Who Validates You?

[credits to Neil Shenvi & Doug Wilson] Good morning, and welcome to Bethel. The last time I was up to preach, I talked a bit about justice -- the justice that every human heart longs for. Even the hearts of little children. As you can tell from the uniform that I am wearing, I help out with the Awana program. And the color of my uniform indicates that I help with the youngest children: the three- and four-year-old “cubbies.” And even three- and four-year-olds are known to cry, “that’s not fair!” Built deep inside each of us is this idea of justice. But justice isn’t just what individuals long for. Justice is also something that nations longs for. There is nothing like injustice for destroying societies. So it is no surprise that we hear cries for justice from every direction these days.

But a legitimate question to ask of anyone marching under the banner of justice is “whose justice?” Who gets to decide what justice looks like? Who gets to judge? Justice, by its very nature, isn’t justice without a judge... or a justifier. To be “justified” simply means to be judged to be on the right side of justice, after all. Justice needs a justifier. So who is your justifier this morning? Sure -- all manner of people would love to have that kind of control over us. Celebrities, newscasters, politicians, professors, parents, even preachers(!?) -- they might all like to pose as justifiers, or judges over groups of people, and we are all too often tempted to grant them that power. But which one? They all have their own perspectives and their own agendas. Why should we consider any one of them authoritative? On the other hand, we may like democracy so much that we want the “court of public opinion” to be our judge and justifier. But anyone who has been paying any attention over the last few decades knows how fickle that can be.

These days, people look for justification (that’s an interesting word, isn’t it… we’ll get back to it, but for now, let’s use the more common word “validation”) people look for validation in all manner of places -- social media, friends, work, family, or even church, I suppose. There is really only one true justifier, and that would be God. But God is a Holy and perfect God, so He doesn’t justify just anyone. At the same time, he didn’t want us left in the dark about the kinds of people who he is willing to justify. So he sent Jesus, who told us a story revealing exactly that. From it we can learn how we can be on the right side of justice; how we can be justified; how we can be right with God (that’s what it means to be justified, after all). But as short and as simple as this story is, be warned: it could be challenging. Let me read it to you:

Jesus told this parable:(Luke 18) 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one [was] a Pharisee and the other [was] a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector: 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14 “I tell you [says Jesus] that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.”

Just four sentences, representing our outline this morning: first is the set-up (verse 10), then the Pharisee (verses 11 & 12), then the tax-collector (verse 13), then the judgment (the first part of verse 14).

The set-up (verse 10): “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one [was] a Pharisee and the other [was] a tax collector.” Here, Jesus contrasts two men, two attitudes, two prayers, and -- spoiler alert! -- he is going to pronounce a verdict on those two men. One goes home right with God. The other does not. Now before going further, we need to realize that this aspect of the parable is not just a story: every human being in history, every human being on the planet, is one day going to stand before God and discover whether God considers us on the right side of justice. There is no middle ground, folks. Either we go home justified before God or we do not. Either we are the Pharisee or we are the tax collector. Jesus has no intention of giving us a third option. But the good news here is that we need not be troubled at the prospect of a final judgment! We, too, can be justified. And Jesus has told us all we need to know to be so.

Next is the Pharisee (verses 11 & 12): As you may know, we now use the word "Pharisee" to describe self-righteous arrogance and pride. But hey, we're not so much talking about Pharisees in general -- we're talking about this Pharisee in particular, and we all know that it isn’t fair to judge an individual based on some stereotype or other, no matter who we think we can associate them with. That’s the kind of thinking that leads to racism. That’s the kind of thinking that leads to sexism. So let’s avoid all that this morning. Let’s treat this man as an individual based on Jesus’ description of him. So what do we know about this particular Pharisee? He is:

1. Religiously perfect. In Jesus’ day, the fact that he was a Pharisee would have meant exactly that. The Pharisees were an exclusive club, and to join that club meant that you had received careful instruction, you had excelled at religious education, you had demonstrated devotion and dedication to the law. And the fact that this man is going to the Temple shows us that he is taking God seriously. The Temple is where all the orthodox, spiritual, and godly action was when Jesus was telling this story. So the Pharisee was religiously pure. But that’s not all… he was also…
2. Morally upright. After all, not all pharisees were hypocrites. And there is no indication of hypocrisy in Jesus’ story. No: this Pharisee seems to have practiced what he preached. He was virtuous in all matters -- exhibiting perhaps all of the marks of a godly man. He respects people and property. He gives generously. He’s socially conscious. And he is spiritual: fasting -- not just twice a year, as the law required, but twice a week. (that’s verse 12) All indications are that this Pharisee was morally blameless. Religiously orthodox and morally upright. So far so good. But that’s not all… this Pharisee also…
3. Gave credit to God: we see that he is explicitly thanking God for his place in the order of things. He realizes that all that he is and all that he has derives from the goodness of God, and he does not neglect to thank God for all those things. Religiously orthodox, morally upright, and humble enough to give credit to God. So what’s not to like?

The trouble is that when we hear this story, most of us don’t like this guy. Now it might be because we had the punchline tipped to us: this man was not justified before God, and we know better than to contradict the Lord of Glory. Unfortunately, we might struggle to know why he didn’t impress God. We almost want to make up excuses for disliking him. We might call him proud or arrogant. Perhaps he was, but Jesus doesn’t cooperate with us here: he doesn’t give us any reason to come to such a conclusion. So this man does not go home right with God, and we feel it in our bones that he shouldn’t go home right with God. But we still need to discover “why.”

Now we will come back to him in a few minutes, but before we do, let's consider the other guy: the person that Jesus uses as a role-model for us -- the one who does go home justified before God. And we need to understand that Jesus is using the most unlikely, and surprising, and shocking role-model he could ever have chosen: This second man is a tax collector. (verse 13)

But to explain why that's such a scandal, I'd like to tell you a bit about my father. My Dad was a marvelous man. He loved me. He loved my brothers. I have fond memories of many hours playing sports in the back yard with him. Our yard was where the entire neighborhood gathered to play plastic baseball. I have very few memories in which my Dad was agitated or unhappy, but those I have stand out for me. One of the very few things that made my father frustrated was the yearly attempt to file income tax. Nobody likes being taxed. And, as a result, nobody likes tax collectors. But there are many reasons why folks in Jesus’ day disliked tax collectors even more than they are disliked today.

Today, the government uses business to tax us: very few of us actually come face to face with a real tax collector. Today, there are rules that at least apply to most people, and for the vast majority, at least, those rules are fair. Today, taxes are administered by elected representatives of the people, and are applied to things we value, like roads, and schools and hospitals. In Jesus day, perhaps only the "roads" applied.

When Jesus told this parable, the tax collector would arrive at your door, unannounced, and behind him would be a squad of Roman soldiers. He would demand a sum of money, and there was nothing you could do to check whether the amount that he asked for was fair. The money was going to make your enemies wealthy and finance their military campaigns. The tax collectors weren’t just associating with the bad guys, they were collaborating with them, and in the process making themselves absurdly wealthy.

As you might know, there are these luxury resorts these days called “Club Med”. I once thought that their name was because doctors were among the few who could afford vacations at such places. I’m told that in Kenya, they have luxury resorts called “Club Police,” instead -- now if that’s true, it tells you all you need to know about the corruption in Kenya. But if there were luxury resorts in Jesus’ day, they wouldn’t call them “Club Med” or “Club Police” -- they would call them “Club Tax”: tax collectors had became known for their greed, their injustice, their treachery, and their thievery.

But just like with the Pharisee, it isn’t fair to lump this individual tax collector in Jesus’ parable in with the worst of his bunch and stereotype him. So let’s give him a fair shake, shall we? So what do we know about this particular tax collector?

1. He was a sinner - he says so. Perhaps he is aware of the pain that he inflicted on the weak and the helpless. With the power of the Roman Empire behind him, he could steal and extort, and he could have done it to widows and orphans. Notice that this man does not claim any virtues. He doesn’t present anything to offset his sin. There is no money in an offering plate. He doesn’t compare himself to anyone else, either. In fact, he sees himself as the only sinner. In the original language he actually says, “God have mercy on me, ‘the’ sinner.” Nobody else is involved in his standing with God. But what else can we say about him?
2. He is upset that he's a sinner. Other tax collectors no doubt thought of their sins as “coming with the territory” of their job, or as “the cost of doing business.” But this tax collector is aware of how his lifestyle did not come close to God’s standard of behavior. He knows that he has no standing before God, and this grieves him greatly. He is a sinner, and this upsets him. He displays deep grief and regret. What else?
3. He is humble before God. He stands at a distance. He does not look up. He is not attempting to approach God. He knows he is guilty and is overcome with remorse.

So that’s it: we have been presented with two men: one is moral, the other immoral; one is respectable, the other unrespectable; one is a religious leader, the other a religious outcast. The first is convinced he's righteous, the second is certain that he is not…

But now comes the surprise. The shock -- the scandal! -- of the parable arrives at its punchline: the specific judgment at the beginning of verse 14 is that the second man -- the tax collector! -- is granted standing with God. The bad man is accepted, the good man is not. The man who would likely have been too embarrassed to come near a synagogue is accepted, and the pillar of the religious community is not. Sure, the Pharisee might have had issues, but not robbing widows; not stealing, lying, cheating. Sure, it is great that the tax collector repented and all, but how can this be right? How can God accept a bad person and reject a good one?

Now while Jesus tells this somewhat puzzling story, and likely left his disciples scratching their heads, Luke -- the writer recording Jesus’ parable -- gives us a hand here. But please keep in mind that what we are about to read is not part of the original story that Jesus told: it is simply Luke’s introduction to that story. In verse 9, right before the parable we just read, Luke writes that Jesus told this story to those who were “confident in their own goodness and who looked down on other people.”

Now if you are anything like me, when you hear this, there is a sense of relief. That’s it! That’s the problem. The Pharisee was one of those religious people who is confident in his own goodness and looked down on others. That’s the worst, isn’t it? And that’s the attitude keeping the church from being effective, isn’t it? That’s the problem with so many churches today. In fact, too many churches seem to be all about being: “confident in their own goodness and looking down on others” -- I really can’t stand people like that, can you? I’m so glad that Bethel is not like that. Thank God that I’m not like that…

Hold on! Did you see what I just did? Were you tracking me? Did you see how easy and natural it was? I was, in fact, being no better than the Pharisee! In every one of our hearts is this deep, deep capacity for self-justification. And when we exercise it, we are doing nothing more or less than demonstrating our confidence in our own goodness and looking down on others. And Jesus is saying that as long as we think of ourselves in this way, we can never approach God, we can never be acceptable to God. The primary thing that disqualifies us from being justified by God is the universal human desire to justify ourselves. And this self-justification blocks God’s work and God’s presence and God’s blessing in our lives.

Now the thing that gives the Pharisee’s problem away is the fact that he compared himself to the tax collector. In this way, he was able to feel good about himself. And that’s a huge temptation for us to do all the time. Hey: I just caught myself trying to feel better about myself by comparing myself to the Pharisee. But Jesus is really smart -- he knew the hearts of man -- and he knows that whenever we judge the Pharisee, we become the Pharisee. As a philosopher (Nietzsche) once wrote:

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

Whoever judges the Pharisee, becomes the Pharisee. Whenever we are caught in something we know that we shouldn’t have done, what do we do? We immediately look for an excuse. Or we find somebody else to blame. Or we try to find fault with the victim. And if none of that works, we often fall back on, “Well, what about… ?” comparing ourselves with others -- just as the Pharisee did with the tax collector. This fault-finding? It is just the flip-side of self-justification. It is the “looking down on others” to self-justification’s “confidence in one’s own goodness.” And you know as well as I do that this kind of behavior starts really young. Even cubbies do it.

The self-justification that we find in the Pharisee and the self-justification that we find deep in each of our hearts is a symptom of a fatal spiritual disease: that is, our desire to keep God from His rightful place as the only judge and justifier in our lives -- our desire to encroach on God’s exclusive territory. There is only one true justifier. There is only one Person who can truly justify us. Let’s not allow our self-justication to get in His way this morning, because the good news is that God is ready, willing, and able to justify us!

Sure: the Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” but the very next verse (and the remainder of the same sentence) tells us that we “are freely justified by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”

Because of what Christ has done for us, we can receive the free gift of justification. We do nothing to earn it. All it takes is for us to renounce our claims to be the judge and justifier for ourselves. All it takes is for us to do exactly what the tax collector did -- to come to God recognizing our need for His mercy.

When the tax collector asks for mercy, the word in the original language (sounds like “he-la’-sko-my”) only shows up in one other place in the Bible: in Hebrews 2:17, where it is translated “make reconciliation”. I'm sure you understand the idea: a relationship has been broken, and through patience, forgiveness, gentleness and kindness, reconciliation is the process of restoring relationships. And that is what the tax collector is asking God for: he realizes that he needs to be reconciled to God; he recognizes that he is in no place to approach God. He understands that if there is going to be any reconciliation that God is going to need to be the one taking the action, and that is what he is begging God for.

You know, one of the great things about this parable is that the one telling it knows something about God taking reconciling action. Jesus -- the one telling the story in the first place -- is all about our reconciliation with God. This is what the scripture says:

God, [has] reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ (2 Cor 5:18)

And the amazing thing is that this reconciliation enables us to come to God as our loving Father. The Bible also says (Hebrews 4):

Therefore, since [our] great high priest [is] Jesus the Son of God, let us ... approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

And that, of course, is exactly what we find the tax collector doing in Jesus’ parable. Because there is likely going to come a time in your life, as it has in mine, that the walls of the pit you find yourself in are too steep and too high, and the mud at the bottom seems to be sucking you down, and there is only one rescue -- to throw ourselves at the mercy of the God who loved us enough to send his Son to suffer and die for us (Romans 8:32,33):

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

Coming to God as the one who justifies makes all the difference. But doing so implies a bit of discomfort, doesn’t it? Here’s what Jesus says right on the heels of this parable (end of verse 14): “all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” It is a principle that sounds a bit like a paradox: but if we think that we are acceptable to God, then we are not acceptable to God. If we realize that we are not acceptable to God, then and only then can we become acceptable to God.

Humbling ourselves goes against every inclination of the human heart. But the human heart has let you down before; are you going to let it mislead you again? Eternal life, confident approach to God, forgiveness from sins, right standing with God -- humbling ourselves is a small price to pay for the riches that God is offering to you in return. God is waiting, offering you reconciliation this morning. Are you willing to acknowledge your need? Are you willing to receive his offer? If you are, you could do worse that approaching God with the words of the tax collector: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”