Luke 18:9-17

Absolute and utter dependence on God:

Looks like praying all the way to the end. (Last week)

Looks like an inward disposition of humility. 

Common Jewish hatred for tax collectors. They were perpetually ritually unclean by their close proximity to Romans as well as their cheating for personal gain. They weren’t allowed into the temple. They had to stay in the courts of the Gentiles. Jesus starts the story by saying a Pharisee and a tax collector were in the temple and the audience would have felt internal outrage immediately. The Pharisee doesn’t thank God that he doesn’t struggle with specific sins, but instead that he isn’t like those people who sin. His disdain was for people not sin. Pharisees had developed a habit of fasting twice a week on the days when everyone came to town to do business and would see them. He bragged that he tithed on everything he owned which wasn’t part of the law. This sounds generous, but it was all for show. Everything about that was normal Pharisee behavior. He mentions God briefly, but then focuses on himself in his prayer. He came for show. This wouldn’t have sounded hyperbolic to the people Jesus was speaking to. These were common prayer patterns for Pharisees. 

This same behavior is very common in our society today in virtue signaling. 

-Selective outrage and posts on social media without actually helping the people in need. 

-Publishing our good deeds to get recognition. 

-Corporations advertising all of their generosity for the purpose of getting more business not just for doing what is good and right. 

-We see it in the church in celebrity pastor culture, competitiveness in giving, not wanting to be around “pagans” and stay inside the church walls. 

Jesus just wondered if he would find enduring, unshakable faith when he returns and knows that internally people would be thinking it was them that would last. Jesus confronts the pride in our own faith. In the story we think we resonate with the tax collector, but we are meant to see ourselves in the Pharisee. 

The tax collector prays, “God have mercy on me THE sinner.” He viewed himself as the pinnacle of sinners. 

Have mercy- not the common word used here. He chooses the word meaning atonement. He is crying out to God asking for God to cover his sin. 

Summary: One person could only focus on his own goodness and everyone else’s sin and the other could only focus on his own sin and God’s goodness. 

Who or what are you comparing yourself to? 

Never place yourself above anyone because humility saves sinners. 

Not just the humility of the penitent, but like the trust of a child. 

In the Greco-Roman world children were seen as less valuable. A practice of “exposure” was legally and socially acceptable- leaving a child up to the age of two or three in the woods if you didn’t want them and if they were worthy they would survive and come back. Jewish culture valued their kids, but publicly they were considered a nuisance and burden. The disciples weren’t being really mean. They were reflecting the culture. They were protecting their rabbi. They could see the heaviness on Jesus as he gets nearer to Jerusalem and were trying to show love to him by protecting him from nuisance. How beautiful that Jesus has time for babies and children on the way to the cross. 

This is not saying the Kingdom of God is about cutsie wootsie or childishness and immaturity. It’s about innocents, gentleness, trust, humility, dependence, forgiveness, enchantment.