October 24 2010    Reading:  Luke 18.9-14

Text: ‘God have mercy on me - a sinner ‘Luke 18.13 (NIV)

Thinking about this passage in Luke, the grief and guilt of the tax collector Jesus speaks about, I could only return, as I have done before, to the The Mission - a film by David Puttnam and Fernando Ghia. The story takes place on the borders of Argentina and Peru in 1750. A young man works at a Jesuit mission as a trader, until one day his brother Rodrigo Mendosa arrives. Rodrigo Mendosa, played by Robert de Niro - is a hardened mercenary, a slave trader, a man of brutal strength. Tension begins to build up between the two, and during a blazing argument Rodrigo Mendosa draws a sword, as he always does in such situations and in a fit of anger kills his younger brother. Over the following days, we see Rodrigo Mendosa as the reality unfolds of what he has done. Crushed with remorse, and hunted as a murderer, he seeks shelter in a Jesuit monastery. Some time later, a young priest goes to visit him.  Rodrigo Mendosa sits on the floor alone in a bare cellar, there is only straw on the floor, a wooden bed, and a pitcher of water in the corner. For six months he has refused to see anybody, crushed under the weight of guilt.   When the priest comes in Mendosa just sits on the floor, motionless. Then the priest says: You’re a mercenary, a slave trader and you killed your brother. Maybe you wish, says the priest, maybe you wish I was your executioner. Perhaps that would be easier.   Rodrigo Mendosa replies :  There is no life.There is nothing left.  For me there is no redemption. No penance hard enough for me. Words of guilt, sorrow, grief. There is no life.There is nothing left.  For me there is no redemption. Says Rodrigo Mendosa. As the film unfolds, we see how he tries to find relief, to make things right, by searching for God, and defending poor frightened villagers threatened by ruthless Spanish slave traders.

Guilt, sorrow, grief....... for the past.

I am sure we can recognise that, perhaps we can understand a little of what Rodrigo Mendosa feels,

not that we’ve murdered anyone, but we will know what guilt is like, its weight its burden, that sorrow grief for the past, that rings true !

And it is very interesting that the film shows how guilt and the search for salvation are connected, ‘there is no redemption’ Rodrigo Mendosa says, but

he sets off to find relief for his soul by searching for God.........

In Luke 18 the Lord Jesus tells a parable, about two men, these also feature guilt, and sorrow and a seeking for God: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men- robbers, evildoers, adulterers- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' That’s the Pharisee.

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, `God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' Jesus says: "I tell you that this man, the tax collector rather than the Pharisee, went home put right with God.

Let’s think about these two for a moment:

First, the Pharisee is at the front in the Temple, giving God thanks that he is righteous,

He is quite confident of his own rightness, he looks down on everybody else. And when he prays, he prays about himself, says I four times: ‘I thank you, Lord, he says, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else…… and not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week and I give a tenth of all my income. The Pharisee assumes that God approves of his life, and his place in the world.

And rather than judging the Pharisee, it is probably better to admit that sometimes there is a lot of the Pharisee in us - assuming everything is fine between ourselves and God - that the Lord is delighted at how we have turned out......

Now the tax collector. This humble man, stands at the back of the Temple and prays in quite a different way from the Pharisee;

He stands at the back of the Temple, Why ? Because of a sense of his own utter unworthiness….. He doesn’t dare come any further forward…….. He  stands at a distance, far off…. He knows he is in the courts of the Temple of the living God, He knows that this is the place of the living, Holy God, and in the light of that, the tax collector knows….. his own sinfulness…… this is why he will not look up, but sorrows in the Lord’s presence - and he knows himself !

In the light of God’s perfect holiness he sees his own sinfulness. That’s why the tax collector says: God have mercy, God have mercy  on me a sinner !’ this is not sentimentality, or a rather strange mood he’s in…….. rather… here is a human being, standing in the presence of the Holy God………..

John says : If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us……..

The tax collector knows he is a sinner, he knows the truth.........

And so, in this, he is at one with those who wrote the great sorrowing psalms

Here’s Psalm 6

O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. 2 Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony. 3 My soul is in anguish. How long, O LORD, how long? 4 Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love. 6 I am worn out from groaning; all night long I am weeping 7 My eyes grow weak with sorrow; they fail.........

Psalm 6 bears witness to the reality of the burden, grief and sorrow that sin brings with it, as does the Tax Collectors short prayer.......

In the presence of God....... so the Tax collector knows first, he is in the presence of Holiness and so, second he is real about himself

Jesus holds this before us as a genuine relationship with God. In the pure, blazing, searching light of God the tax collector knows God’s holiness and sees himself as he is – and we see ourselves as we really are…….. sinful, sinful men and women. How is it that we come to realise the sinfulness of our own hearts ?

This is the action of God’s Holiness, searching our souls...................

In the action of God’s perfect Holiness, we come to know how desperate our situation is before God. Know the burden of sin and guilt. So the tax collector, this man, this human being, is in the Holy presence of God, and knows his own guilt and sinfulness, and does the only thing he can do, he throws himself absolutely on the love and mercy of the living God.

This is his prayer: have mercy on me a sinner !

And, Jesus teaches us,  the Lord God hears his prayer, and he finds mercy: he is accepted by God…… he goes home in the right with God……….. coming in sinfulness, he is forgiven, coming in sorrow, he returns home put right; What the burdens are that he brings, whether of guilt, of sorrow at his own sinful life we are not told. What we do know is that entering into the presence of the living God, he finds forgiveness………   The Tax collector, is a human being who knows he is a sinful, who is real about himself, who does not attempt, like the Pharisee, to hide from God. And the Father, says Jesus, accepts this sorrowing man in his sorrow and repentance.  

Now, let’s just recall this for a moment this story by the Lord Jesus,

the word of Jesus Himself, who declares that the tax collector, out of his sorrow for sin and guilt, found mercy, and forgiveness in God..............

Here Jesus declares that God puts the tax collector right.

And so, here, Jesus Christ points away towards the Cross - because it is there

we find the remedy for the sorrow and guilt of sin...........

at the Cross, the whole world is put right.........

The more the utter holiness of God comes to bear upon us, the more we come to know the bitter extent of our own sin and guilt, the crushing weight on our conscience, the more we come to know our distance from God. Sometimes men and women, in the light of the utter holiness of God, have been so burdened by their own sinfulness that they have found it difficult to believe that their sin can be dealt with, or taken away or forgiven.........
But, the more we feel the burden and guilt of our sin in God’s sight, the more deeply we realise this: the more deeply we realise our need of Jesus Christ and His Cross. The sorrow for our sinfulness and guilt, and our helplessness drives us to the Saviour. Till we find in Him and Him alone, salvation, there is, you see, no other place and nowhere else to turn.
Out of a deep sense of our own sin, and the judgment of God upon our lives, we come to the Cross of Christ and

find this miracle, this reality..... that when we turn to the living God, when we turn to the Father,  despite the sinful men and women that we are, we find, like the tax collector, love, and mercy, waiting for us.

For Christ Jesus has taken the sin of all the world upon His shoulders, including our own and the sin and guilt that burdens our hearts was dealt with once and for all at the Cross.

God counts it against us no more...............

Our sin was laid upon Him, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. At the Cross God has dealt with our sin through Jesus, who bears our sin upon Himself. God, says the letter to the Romans, demonstrates His love for us in this: that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us !

I have to ask - can you understand this ? can you understand this ?

can each of you here what is being said here ? Oh, I hope so,

As the holiness of the living God searches us, and searches us more deeply,

so, we find ourselves standing, not at the front beside the Pharisee, but in lowliness with the tax collector, knowing our own sinfulness,

all the times we have fallen short, sinned,

but turning to the Cross...... we find that Jesus has taken the burden of that sin from our shoulders, our hearts, our conscience, and carried it Himself...........

and so we find, and find again, not judgment, when we come to God, but mercy and forgiving love.

Ours once and for all through the Cross of Jesus.

AMEN.