Joel 2:23-32

²³ O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God; for he has given the early rain a for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before.  ²⁴ The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.

²⁵ I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.

²⁶ You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.  And my people shall never again be put to shame.  ²⁷ You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is no other.  And my people shall never again be put to shame.

²⁸ Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.  ²⁹ Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

³⁰ I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. ³¹ The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. ³² Then everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.

Luke 18:9-14

⁹ He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  ¹² I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’  ¹³ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  ¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

 

It is shocking that God would justify the likes of a no good sinner – someone who had no problem cheating people out of their hard earned money - a tax collector - simply on the basis of his plea.

It is, likewise, shocking that a pious do-gooder, someone who always choose to do what is right, someone who would go out of their way to do you a good turn, would find that their good works do not justify them in the site of God.

Jesus knows that how we pray and what we pray, demonstrates how and what we believe.  This is a parable reminiscent to Freud’s “Freudian slip.”  Call it the Freudian prayer.  So Jesus tells this story. It’s a story of diminishing returns - the longer we have been Christians, the less we like the story.  Of course, it is also a story of increased need - the longer we have been Christians, the more we need his story.

 

Hear the parable as Jesus’ disciples would: Once upon a time, there was a Pharisee, you know, a law-abiding, consistently good, observant Jew.  He was praying alone, and glanced around, and realized that, compared to many, he was a rather respectable person of faith.  Into the temple walked a despicable sell-out, someone who traded his own kind to the enemy so he could make his wallet fat.  Everyone was more faithful than the tax collector, but the Pharisee was glad that he was.  The tax collector begged for mercy and it was granted; the Pharisee’s self-righteousness was not justifying, no matter how much good he had done in his life.  For Jesus’ hearers, it is utterly unseemly, almost laughable to think someone who does what the tax collector does would pray for mercy.

 

A good portion of us are people who are generous, people who seek to do what is right in our daily dealings with one another.  We are people “who trust in ourselves to do what is right.”  We’re self-disciplined.  The question for us today is: “Do we regard others with contempt because they lack self-discipline?”  And why would it matter?

Just as Jesus’ audience heard this parable for the first time, we too are shocked that mercy could be given to someone who is crooked and despicable.  This seems implausible.  Could it be that we need to come to a new understanding about the radical ability of God to offer grace to the very least...  It’s a surprising Gospel.

The disciples found it scandalous that grace would be offered to such a scoundrel so easily.  Where were the works of absolution?  Where were the years of service as a faithful follower of God?  Where were the terrible nights of anguish that prove his remorse was not short-lived?  Where were the years of going about righting wrongs, returning the extra fees collected that made him rich while he watched his neighbors struggle to survive?  No he was not required to do any of that.  There was no restitution required.  Is this what God’s Grace is capable of?  Where is the justice in this?  Does it seem fair?

All we have in Jesus’ parable is the proclamation that, once he begged for forgiveness, the tax collector went home justified.  Some theologians call this cheap Grace...  It doesn’t appear to be a radical transforming grace like that which turned Paul around.

 

We need to ask ourselves a simple question.  Who is at the center of the story?  Isn’t grace about God?  Isn’t it about God’s greatness, God’s glory, God’s ability?

 

It reminds me of a vivid dream I had back in the spring of the year.  Our choir must have been preparing some songs for the end of the year or something...  Anyhow, I had this dream that I had died and went to heaven, and upon arriving there I was shocked to discover that all of the angelic choristers were tone deaf.  Every last one of them.  They couldn’t carry on a tune in a bucket.  The mystery of it all was, when they all sang together.  Their voices blended, weaving together, in a mysterious way to produce a heavenly harmony greater than anything ever imagined.  It wasn’t about the tone deaf singers!  It was all about the grace of God.

 

Grace is a tricky thing for people who have forgotten they received it. We are certain - and we are right - that grace inspires a response.  Jesus spends lots of time teaching us, showing us, commanding us to live a faithful life.  He makes it clear that once he has granted us his mercy and we accept his call to follow, we are to seek God’s Realm and the Ways of God’s Realm.  Wesley called it going on to perfection. Everything changes when we embrace the new creation in Christ.

 

In the end, though, the message is a simple one, and one we need to hear: mercy is at God’s disposal.  It is more about God than it is about us.  And forgiveness is available to all, and righteousness a gift, not an accomplishment. 

 

Maybe we should spend less time comparing ourselves with those who are less fortunate, less eloquent, tone deaf in their faithfulness, bumblers and stumblers, and spend more time being thankful and returning praise for God’s grace, in our lives and in the life of others.  Maybe we could spend more time developing within our own attitudes a spirit of mercy.  We could stand to spending less time fighting over who’s right, more holy, correct or perfect; and spend more of our energy loving each other, and blending our lives into God’s perfect harmony.