Story: Leonardo da Vinci took seven years to paint his famous picture the "Last Supper".
He used living people to depict the figures representing the Twelve Apostles and Christ.
He started the fresco with Jesus Christ himself.
It is reputed that he viewed hundreds and hundreds of men looking for one who most perfectly exhibited the innocence and beauty he was looking for.
A face and personality unaffected by sin.
Eventually he found a young man 19 years old and for the next six months he worked on the face and demeanour of Christ using this young man as his model.
Over the next six years, he found appropriate people to represent each of the Apostles, with a space being left for the figure representing Judas Iscariot – which he left as the final task of the masterpiece.
For weeks, Da Vinci searched in vain for a man with a hard, callused face and a countenance marked by scars of avarice and deceit.
A man who could depict the man, who would betray his best friend.
After much discouragement, word came to Da Vinci that a man whose appearance fully met the requirements had been found.
He was in a dungeon in Rome, sentenced to die for a life of crime and murder.
When Da Vinci arrived he found the epitome of what he was looking for.
A man who was wretched, unkempt and vicious - the perfect Judas.
By special order, the man was taken to Milan, where the fresco was being painted.
When the picture was finally finished and the warders came from Rome to retrieve their prisoner.
As he was leaving, the man turned to Da Vinci and said. "Don’t you recognise me" he said.
Leonardo replied: "I’ve never seen you before in my life"
The man broke down sobbing. "Have I sunk so low" he said " Seven years ago, you used me as your model for Jesus!"
We have both good and bad in us
You can’t judge a book by its cover.
Man looks on the outside but God sees the heart.
He is not interested what we look like but where our heart is, what our attitudes are.
In this morning’s gospel reading Luke 18:9-14 Jesus focuses on prayer - using the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector to encourage us to come with a right attitude to God.
We can fool our friends, we can even fool ourselves but we can’t fool God.
Prayer is very precious to God.
We read in Revelation 8: 3 and 4 the prayers of the saints are the only thing works of our found in the throne room of God for ever
This is what St John the Divine recorded
“Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand.”
This morning’s parable - of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector - in Luke 18:9-14 is all about integrity in prayer.
The impact of the story is often lost on us so May I just fill in the background
1. The Pharisee
In Jewish society of Jesus’ day a Pharisee was someone who was looked up to.
A bit like our Bishops or Churchwardens might be today.
The Pharisee was seen as a godly man - keen to please God by keeping the Law – the Torah.
In fact so keen that the Pharisees added further rules to make sure that the Law couldn’t be broken by mistake.
Pharisees were held in the highest esteem for their moral stance and commitment to God.
They were regarded as the “crème de la crème” of Jewish society
2. The Tax Collector
On the other hand, in Jesus’ day a tax collector was seen as the lowest form of life.
Israel was a country under Roman occupation.
And the Romans demanded draconian taxes from their subjugated people.
So they arranged their provinces into fiscal districts, and appointed certain Jews as tax collectors.
These districts were fiscally assessed.
How the tax collector got the money did not bother the Government.
The tax collector had the power to raise the necessary taxes.
He could - and often did - use the Roman army to enforce payment.
And there was no appeal from his assessment.
Once the Roman return was achieved, whatever the tax collector earned on top of that was his profit.
Whatever you think about Her Majesty’s Inspector of Taxes –the Inland Revenue, at least there are rules that govern how much tax they can take from you and on the whole we don’t think of them as being corrupt.
And they are generally honest and fair
In Jesus’ day, tax collectors were different.
Tax collectors were often unscrupulous and corrupt.
As a result they were despised in Jewish society.
And on top of that they were seen as collaborators with the enemy – the Romans.
They were outcasts in society and they were a byword for scum.
The parable would have been shocking because everyone would have thought that the Pharisee and not the tax collector went home JUSTIFIED.
Imagine if Jesus told the story today he would have told the story of the Bishop and the paedophile in place of the Pharisee and Tax Collector.
That is how shocking it would have been to 1st Century Jews
So why was the tax collector justified.
It has all to do with his INTEGRITY in his praying
1. The Tax Collector realised he was a sinner – the Pharisee did not
2. The Tax Collector came humbly the Pharisee haughtily
Why do we pray?
Jesus is saying that it is not WHO we do but our attitude before God that counts.
There are many of us who find praying difficult.
Often it is our motivation that brings us down.
What is our motivation to pray?
1. As a divine insurance policy.
We are bombarded on television with advertisements for insurance – house insurance, car insurance personal liability insurance.
Do we see prayer as a divine insurance – just in case?
2. To appease God
I don’t know why I should pray but God wants it so I’d better do it.
And we have various set prayers, in Common Worship, the ASB and the Book of Common Prayer to help us formulate the words.
Perhaps by praying we will appease an angry God. Praying may take all my troubles away.
3. Because I am someone special – someone holy
Do we pray because of who we are?
We are good and part of our being “holy” is to pray.
3.1 Look at the Pharisee’s attitude in the parable.
At first blush it may seem that the Pharisee has a point.
He had done well.
Yet a man steeped in the Old Testament Scriptures would know how far short man falls of God’s standards.
The psalmist in Psalm 14:3 put it well when he said:
They have all turned aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good –No, not one.
God’s word reveals what the Apostle Paul says in Rom 3:23
“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”
God’s word reveals that we have no reason at all to be proud of what we have done in God’s presence.
2. If we want to go home right with God, we need to look for the clue in the Tax Collector’s attitude.
The tax collector knew that he was not worthy to stand in God’s sight. All he could ask for was mercy.
Yet that is just the attitude God wants. Because it is an attitude of repentance.
3. Conclusion.
When we come to pray, how do we come into God’s presence?
Story: A friend of mine, Alun Morris was a pastor in a Swiss Pentecostal Church for many years.
One day, he went to a funeral and saw a man who he knew to be an atheist come into church and bow his head for about a minute in front of the altar as he came in.
It seemed to Alun that the man was praying.
Alun was intrigued and after the service asked him when he had become a Christian.
“Why never” the man replied.
“But I saw you praying in church today.” Alun said.
“ I wasn’t praying” the man replied. “I just stood there and counted to ten!”
Can I leave you with a question this morning?
What motivates our prayer?
Do we want to be seen doing the right thing
Or do we want to do the real thing - to be honest with God and concomitantly then become right with God.
The choice is ours.
