Loving God, your forgiveness and mercy are amazing to us – so much so that sometimes we don’t believe it.  Help us to grow in faith and trust by the power of your Spirit, that we, too, might reflect the Spirit of Jesus, for we pray in his name.  Amen.

    In each of the parables that Jesus tells, the stories come from daily life at that time, but there is always something in there that would have absolutely shocked the listeners.  The parable that we heard today is no exception, and the shocking part, as often happens, comes at the end.

    The people listening would have seen many Pharisees pray just as Jesus describes, and they would have seen nothing wrong with this particular prayer.  We listen to it, and it sounds rather arrogant to us, right? – “God, I thank you that I am not like other people” (Lk. 18:11)!  However, a very similar prayer is found in the Jewish Talmud from the first century.  And so, this prayer, in and of itself, would not have been particularly shocking to Jesus’ listeners.

    In the same way, the prayer offered by the tax collector would have seemed to the people to be entirely appropriate, for tax collectors were considered to be pretty much the same as thieves or robbers.  Jesus’ listeners would have assumed that this man had plenty of sins from which to repent.  “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Lk. 18:13).

    However, the statement at the end telling us that God would justify - or bless with God’s pleasure - the tax collector and not the Pharisee would have shocked people to no end.  Speaking purely from the perspective of the Jewish Law, the tax collector would have had to do quite a bit in order to make restitution for the funds that he had accumulated by fraud.  Legally speaking, he would have been required to repay all that he had defrauded, plus a fifth – probably to a huge number of people (Jeremias, p. 114).  And so, for Jesus to say that God would forgive this man and bless him for his prayer of despair and repentance would have challenged everybody’s beliefs.

    Yet, all through the gospels, and in much of Jesus’ teaching, we find the God who delights in forgiving repentant sinners, and who is so much more gracious than we would ever be.

    It seems to me that even today, many find God’s capacity to forgive hard to believe.  In spite of the gospel message that God forgives those who come in repentance and faith, trusting in Jesus Christ, many of us still try to kind of adjust God to our own way of thinking.  Many Christians whom I have talked to believe in “an eye for an eye,” in spite of the fact that Jesus teaches differently (Mt. 5:38-42).  Many people also believe that they need to have done enough good things in order to get into heaven, and they are never quite sure if they have done enough to have gained God’s favour.

    However, the gospel teaches that it is Jesus who has “done enough” in order for us to be put right with God.  It is Jesus who has “done enough” in order for us to be forgiven.  It is Jesus who has first loved us in order that we might be set free to live as the people whom God always intended us to be.  It is Jesus who teaches us to pray, “forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”  And that’s where it gets touchy, right?

    Many of us, or maybe even most of us, have experienced people in our lives whom we really don’t want to forgive.  We don’t want to forgive them, and we don’t want God to forgive them, either!  Of course, we probably need to make some distinction between those who genuinely seek forgiveness, and those who really don’t regret a thing.  Today’s gospel, and many of the other passages about forgiveness, address what happens (or what should happen) when somebody genuinely repents of their sin and asks for forgiveness, either from God, or from us.  In those cases, the gospel couldn’t be clearer: God forgives all who genuinely repent and expects us to do the same.

    As for those who don’t repent, we are invited to “grow up” into Christ (Eph. 4:15), who prays for God to forgive even those who are not asking (Lk. 23:34).  While many of us might insist that you really have to be Jesus in order to be able to do that, we discover in the Scriptures that it is, in fact, possible for those who believe in Jesus to get to that point.  Some of you may remember the story of Stephen, who was stoned to death for his faith in Jesus.  We are told that Stephen was full of the Holy Spirit, and that as he was being stoned to death he prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).  Those people were not asking to be forgiven, either.

    Of course, the whole topic of forgiveness is a very complex one, and many of us hold on to our anger and resentment for years before we finally let go and forgive.  Consider this, though, which comes from a poster: To forgive is to set the prisoner free, and then to discover that the prisoner was you.  In the end, not forgiving only hurts ourselves.

    Meanwhile, in the midst of all of this thinking about forgiveness, there is a very important question that needs to be asked.  The question is, do we really trust God’s judgment?  Do we trust God enough to allow God to be the judge, rather than taking on that responsibility ourselves?

    There are two things that we are told about the people to whom the parable was addressed in today’s gospel.  First, they “trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (Lk. 18:9).  They trusted in themselves rather than God.  Second, they “regarded others with contempt.”  They looked at other people, and they judged them to be sinners, and they treated them with contempt.

    These people were serving as judge and jury, deciding who and what was pleasing to God, and trusting in their own, self-devised good works.  However, before we start feeling too pompous, we need to ask ourselves if we do the same thing – deciding that certain groups of people are outside of God’s mercy, and treating them with contempt.  Do we prefer to be the judge, or do we allow God to be the judge?

    If the truth be told, most of us would probably be far more severe in our judgement than God ever would.  Yet, if God were to use our standards, most of us wouldn’t get in, either.  However, instead, God treats us with mercy and love, and has named Jesus Christ as judge – the same one who lived and died for our sake.  Let us then rejoice in God’s forgiveness and mercy through Jesus Christ -- not only for ourselves, but for all who repent and who come to God and live, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Lectionary 30(C)                                Luke 18:9-14
October 24, 2010
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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