Have Mercy

Luke 18:9-14

Two men went up to the Temple to pray. One of them was a pious religious leader, and the other was an agent of the state who participated in and financially benefited from the oppression of his own people. Both of them went up to pray in a place set apart for worshipping and serving God. The pious religious leader looked up to the sky and said “God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” He proceeded in his prayer to list some examples of the kinds of people he isn’t (or doesn’t) like. Then he named a few ways he exceeded God’s expectations and did his duty.

At the same time, the imperial enforcer beat his breast and hung his head in regret, crying out to God for mercy. He named his sinfulness, and Jesus tells us he went away justified.

The Pharisee, the pious man, paid his pledge of a full ten percent of his income as expected, and he observed the holy days, and he prayed and took on the additional spiritual practice of regular fasting. If Jesus were here to tell us this parable today he might be describing someone who attends worship every Sunday and whenever the doors are open, who reads his Bible every day and gives generously and sacrificially to the church. He might be describing a priest, or a vestry member, or a faithful volunteer. Someone who checks all the boxes and fulfills all the expectations and probably even inspires others in his community to do the same. But Jesus is the one telling this story, so we are safe in assuming there’s a twist coming.

The tax collector, the man whose role is to collect money from his neighbors on behalf of the Roman occupation, whose income depends on gouging those same neighbors and keeping the difference- this man makes the same trek up to the temple to pray. Only he does not stand amidst his fellow believers, but off by himself. He does not hold his head up toward heaven but bows and beats his chest in a visceral moment of vulnerable honest. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” In this moment, while the Pharisee is congratulating God for having a follower like himself, the tax collector comes before God in true repentance and honest confession. This penitent has caused real harm, and perhaps like the many tax collectors that Jesus encountered in his ministry, this one is ready to make a change. Changing the human heart is a massive undertaking, the kind of miracle that only happens with God’s help. Perhaps it will take many more instances of grief and repentance for this person to truly make right the wrongs he has done. At the very least, he’s off to a good start.

Jesus does not tell us whether either or both of these men get happy endings. What he does tell us is that one left the Temple justified that day, and the other did not. I’ll note that the word is justified, not forgiven. Only one of these people asked for forgiveness, or for anything at all. The Pharisee made no requests of God- in fact, it seems he didn’t much need God’s input in his prayers or his life. The tax collector, on the other hand, asked that the God of mercy pour a bit of that mercy onto his brokenness. This person approached God, to whom both justice and mercy belong, and asked that God do what God does best. No excuses, no explanations or bargains, just the naked truth. This is what true confession looks like, and it is exceedingly rare.

The challenge with a parable like this is that we don’t particularly want to be either character. To be the self-righteous one is a shockingly easy trap to fall into, and we also know that to be labeled as a self-righteous person is a scarlet letter none of us wants. To be the tax collector is to be someone who actively causes harm to others by participating in unjust systems and even benefiting from them, a reality none of us likes. Not to mention that to pray like this one is to use the “S” word, which for many of us has been hurled as an abusive expletive toward us or someone we love. Even identifying too closely with the justified tax collector lands us right back in the self-righteous role, congratulating ourselves on our self-awareness and humility. It is a brilliant and beautiful spiral that Jesus has drawn out before us, one that we could spend eternity going deeper and deeper into without ever running out of lessons to learn and new perspectives to take. For now, I want to invite you to spend some time with the two opposing prayer examples Jesus gives us here.

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people.” Amongst my seminary friends, this has become a shorthand to remind each other when we are letting our heads get a little too big for our collars. God, I thank you that I am not like those people– those people on the other side of the aisle, or across the border, or in the church around the corner. God, I thank you that I am not one of the “bad ones.” Back home in Kentucky, we might say “God, I thank you that I am not like Indiana drivers” and I think maybe here you could insert any number of college teams into that slot with the same result. This is the posture we fall into when we get stuck defining ourselves by all the things we aren’t. It becomes too easy to stand still, not even realizing that we’ve written God’s ever-flowing Grace completely out of the picture. It becomes easy to rest on appearances, on performing our faith instead of living into it. We become the ones going to the temple just to say we went, lifting our voice to heaven just to sing our own praises. Not only do we come away unjustified, we come away empty. No amount of religious observance can fill the void of real faith.

God, be merciful on me, a sinner. Some of you may be familiar with the prayer of humble access, part of the Rite 1 liturgy and a prayer held very dear by many who were raised on it. You can find it on page 337 of your prayerbook, but I want to read it to you and see if you notice something. We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather
up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

A lot of people wrestle with this prayer because it feels very penitential and I’ve even heard someone describe it as depressing and dispiriting. But did you notice the word mercy in there? Three times! Just like our tax collector, this prayer calls upon the mercy of God. Not only that, but it adamantly professes that mercy is a defining reality of God’s very nature. Thou art the same Lord whose property is always to have mercy. Always. What would your life look like if you were reminded of that fact more often? What if you knew- truly, deeply believed- that while you are imperfect and incomplete, you are created and redeemed and sustained by a God whose property is always to have mercy? Perhaps our prayers would be more honest. Perhaps our faith would be more active, and our religion more authentic. “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Let’s start there, and see where the Spirit leads us.