Surprise [Proper 25C - Luke 18:9-14]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Luke 18:9-14

 

Surprise

All Saints, Round Lake

 

Are you shocked?  Are you stunned?  When Jesus hit that wild, twist of an ending, did you discover that your mouth was left agape, your eyes bulging wide?  Or, were you not surprised at all by the surprise at the end of this parable?  Did you even realize that you were supposed to be surprised?

 

The truth is: The Sixth Sense or Planet of the Apes are not shocking movies on the twentieth viewing.  Or after a series of spoilers.  The endings are not as twisty when you see them coming.  A surprise doesn’t feel jarring if it is not a surprise to its audience.  If you already know the identity of Luke’s father, “Luke, I am your father” doesn’t take your breath away; it just registers as a dramatically delivered mundane fact.

 

This Gospel reading is old news – about 2000 years old, to be almost exact. And it is read in church every three years.  You heard it in the fall of 2022, in the fall of 2019, in the fall of 2016.  I could go on, but you have probably figured out the pattern by now; you know which year is coming next (it's 2013).  No surprise.

 

And many of you know enough about the Gospels, and about Jesus, to pick up on his preference for marginalized and despised characters.  His parables are full of them.  The Good Samaritan is more righteous than the priest.  The poor man gets the eternal reward instead of the rich man.  And he practiced what he preached.  Jesus dines with the scoundrels.  He touches the lepers.  He hands the keys to the Kingdom of God to some rugged fishermen.  The mighty are cast down from their thrones and the lowly are uplifted.  It’s a theme.

 

And so, when Jesus reveals that the tax collector is the one of the two who goes home justified by God, we are not surprised.  But Jesus’ original audience: they were surprised.  Mouths agape.  Eyes bulging.

 

Because they knew about tax collectors.  Tax collectors were not counted among the righteous in that particular culture.  And, more than that, to be honest, the listeners did not like tax collectors; they just didn’t like them.  In fact, like the Pharisee in the story, most members of Jesus’ first audience were thankful that they were not like the tax collectors. 

 

Tax collectors did not have a high favorability rating back in the days of the Roman Empire.  Tax collectors, like the man in today’s parable, were contracted to collect taxes from their own people to support the Roman occupation – like an oppression tax.  The people paid good money to not have freedom. So if you think you don't like taxes today, imagine how the 1^st century Jews felt.  And then imagine how they felt about the people who made that system possible, people like this tax collector.

 

It was a rare person who was willing to go door to door extracting these taxes. There were no good work days, no pleasant interactions. A tax collector was a traitor who peddled treachery – like a kid on Halloween who only does trick and never treat. Like many scoundrels over the centuries, tax collectors built their fortune on a foundation of questionable ethics, oppressive politics, and a willingness to be hated. And so it is no surprise that this Pharisee, the one standing by himself, is glad that he is not like that tax collector.  That would have made sense to Jesus’ listeners.

 

Pharisees do not often make a great impression in the Gospels.  There are, of course, some exceptions.  Nicodemus is a Pharisee; we like him.  But for the most part, the Pharisees prove to be Jesus’ featured adversaries in the Gospels.  Their legalistic interpretations and rigid traditionalisms repeatedly clash with Jesus and his generous mercy and the lens of love he uses to interpret the Law.  But even so, generally speaking, the Pharisees, despite their serious dispositions and frustrating fundamentalisms, were certainly regarded more highly than those tax collectors. 

 

Because while pomposity and self-righteousness are annoying, the Pharisees were doing some laudable things.  The Pharisee in today’s parable is no exception.  For example, he is honest.  Perhaps not very nice, but certainly honest.  When he says he is glad he is not like other people, I believe him. 

 

But it is not just that.  He fasts, twice a week.  The Book of Common prescribes two fast days – each year.  And even that is not easy or terribly popular.  So this Pharisee was an excellent faster.  And fasting is a spiritual discipline encouraged in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Moses, for example, fasted before receiving the Ten Commandments; Jesus fasted after his baptism.  That the Pharisee fasts is a good thing.

 

And he tithes – a fine practice, one that every parish priest and diocesan bishop strongly encourages.  In fact, I’m guessing it is about time to turn in those pledge cards.  Again, the Pharisee is being faithful to the Bible; he is taking the Bible seriously.  The Law and Prophets repeatedly encourage the practice.  The Pharisee is so dedicated to the tithe, in fact, that he doesn’t even ask whether the ten percent is pre- or post-tax.  He tithes on all of his income.  That the Pharisee tithes is a good thing.

 

So the problem with the Pharisee is not that he prays and tithes and fasts.  Those are admirable practices – important in the lives of many faithful people.  Likewise, the virtue of the tax collector is not found in his questionable morals or his friendly relationship with oppressors.  Jesus’ originally audience would understand that the Pharisee’s daily practices were far preferable to those of the tax collector.  Obviously.  Unqualified, a life of prayer and Bible Study is decidedly more godly than going door to door busting heads and squeezing the last coins out of some widows.

  

And yet, Jesus tells us that the tax collector is the one who walks away justified.  That is the twist, the surprise.  But only to those who think that this parable is about the Pharisee and the tax collector.  It is not.  This parable is about a God of grace.

 

The tax collector understood something about the nature of God that the Pharisee did not.  We need God.  And we need God’s grace.  No matter how good we are at self-deprivation or pious posturing, no matter how many Bible verses we memorize or how good we are at following rules, no matter how certain we are that we are right, it will never be enough.  Our precious ideologies are no substitute for a relationship with God.  And until we fall in love with God, we will never recognize the depth of our need. 

 

And God knows that.  And that is why God loves and accepts us even when we don’t get it, even when life falls apart – even when the fasts fade and the tithe comes up short and the rules let us down.  Life is messy, humans are flawed, and so God does grace.  God blesses our entire lives with an abundance of grace. And that grace finds its way into our lives even when we are too arrogant to ask for it.  God plants it in baptismal waters at the beginning of our journey.  And then hides it in our food, like a dog’s medicine, for the rest of our mortal lives.  Grace: this beautiful love cloaked in the simplicity of bread and wine.  God’s grace is why we can breathe each morning and rest at night.  It is what keeps us alive and makes life worth living.

 

And it is the way God teaches us how to love each other.  When we come to recognize and accept our own deep reliance on God’s grace, it becomes easier, more natural, to love and to forgive others, to show others empathy and care.  They, like us, are all surviving on grace.  We are no better, but also we are no worse, than the other mortals with whom we share this planet. 

 

And this is where the Pharisee’s prayer falls short.  It might be an honest prayer but theologically it is deeply flawed.  What the Pharisee seems not to understand is that, in the eyes of God, he is like other people.  It is the twist he never saw coming. 

 

We are all scarred.  We are all flawed.  We are all muddling our way through this mortality – and taking more lumps than we want, giving more lumps than we realize, as we go.  We are human; it is one thing we have in common with all the other people.  We are just a bunch of humans, bruised and broken, proud and foolish, falling short and in need of mercy.  But that is not all we have in common because being human also means that we (you, me, the tax collector, and the Pharisee) are beautifully made in the image of God, loved perfectly and unconditionally by the gracious Creator of the Universe.  God loves us so much that we all get the surprise ending.  At the end, there is grace.