Discovering the Real Jesus in Monroe

(Sterling State Park)

In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus stands before a crowd of people, some of whom were confident in their own righteousness. The result of this self-confidence was that they looked down, religiously, on other people. To be confident of one’s own “righteousness” means to view oneself as the moral equaivalent of God himself. We see that thisbis what’s going on because of what Jesus does next.

Jesus tells these people a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Pharisees believed that righteousness before God involved the keeping of many religious rules, some of which were God-given and some of which were man-made and not from God. Incredibly, Luke tells us that this Pharisee went into the temple and “prayed to himself.” In his prayer he exalted his own self, declaring himself to be above all other people who were degenerate in relation to him. Were he to sing his own praises we would have heard him singing “I Exalt Me,” “Lord I Lift My Name on High,” and “How Great Am I God.” The self-exalting Pharisee doesn’t ask God for anything, like asking for mercy, because he’s on a level with God when it comes to righteousness and holiness. He even gives thanks for not being like this tax collector that’s in the temple area.

The tax collector stands at a distance. His head is down. He beats his chest, which is a sign of humilation. He cries out to God, “Be merciful to me, a sinner!” He knows his own righteousness is not equal to God’s.

After telling this parable Jesus tells the crowd that it’s the heart of the tax collector that is fit for the Kingdom of God, and not the heart of the Pharisee. It’s not the one who exalted himself, but the one who humbled himself. Note this: the one who exalts himself gets humbled; the one who humbles himself gets exalted (which means, “lifted up”). Look closely at this distinction. This story is not about getting humbled. All of us get humbled. We all fail, sin, and make mistakes. We all, at times, have “egg on our face.” The tax collector self-humbles. He chooses to confess that he doesn’t have his life all together. He knows that he needs fixing, and declares it in the temple.

The cultural norm, as I see it, is that common are the people who only self-humble after they get humbled (and even then the words “I failed” seem rare). Someone gets humbled; they openly confess. But what the tax collector did is that he went into the temple and openly confessed; that is, he “humbled himself.” Jesus said “That’s cool,” and exalted him. That’s the attitude Jesus wants to see. That’s the foundational attitude for fitness in the Kingdom of God.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 7:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.