*Scripture references from Luke are from "The Message". Scripture reference from James is from the NIV.
We are going to take a silent moral inventory this morning. We are going to take a look at several pictures of famous figures and – as you see each picture – I want you to think about this question: how does my morality “measure up” to the morality of the person that we will see on the screen. There are no right or wrong answers in this moral inventory. Some of us may have a slightly different response to each person that we will see.
Here’s the first person. This is Mother Theresa, founder of the Order of the Sisters of Charity who spent her lifetime in Calcutta, India, serving the poor and inspired thousands of others to serve the poor in the name of Jesus.
Here’s the second person. Adolph Hitler. Founder of Germany’s Third Reich, leader of the Nazi Party, driving force behind a plan called The Final Solution that was responsible for the death of 6 million Jews and another 3 to 4 million people that they decided they did not like.
The third person is Billy Graham. Founder of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association who held crusades all over the world that saw thousands of people enter into relationships with Jesus Christ.
The fourth person is Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy magazine, CEO of the Playboy corporation and the one man who is perhaps most responsible for the “mainstreaming” of pornography in the United States.
Most of us, if we measure our “morality” and “righteousness” against the standards provided by a list like this will find that some of these people probably make us feel pretty good about ourselves and some of them might make us feel like we’ve still got a few rungs to go on the old morality ladder.
Now, this kind of activity – as you may already have guessed – is not a very “healthy” way to go about measuring how “good” or “moral” or “righteous” we are.
C.S. Lewis once wrote that “The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing; . . . the pleasures of power, of hatred. For there are two things inside me, competing with the human self which I must try to become. They are the Animal self, and the Diabolical self. The Diabolical self is the worse of the two. That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute.” Lewis is suggesting that measuring our own righteousness and morality by looking at the immorality and unrighteousness of others may actually lead us far closer to hell than the very people that we are comparing ourselves to.
We can never gain an accurate measurement of our own morality and righteousness by comparing ourselves to other people. It’s a bit like measuring out a mile with a 12 inch ruler. Chances are the mile that you think you’ve marked out with that ruler won’t really be anywhere close to an actual mile. Measuring your righteousness or morality by the righteousness or unrighteousness of other people won’t get you any closer to an actual understanding of who you really are.
“Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee . . .”
This particular Pharisee – like all other men who were Pharisees – was an expert in the interpreting and applying the teachings of the Old Testament. In most communities the Pharisees would have functioned like pastors and preachers do in our communities today.
The Pharisee wakes up, prepares himself and begins journeying through the streets of Jerusalem toward the Temple complex.
The Pharisee would have entered the Temple on one of two bridges that connected the main part of the city of Jerusalem with the Temple complex. The entire Temple Complex covered about 35 acres which is about 7 times the size of our property here at GCF.. As he walks across the bridge, the Pharisee can see the Temple Wall rising in front of him. On top of the wall he can see the huge colonnades rising out of the walls which provided shade covered porches around the entire Temple complex. As the Pharisee enters the area called the Court of the Gentiles, he could see the actual Temple building, rising nearly 250 to 300 feet in the air. As he walks out of the Court of the Gentiles and into the inner courts where Jews gathered to pray, he could see the sun glistening on the huge gold plated doors that lead into the inner chambers of the Temple; into the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place in all of Israel. The entire Temple complex had been designed to remind the Jewish people of the amazing glory and holiness of Yahweh.
Walking into the inner courts, the Pharisee positions himself in a prominent place. He looks out the corner of his eyes to make certain that some of the other people who have gathered to pray are looking at him. He wants them to know that he is a moral and righteous man. We can almost imagine him opening up his arms in some grand gesture and then raising his head to heaven. And then he opens his mouth and he prays: “Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people – robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all of my income.”
The Pharisee is in the Temple; standing in the one place that more than any other place is intended to draw his attention to the glory and righteousness of God. But the Pharisee cannot comprehend or grasp the glory and holiness of God because he is far too busy measuring how glorious and righteous he is as he compares himself to the inglorious and unrighteous people around him.
Jesus closes the story by telling us that the Pharisee – even though he deemed himself to be far more righteous than the other people – actually left the Temple having not been made right with God. Jesus then says, “If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face . . .”
When the Pharisee prays this prayer – to apply the words of C.S. Lewis – he actually places himself far closer to hell than the very robbers, crooks and adulterers with whom he is comparing himself.
Jesus is quite clear. The Pharisee cannot accurately measure his morality and righteousness by comparing himself to other people. If the Pharisee continues to compare himself to other people, he cannot discover who he really is. If the Pharisee does not arrive at an accurate measure of who and what he really is then it will be impossible for this Pharisee to be made right with God.
“Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man.”
When we first moved into our house the neighbors across our back fence were the first people we met. She was a part-time nurse. He was a deacon in the local Baptist church, but he worked as an agent for the IRS. Despite the fact that I don’t like paying taxes I never thought less of my neighbor because he was a “tax man”. I did not judge the quality of his character to be deficient because he worked for the IRS. I did not group him with robbers, crooks, adulterers.
This would not have been the case for the tax man in the Parable. This guy probably made good money collecting taxes, but collecting taxes was no way to win friends and influence people in first century Israel. Tax collectors worked for the Roman government and the Romans were the oppressors; the occupying force in Israel. The Jewish men who collected taxes for the Romans were considered “sinners.” Not only were they taking money from people, but they were giving that money to the very people who were occupying their nation.
The tax man had grown accustomed to people scowling at him out of their corners of their eyes. That look that says, “we know who and what you really are. You’re a sinner.” The tax man had grown accustomed to people huddling together and cupping their hands over their mouths whenever he passed by. Sometimes he could even hear them saying, “there’s the tax man. He’s a filthy crook and traitor to his people.” He had grown accustom to many people turning around and walking in the opposite direction when they saw him coming. He knew that they did not want to rub shoulders with a robber, a traitor and a sinner.”
The tax man crosses one of the great bridges into the Temple. He walks under the huge colonnades surrounding the Temple Complex. He goes into the Courts that were reserved for the Jews. And there he sees a Pharisee who stands up in a prominent place and verbalizes, before God, the very same things that everyone else felt when they were around a tax man: “Thank God I’m not like these other people; robbers, crooks and adulterers or even, God forbid it, like this tax man.”
Unlike the Pharisee the tax man does not find a prominent place in the Temple. Instead he hovers near the wall of the inner courts; perhaps in a corner, hiding in the shadows. He drops to his knees, places his face in his hands, and calls out to God, “Have mercy. Forgive me, a sinner!”
The Pharisee went to the Temple, compared himself to other people and estimated himself to be more righteous and moral than everyone else. The tax man went to the Temple, saw himself in comparison to the holiness of God, and declared himself to be a sinner. He knew that there was nothing in him that could make him either righteous or holy.
Jesus tells us that “this tax man, not the other, went home made right with God.” Jesus then says, “if you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
Quite simply: the truth about the tax man is that he is a sinner. But God, in his mercy, makes the tax man something more than a sinner. God makes the tax collector a righteous man.
A few weeks ago I spent a lot of time watching Ken Burn’s documentary called The War on PBS. The documentary ran for 7 nights and was about 14 ½ hours long. It chronicled the history of WWII not through the eyes of historians or professors but through the eyes of the men who served in Germany and Japan and through the eyes of the men and women who “fought” the war on the home front here in America. The stories were intimate and personal. There were many tears. The last two episodes focused on the final stages of the war in Germany and focused on the last two major battles in the Pacific. My grandfather was in both of those last two Pacific battles. The first on a tiny island called Iwo Jima and the second at a place called Okinawa. The fighting at Iwo Jima and Okinawa was some of the most viscious fighting of all of World War II. Ken Burns had uncovered hours of color home movie footage of the fighting at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The color footage was a stark contrast to the black and white WWII footage that we usually see. It made Okinawa and Iwo Jima very real and very painful to watch. At the end of the last episode, the following words came onto the screen: 1000 veterans of World War II now die every day in the United States.
I became overwhelmed with emotion. My grandfather is in a nursing home in Virginia. My mind and my heart were very much with him as I sat alone in the living room. There are things in life which we very much associate as the fruits of our own labors and our own efforts. We have a safe and comfortable home. We have two cars in our driveway. We have two beautiful children who both go to good schools. Kyra and I both have jobs that we love. We eat good meals and wear comfortable clothes. We are good citizens; participating in our community and exercising our right to vote. Sometimes it is tempting to think that all of these “good” things are the result of our own hard work and effort.
But sitting in the darkness of my living room, watching the closing scenes of that documentary, thinking about my life and about my grandfather, I was struck by this truth: any good things that I have or any good thing that I am is a gift to me from my grandfather.
James, in his little New Testament letter writes these words, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all that he created.” (James 1.17) Anything good or perfect that exists in my life is a gift from God.
There is no place where the gifts of God are more on display for us than at the cross of Jesus Christ.
Here is the simple truth: when we place our entire lives before the cross of Jesus we get two very accurate measurements of who we are. We know that we are sinners but we also know that God, in his mercy, is giving us his righteousness and making us something so much more than what we already are.
Maybe we need to look at our lives and look at the cross of Jesus and do some measuring this morning?
