiscent of his teaching in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, “Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as ‘Lord,’ but they won’t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven. On judgment day, I will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you…” Matthew 7:21-23)
Synopsis:
Jesus is directing his comments to a specific audience, i.e., “people who had great self-confidence and scorned everyone else.” We understand this to mean self-righteous people who compare themselves favorably with others and in doing so, “commend” themselves and “criticize, categorize, and condemn” others. Luke 18:9
Jesus concludes by saying the person who is humble, i.e., who does not compare himself to, criticize, categorize, and condemn others, but rather honestly acknowledges his own sinfulness and seeks God’s mercy, is the person with whom God is pleased and the person who receives mercy.
So what do we do with this story?
Conclusion:
The first thing we can do to apply the lessons of this story is to:
• Stop Peeking! Stop comparing ourselves to others with a critical eye for the other and a commending eye for one’s self.
Covenant Pastor, Greg Asimakoupoulos tells the story of a wedding in which he served as the officiant. The groom had printed the programs at a local print shop. As the guests were arriving, he looked down at the program as a string quartet played classical music.
Everything looked fine until he noticed that instead of a “meditation” he would be giving a “mediation.” He thought to himself, “How could the groom have been so careless?”
During the ceremony he made light of the error, calling the congregation’s attention to the typo, suggesting that the meditation was intended to give the couple advice that would keep them from ever needing mediation.
Three days later Greg received a call from the County Clerk’s office stating that he needed to come in and sign a new license. Greg said, “I had misspelled the groom’s last name when I was filling out the document. I had judged the groom’s ineptness prematurely. I, too, made a mistake. And, instead of enjoying a leftover slice of wedding cake, I had to eat humble pie.”
The first application is simple… stop peeking at others.
The second thing we can do by way of application is:
• Start cultivating a humble spirit. Keep your eyes on yourself and take care of your own business.
It is a spiritual challenge to be humble without being proud of our humility.
A fifth-grader came home from school one day, She was very excited as she told her mother. “Guess what Mommy, I was voted the prettiest girl in our class today!”
The next day she came home even more excited. She said, “Guess what Mommy, I was voted the most likely to succeed in our class today!”
The next day she was even more excited as she announced, “Guess what Mommy, I was voted the most popular person in our class today!”
The next day when she came home she was very despondent. “What happened?” her mother asked. She said, “I was voted most stuck up in our class today…” (Homiletics. October 2007, p.66)
Whether we are stuck up or stuck on ourselves, we might cultivate humility by praying the Jesus Prayer. Down through the centuries the saints have prayed it in various forms. It may vary in form but the intent is the same. Some pray, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son to the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Some pray, “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” Some pray, “Heavenly Father, forgive me for I have sinned…”
There is good cause for us to learn the lessons of the story. Jesus said, “For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored.” It’s really a matter of personal choice isn’t it? Will I be humble and be honored or will I be humbled because of my pride?
Will you pray:
• “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble when I’m so perfect in every way?”
Or, will you pray
• “Lord, be merciful to me for I am a sinner, saved by grace through faith in the Jesus Christ, who loved me and gave himself for me?”
