11th Sunday after Trinity + Luke 18:9-14 + August 12, 2018

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

Jesus tells a parable of two men in today’s Gospel lesson. The first is a Pharisee. The Pharisee goes to the Temple, the house of the Lord, to pray. He approaches God purely out of thanksgiving, but not thanksgiving for what God has done for him. He thanks God that He is not like other men. He is not an extortioner. He’s not ravenous for other’s possessions or property. He hasn’t gotten his goods by threat or force. He thanks God that he is a hardworking and industrious fellow. And this is a good thing. He thanks God that he is not unjust. He is not an unrighteous person who wallows in the sins of the flesh like lust and covetousness. And this, too, is a good thing. His litany continues. He gives thanks that he is not an adulterer. He is faithful to his marriage vows and this, too, is a very good thing. Then he gives thanks to God that he is not like the man standing at the back of the Temple, head bowed, beating his breast. He is not a tax collector, whose profession is highly suspect since most of them were greedy fellows who always took more than was necessary from people. He thanks God that he is unlike other men, that He is good and righteous. He proves his righteousness by the fact that fasts twice a week and gives ten percent of all he owns to the Temple and its ministry. Concerning the righteousness which is in the Law, he is blameless.

But the righteousness of the Law isn’t enough. After all, Christ had taught elsewhere, “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). The righteousness of this Pharisee looks so good though. He goes to church. He tithes ten percent of all he owns. He fasts twice a week, denying himself the pleasures and comforts of life. He refrains from all sorts of outward sins and visible vices. These are all good things. This Pharisee makes a serious mistake by trusting in himself that He is righteous. He thought that the Law was a standard he could fulfill. He imagined he could please God by his refraining from external sins and by performing certain works. He looked at what he did, he looked at his works, and thought his works made him righteous. This is not the Christian faith. It is the wisdom of the world, which is summarized as “if you want to be righteous, do righteous things.” He had a cart of good works He hauled before God that day, as if righteousness could be attained by doing good deeds. Christ’s judgment on this Pharisee is severe. He did not go home justified. To justify someone means to declare them righteous. The irony is that this Pharisee thanked God that he was not unrighteous, and yet he leaves the Temple without the Lord declaring him to be so. He is, in fact, just as unrighteous as he was when he came in.

St. Paul, who himself had been a Pharisee very similar to this one in Jesus’ parable, would later write to the Galatianthe same stern judgment, “by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (Galatians 2:16). God declares no one righteous because of their works.The reason is because that is not the purpose of the Law. God does not give His law to sinful man so that man might use it to climb His way to heaven. Sinners can’t earn God’s favor by doing works. They owe God good works anyway! They can’t merit you anything because you owe them to God in the first place. But we can’t even do good works by ourselves. Isaiah says “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). The purpose of the Law was to show mankind its sin. The Law is meant to diagnose the disease in us, which is our unrighteousness, our sinful nature. The Law is given to show us our sin so that we look to God for mercy and flee to Christ for salvation. Jesus says that God does not justify those who trust themselves that they are righteous by their deeds.

The other man, the tax collector, gets this. Like the Pharisee, he goes to the Temple, the house of the Lord, but for a different purpose. Psalm 143:2 says, “Do not enter into judgment with Your servant, For in Your sight no one living is righteous.” The tax collector knows he is unrighteous.. He stands afar off. He won’t come near to God because he knows He does not belong there. He “would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven” to look to God because He is ashamed of himself. He beats his breast, his heart, because He knows that out of his heart “proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies” (Matthew 15:19). He opens his mouth and confesses not his good works or any of the good and righteous things he’s done. He confesses his sin. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Whatever righteous deeds he may have, he does not bring them to God. He understands that “by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.” He believed that “man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28).

The tax collector does much more than simply admit his guilt. He comes in repentance and faith. He knows that God has promised to be merciful and he comes to the Temple trusting that promise. Our English translations read, “be merciful to me” but the man’s prayer is more specific than mercy. He prays that God would expiate him, that is, atone for his sins and redeem him. The tax collector has something the Pharisee doesn’t. He has faith in Christ, for Christ is “the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2). He comes into God’s house bringing his sins because he needs them forgiven. He brings his unrighteousness because He needs a better righteousness and he trusts that God will give him Christ’s righteousness. And that’s precisely what happens. The one who confessed himself a sinner, who beat his breast and sought God’s mercy in faith, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” The Pharisee who exalted himself and trusted in himself that he was righteous went home condemned, still in his sins, because he wanted to be righteous by the law. The one who humbled himself, confessed his sins, and looked to Christ for mercy was declared righteous with Christ’s perfect righteousness.

This is why you are here today, or at least why you should be here. You are here to confess that you are a sinner, and you have done just that. You are here to ask for God’s mercy, that He would atone for your sin, and He has done just that by sending His only begotten Son to be the sacrifice for all your sins. You are here with all your unrighteousness to exchange it for Christ’s perfect righteousness and merits which He earned in His innocent life and bitter sufferings and death. And as you believe, so it is unto you. Your Lord promises to forgive your sins as often as you come to Him in repentance and faith in Christ. He declares you righteous by faith, not your works and deeds. He graciously forgives all your sins and removes them from you as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). He casts our sins into the sea of His mercy. He remembers them no more. Your Lord does not want you to look to yourself and trust that you are righteous in and of yourself. This is the religion of the unbeliever and the Pharisee, neither of whom is justified. Go down to your house justified by faith once again. Do good works, not to be righteous but because God has said to you, “You are righteous. You are justified. Your sins are forgiven.” Amen.

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