Trinity 11 + Luke 18:9-14 + August 27, 2017

Order of Holy Communion - Pg. 15

Hymn # 294 O Word of God Incarnate
Hymn # 342 Chief of Sinners Though I Be
Hymn # 526 In God, my faithful God

Introit

GOD IS || in His holy habi- | ta- | tion. *
            God sets the solitary in | fam- | i- | lies.
|| The God of Israel is He who gives | strength | - *
            And power to | His | peo- | ple. (Psalm 68:5b, 6a, 35b)
|| Let God arise, Let His enemies be | scat- | tered; *
            Let those also who hate Him flee | be- | fore | Him.
|| But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before | God; | - *
            Yes, let them rejoice ex- | ceed- | ing- | ly.
|| O God, when you went out before Your | peo- | ple, *
            You, O God, provided from Your goodness | for | the | poor.
|| Blessèd be the Lord, who daily loads us with | bene- ∙ | fits, *
            The God of our | sal- | va- | tion! (Psalm 68:1, 3, 7, 10, and 19)
|| God is in His holy habi- | ta- | tion. *
            God sets the solitary in | fam- | i- | lies.
|| The God of Israel is He who gives | strength | - *
            And power to | His | peo- | ple. (Psalm 68:5b, 6a, 35b)

Collect for the Day

Almighty and Everlasting God, Who art always more ready to hear than we to pray and wont to give more than either we desire or deserve, pour down upon us the abundance of Thy mercy, forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Readings

2 Samuel 22:21-29
1 Corinthians 15:1-10
Luke 18:9-14

Sermon

Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1)         Two men went to the temple to pray. They couldn’t be any more different from each other. Their demeanor is different. Their prayers are different. Their hearts are different. Even their end is different. The first is a Pharisee. Pharisees had a reputation for piety and personal holiness. They were known as spiritual people. This particular Pharisee goes to the Temple to pray. He’s very comfortable in God’s house, so comfortable in fact that he takes his stand there and “prayed thus with himself,” meaning that he prayed in a way that others could easily overhear him. His prayer goes like this: “God, I thank You that I am not like other men -- extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.” He is quite proud of himself, even before God. He wants God to know how he strives to fulfill the commandments. He hasn’t cheated on his wife. He hasn’t stolen. He hasn’t gotten his neighbor’s goods or money in a way that only seems right. He’s a good person. Not only does he avoid sin but he has good works! He fasts twice a week. He tithes, giving a tenth of all his possessions to the Lord. He begins, “God, I thank you,” but all he really thanks God for is his good works and his holiness. In his mind, these things make him righteous before God. He doesn’t need to ask anything of God. He needs nothing at the moment because he feels as if he is quite righteous enough for the Lord. His demeanor is self-conceited. His prayer is self-congratulatory. His heart is presumptuous.

2)         I say presumptuous because this Pharisee imagined that if he has not cheated, stole, or committed adultery, then He is righteous and therefore needs nothing from God. The Pharisee believes that if he has kept the law externally then he has God’s approval and favor. This Pharisee does not understand, or chooses not to understand, what another Pharisee would write years later in Romans 7:14, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.” The Law is far more reaching than, “Don’t commit physical adultery.” The Law is spiritual and so demands that man not look at a woman other than his bride for the purpose of lust. The Law, “You shall not steal,” is about far more than not stealing and cheating your neighbor. The Law is spiritual and so requires man to help his neighbor “improve and protect his property and business.” The good works the Pharisee names are indeed good things. It’s good to not commit adultery, not steal, and not cheat your neighbor. But refraining from those doesn’t make one righteous in God’s sight because the Law is spiritual and requires that all man’s thoughts, words, and actions flow from a heartfelt fear, love, and trust in God above anything else. There is no one who perfectly loves God at all times. There is no one who perfectly trusts God in every trial, cross, and affliction. There is no one who fears God perfectly at all times so that he never sins. The Pharisee was so filled with himself and his own good works that he could not see that he, too, was unrighteous in God’s sight. He entered the temple as a sinner. He went home with his sins as well.

3)         The second man is entirely different story. He’s a tax collector. He’s no good. His ilk generally ripped off their fellow Jews in the tax booth and got rich. No one cared for tax collectors. He enters the Temple and you can tell he’s uncomfortable. He stands far away from anyone else there. The Pharisee stands up front and doesn’t mind who hears him besides God. But the tax collector stands far off, in the back of the courtyard, so that no one will hear him but God. The tax collector won’t even raise his eyes to heaven as people often do when they pray. The tax collector has no good works to offer to God. He knows he has no righteousness, no good deeds, and no merits that would cover his many sins. All he brings with him are the sins which burden his thoughts and the things whereof his conscience is afraid. He confesses that he isn’t a good person and that he’s got nothing good enough to atone for his many sins. He opens his mouth: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He doesn’t confess his individual sins, though he has many. He doesn’t list actual sins, though he is aware of them. He simply identifies himself as “a sinner,” or probably more accurately, “the sinner.” He beats his breast as he confesses his sinfulness as a sign that “out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies,” as Jesus says in Matthew 15:19. There is no presumption of righteousness in tax collector’s heart. There is only contrition, sorrow, and repentance over his sin.

4)         The fact that the tax collector regrets his many sins and desires to be rid of them means he’s much further along than the Pharisee, who thinks he’s righteous because of his life. But that’s still not enough. God does not forgive the sins of those who merely regret their sin. The Lord does not want sinners to be continually tormenting themselves over what they have done and left undone in their lives. Confession has two parts. First that we repent of our sins, that is that we realize them to be sins and acknowledge them to God. Second, that we believe those sins are freely and fully forgiven for Christ’s sake. The tax collector has contrition but he also has faith that God is merciful and just to forgive his sins and cleanse him from all unrighteousness. He prays, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He does not simply torment himself and say, “God, I am a sinner.” He acknowledges his sin to God and asks for God to do what He had promised to do. David confessed in the thirty-second psalm, “I acknowledged my sin to you, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.” He would not have approached God in the Temple if he did not believe this. People don’t confess their sins when they think they won’t be forgiven. But with the Lord there is abundant mercy. Faith believes the Word of God which says: “For with the LORD there is mercy, And with Him is abundant redemption” (Psalm 130:7). The tax collector knew his sin and he knew it well. But more than that, he knew that God was merciful and that the Lord provided atonement for his sins. That faith in God’s mercy, that confidence in the Lord’s atonement, that is why he “went down to his house justified rather than the other” (Luke 18:14).

5)         St. Luke prefaced this parable by writing, “He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” And we would do well to heed his warning. Jesus wants us to understand that we cannot trust in ourselves and our own good works. Our Lord wants us to grow in this understanding so that when we look at ourselves we see the sins we commit in light of the Ten Commandments. He also wants us to grow to better understand the depth of our sinful hearts, that we do not always fear God so that we do not sin, that we do not always love God more than the things of this world, and that we do not always trust God when He sends adversity and cross upon us. He wants to grow our understanding of our sinfulness to curb our flesh’s continual desire to be righteous by our works and good deeds. It’s not even a good idea to gaze upon our good works because our flesh is so easily incited to trust in them. Instead, we should be grateful that the Holy Spirit is bearing His fruit in our lives and say as Jesus teaches in Luke 17:10, “We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.” We must continually be on guard against our old Adam, that Pharisee who wants to think Himself righteous, lifting us up so that we despise not only others, but also the grace of God.

6)         In that the parable is a warning against presumption and self-righteousness, it is Law. But the parable is also Gospel, for in it Jesus teaches us about the unconditional grace of God and our justification by faith and not by works. Like the tax collector, we ought to always approach the Lord with our sins. Jesus shows us the kind of sinners He justifies and declares to be righteous in God’s sight. The one that went down to his house justified, declared righteous, was the one who confessed his sins while trusting that God, in His abundant mercy, would pardon every single one of them and cover them with the blood of the sacrifices. So it is for us. God forgives our sins whenever we repent, whenever we sorrow over our sins and acknowledge them to the Lord for what they are. Like the tax collector, we trust that God has made atonement for our sins, though not through the sacrifice of bulls and sheep, but through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus who is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). We must never cry out, “God, be merciful to, a sinner who is trying really hard.” We must never pray, “God, forgive me, a sinner who has a lot of good in him as well.” Anything other than “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” is the flesh trying to rely upon its own imagined works and merits.

7)         Like the tax collector, we confess our sins because He has promised to forgive. We believe as it is written, “If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared” (Psalm 130:3-4). So we confess our sins because He does not “mark iniquities,” but forgives seventy times seven. Though your sins be great, sore, vile, and abominable, the Lord promises to forgive everyone who comes to him in faith, for “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). When, like the tax collector, our sins burden us and we are pricked by those things of which our consciences are afraid, the words of the Apostle John comfort us, “If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things” (1 John 3:20). “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you” (Matthew 9:2). Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.