Readings: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”: Luke 18.13(NIV)
You’ll remember that old game, I am sure, that game we used to play long
ago in the Lifeboys, or the Boys Brigade, the Cubs or Scouts, Brownies or Girl Guides,
or in the Girl’s Brigade – the game called Port and Starboard………
We were told that the hall was a boat, and this side of the hall was
port, that side was starboard, the front of the hall was the bow, the back was
the stern……..
When the leader shouted port everybody had to run to the left hand
side…….. at the word bow everybody stampeded to the
front,
when starboard was called we would be all rushing to the right hand side……….
I would think, to speak reverently for a moment, that
that’s what we also do when we hear this wonderful parable of Jesus.
This is a parable in which Jesus tells of a Pharisee,
and a tax collector who go to the temple to pray………
When we hear the parable, as we did this morning, our sympathies lie
with the tax collector, we take his side…………………as we did in that old game, we
find ourselves immediately taking sides with the tax collector.
The Pharisee, after all,
is quite confident of his own rightness, he looks down on everybody else.
And when he prays, he prays about himself,
‘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. But
we do not warm to him………
No, we
warm to the tax collector in the parable.
This humble man, who stands at the back of the
who prays in quite a different way from the Pharisee;
we warm to the tax collector, who
was put right, who was in the right
with God when he went home……..
We warm to the tax collector, and rightly so,
who
was put right, who was in the right with God when he went home……..
We warm to this man………in the parable.
But more importantly, Jesus is showing us in this parable………..
teaching us in this parable,
about the Holiness of God,
and the Love of God……..
about how we are put right with God,
so that we may live in His presence.
And it will repay us, I think, to reflect on these things……..
First, the Holiness of God………..
As we read through the Old and New Testaments, we read of many who come
to the
We read in the book of Psalms of the joyful pilgrims who come after
their long journey into the courts of the Temple, singing Open to me the gates of the Temple; I will go in and give thanks to the
Lord, This is the gate of the Lord, only the righteous can come in !
We read of the teachers of the Law, the Pharisees, the religious men who
work and teach in the
we read of all these who come in and out of the
But Jesus teaches us, in this parable, through the figure of the tax
collector
teaches us concerning the Holiness of the living God.
Now, the tax collector knows this………..and because he knows this, this is
why he stands at the back of the
He dare not come forward……..
He
stands at a
distance, far off….
The tax collector, Jesus shows us, knows he is in the courts of the
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 beats his chest slowly in the Lord’s
presence.
Jesus holds this before us as
a genuine relationship with God.
In the pure, blazing, searching light of God’s holiness
the tax collector 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 ?
John says in his First Epistle:
If we claim to be without sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us……..
To put it another way - when the truth is in us, when the light of Jesus
Christ shines upon our lives, and within our lives, in His light
in the light of His holiness
we see our own sinfulness.
So, when the tax collector says:
God have mercy, God have pity 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………..in
prayer………….Psalm 38 says: troubled, in
heart and conscience….. wasted away, his strength
sapped, as in the heat of summer…..
But, and
here is surely the heart of the matter,
he
comes in the hope of forgiveness !
the hope of forgiveness……
While he knows he is a sinner,
he comes seeking God’s mercy………
this is why he cries
God have mercy, God have pity on me !
The Mission is a film by David Puttnam and Fernando
Ghia. The story is set in a Jesuit mission on the borders of
In the film,
Robert de Niro plays Rodrigo Mendosa - a hardened mercenary, a slave trader, a
man of brutal strength.
However,
during a blazing argument with his brother, he draws a sword and kills him. We then
see Rodrigo Mendosa as the reality unfolds of what he has done. Crushed with remorse,
he seeks shelter in a Jesuit monastery.
Some months
later, a priest goes to visit him.
Rodrigo Mendosa sits on the floor alone in a practically bare room, with
straw on the floor, a bed, and a pitcher of water in the corner. For six months
he has refused to see anybody.
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.
This is a
man burdened by guilt and remorse.
There is
no life.There is nothing left. For me
there is no redemption. Says Rodrigo Mendosa.
But that is not what Jesus teaches in this parable………..
We are not told what the tax collector has done, that brings him in such
sorrow to the
the tax collector stands at the back, aware of his sinfulness.
But …. to continue, in this parable, Jesus teaches us
of
the
love of God.
For here is a man, a human being, who in the Holy presence of God,
knows his own guilt and sinfulness, and throws himself absolutely on the love and mercy of the living God.
And, Jesus teaches us,
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, we are not told,
whether of guilt, or remorse, of sorrow at his own sinful life.
What we do know is that entering into the presence of the living God,
he finds forgiveness………
Jesus teaches us here in the story of the Tax collector,
of a human being
who knows he is a sinful, who is real about himself,
who does not attempt to hide this from God.
And the Father, says Jesus, accepts this sorrowing man in his sorrow and
repentance.
Now, this is not simply a story, not simply a parable
but a pointer to the reality of sin in human life:
The reality of sin that can drain life of its joy
The reality of sin that means despite our best praying, our best
efforts, we remain still the same men and women we always were – ……...
The reality of sin means that we sometimes find ourselves far from God,
without a sense of truth any more, without the light of His presence, when sin has
come like a hard winter chilling our very spirits…..
this is reality………
But there is a greater reality yet…… that Jesus speaks of in this
parable……..
This is a reality that the tax collector turned to …..
The reality of the love and mercy of God….
When we turn to the living God,
when we turn to the Father: despite
the sinful men and women we are,
we find His love, and mercy, for us.
Ours once and for all through the cross of Jesus Christ
through Jesus who poured out His life for us………
For this very thing,
that - despite our sinfulness,
we might find in God, love, mercy and forgiveness………..
May we learn from these words of Jesus to know the holiness of the
living God more deeply, and the forgiving love of God,
for these are ours in Jesus Christ
AMEN