God sees us

[Joel 2:23-32; Ps. 84:1-7; ii Tim. 4:6-8, 16-18; Lk. 18:9-14]

I don’t very often use illustrations in sermons, but today I’m making an exception because this illustration really really struck me.

It’s by

Go, have a look online at the other illustrations in the collection, they’re visual interpretations of the text that can stand next to any modern high budget Biblical film or tv series.

Peace be with you. Amen.

Why do people sometimes feel unworthy? We’re specifically talking in a religious context here.

Why do religious people sometimes or often feel unworthy in their own religious context?

Because they’re sinners?

We can debate the list of sins, and guaranteed we won’t all agree.

Because they’re being pious, humble?

That kind of piety or humility is neither pious nor humble.

Because we’re all sinners, they just realise it more?

What a lonely place to be.

Because..?

Because..?

Because..?

Seemingly endless possibilities.

How about: a lot of religious people sometimes feel -and a lot of them actually feel it very often, if not constantly- unworthy because other religious people tell them they are. They feel that way because others in their own religion force them to feel that way.

There’s nothing that a lot of religious people like more than to make others feel inferior.

There’s nothing as toxic for a faith group than overzealous believers: judgemental, narrow minded, interfering, unmovable, inflexible, and so on...

Their presence eats away at the central message of the faith; everything becomes about do’s and don’ts, about the details, about good behaviour, about exclusion and inclusion, about opinions.

They’ll claim that they’re only doing what the Bible says, that they’re guarding the faith, that they’re keeping the religion pure.

Arrogant, isn’t it.

It gets worse when some of them are caught doing exactly the things they’re condemning in others themselves. Often they don’t even realise their own hypocrisy.

-By the way, the Bible says a lot of things, often contradictory, that’s why context matters!-

In today’s parable we encounter two men: they remain anonymous, they’re only identified by their function and by their position within the first century society they live in.

The first man seems to answer to the description above: pious, self righteous, stuck up.

Though this is not entirely fair, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this man’s religious aspirations, going up to the Temple is a good thing

...until he starts comparing himself to the second man and concludes he’s the better one, the superior one of the two.

The second man is hiding, averting his eyes from the God who is so holy, his divine presence can consume people.

So, why was the tax collector so ashamed he wouldn’t even look up to God, and why did the Pharisee look on him in such utter contempt?

Well, tax collectors were Jews employed by the Roman occupation authorities to collect the heavy taxes imposed on the Jewish people. In order to do so, tax collectors could count on Roman soldiers as an escort whenever they went into villages to collect the money, to enforce people would comply. They also enriched themselves by raising the tax amounts they were inning and keeping the difference. The Romans turned a blind eye to that.

In short, tax collectors were thieves, traitors, and collaborators.

And people despised them for it

...and they knew that people despised them for it.

That’s why every time Jesus uses tax collectors or any other marginalised and rejected group as the protagonist in his parables, who turn out to be the good guys, people -especially the religious establishment- were so scandalised. Because tax collectors, like prostitutes and Samaritans, were people you avoided, because they were people that could contaminate you, not just ritually, but they could damage your reputation and status in society as well.

At no point in his story, is Jesus defending or minimising or justifying the tax collector’s crimes, his sins.

You’ll often hear the critique that the ‘liberals’ in the Church (however they may be) cherry pick their verses from Scripture to make allowances for just about anything. That they’re surrendering to modern culture, that they’re too much about forgiveness and not enough about repentance.

It’s not about a carte blanche for sin.

The tax collector knows very well that he’s in the wrong, beating his breast, begging for God’s mercy.

Religious people have often made it all about how bad the sinner in the story is, how sinful, about how we should obey the Lord’s commands

...while in fact Jesus is criticising the religious themselves.

There’s a meme on Facebook which says: “Counting other people’s sins doesn’t make you a saint”

Facebook, a source for Gospel truth.

“I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” verse 14.

We don’t earn justification by ticking the boxes of other people’s religious to do-lists.

The Pharisee went up to the Temple, and instead of celebrating the divine presence in that holy place, he made it all about him and about how holy he was, not the Temple nor

God.

All of us are the Pharisee.

All of us are the tax collector.

Too often we pride ourselves on calling out other people’s sins.

Why? To feel better, superior? To deflect attention from our own sins?

And the religious shame we inflict on others, the religious trauma is disgusting, and we need to repent from it, individually as well as the Church.

We return to our first picture, the one by Millais.

What the artist seemingly got wrong, or what he perhaps should’ve emphasised more is an important detail we read in the text, that the Pharisee was standing by himself.

Undoubtedly, he didn’t want to be tainted by the sins of the tax collector, but it also points to another fact: religious bigotry is a lonely place.

The figure is vague, disappearing into the background.

On the other hand, even though the tax collector is standing, head down, behind the pillar, in the shadows, when we first look at the picture, our eyes are drawn to him rather than the righteous crowd in the background. In this picture, all attention is focused on the one person trying so hard not to be noticed, not to be seen. All he’s asking for is for God to love and forgive him.

That’s what God does! God sees us, heads bowed, in the shadows, excluded from the so-called saints, God notices sinners thrown out of the group by those pretending to defend the faith.

God puts his arm around our shoulders and says ‘Never mind them.’

Love and mercy abide with you, always. Amen.