Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Luke 18:9-14
I suppose the question for some might be: “Would you want your daughter to marry one?” A publican, I mean. No, not a Republican. A “Republican” is a member of a modern political party in America. A “publican” is a first-century tax collector in Jerusalem. As to whether you’d want your daughter to marry one, I suppose it’s a ridiculous question. Not much logic to it. Not much reason, either. But plenty of emotion….raw emotion. And passion, too. When somebody deals the “Would you want your daughter to marry one?” card, they’re not dealing from the head but from the gut. Straight from the gut.
But why wouldn’t you want your daughter to marry this tax collector in Jesus’ little parable? After all, he is the hero of Jesus’ story. He is the one Jesus calls “justified” (meaning “right with God”). He is the one Jesus calls “humble”….on the way to being “exalted.” Which portrays him in rather friendly terms, wouldn’t you say? And any friend of Jesus ought to be a friend of yours, ought he not? Better yet, any friend of Jesus ought to be just perfect as a son-in-law. Dead center perfect. El centro perfecto.
Except that very few people to whom this parable was delivered would have heard it that way. True, this tax man was in the Temple. That’s good. And true, he was praying in the Temple. That’s good, too. But let’s call a spade a spade. He was a tax collector for Rome’s sake. Not that he was a Roman. He wasn’t. He was a Jew. He only worked for Rome.
You’ve heard me explain this before. Sure you have. Israel was an occupied country. Rome was the occupying party. The Jews were an occupied people. Meaning that Jews were not in control of their destiny, politically. Neither were they in control of their taxes, personally. Rome set them. Jews paid them. But even though Rome set them, Rome didn’t collect them. Rome got the Jews to collect them. And then Rome cut a deal with the Jews they enlisted to collect taxes. Rome said (in effect):
Look, we’ll give you a tax territory. We’ll expect so much money from your territory. We’ll send you. We’ll back you. If necessary, we’ll even put muscle behind you. How you collect the taxes, we don’t care. We just want our share. So go ahead and charge what the traffic will bear. We’ll take the first cut. You get the rest.
And with that kind of mandate…backed by that kind of muscle….those first-century Jewish tax collectors did all right. In fact, some did more than all right. Maybe even made out like bandits. Which is how their own people saw them….as bandits….if not traitors to the cause. I mean, it’s one thing to work for the oppressor. But to profit, thanks to the muscle of the oppressor (I mean, come on now), that’s hard to take.
So most people didn’t….take it, I mean. Tax collectors did pretty well. But they didn’t have many friends. And very few stood in line to become their fathers-in-law. Even if it represented your daughter’s….your homely, homebound, hopelessly-hard-to-marry-off daughter….even if it represented her last (or best) chance, anything but a tax collector.
Now there is a good catch for your daughter. You can also find him praying in the Temple. Doesn’t cheat. Doesn’t steal. Doesn’t fool around. The guy tithes (not just ten percent of his agricultural yield, but ten percent of everything). Doesn’t nitpick. Doesn’t quibble. Sabbath rolls around and he fills up the envelope. Operating Fund. Home Fires Fund. Hunger Fund. Missions Fund. Endowment Fund. Habitat for Humanity Fund. Big chunk for the Christian Life Center. Two huge sacks of groceries. Doesn’t really need the groceries. Because he fasts, don’t you see. Not once a week. Not once plus an additional lunch. But twice a week. Now I ask you: “How many fasts were required by Torah?” Just one. But not one a week. One a year….on the Day of Atonement.
I mean, you can’t ask for more. Would that I had seven brides for such a guy. We’re talking “genuine article” here. Although, maybe not.
That’s because Jesus puts him down. Doesn’t have a good thing to say about him. Worse yet, Jesus suggests that God won’t have much good to say about him, either. But, then, we’ve grown to expect that from Jesus. All kinds of people nobody thinks much of become cult-like heroes in Jesus’ stories. We’re talking
Samaritans….people with bad blood.
Lepers….people with bad skin.
Demoniacs….people with bad heads.
Women….people with bad genes.
Fallen women….people with bad morals.
And now tax collectors…. people with crooked pencils.
When it’s Jesus telling the story, they all come out pretty clean in the wash. While the guy I’ve got my eye on for my daughter, Jesus disses. Out and out disses.
Well, he is a little “stuck on himself” (as my Aunt Marion used to say). It was her stock phrase to describe people who were good, but who made their first mistake in knowing they were good, and made their second mistake in letting her know they knew they were good. Actually, good old Aunt Marion (God rest her soul) coined a pretty darned good phrase when she talked about someone “stuck on himself”….kind of like he was both the record and the needle, allowing him to play himself over and over again to anyone who would listen. Stuck on himself. Wedged in his own groove.
Even in prayer, he figured he’d better remind God of everything he did and did not do….in case God didn’t know, or had forgotten. I mean, God has so much stuff to pay attention to. Therefore, it’s entirely possible God might miss something….like the fact that you were here today….or how good you look today….or how nice you sang today (in Latin, no less). Any group that sings in Latin ought to get big-time points. I mean, it ain’t bragging if you can back it up, is it?
Bringing us back to our Pharisee. Humble, he’s not. But I’d take him as a potential son-in-law. Because it’s easier to teach humility than ethics. That’s the way the world looks at things. Heck, most days, that’s they way I look at things. If this nice-talking, hard-working, high-tithing Pharisee doesn’t want to marry my daughter, maybe he’d like to join my church. I could make a great church out of people like that. Truth be told, I already have. Four times. I tell my colleagues: “Don’t go knocking Pharisees until you’ve taken a good look at your membership rolls. Or in your mirror.”
If only the Pharisee hadn’t looked at the tax collector with such disdain. Remember how he put it to God: “I thank you, Lord, that I am not like him.” To be sure, all of us have felt that. But most of us are smart enough not to say it. Or pray it. Because God can’t let you get away with that. I mean, what kind of God is going to let you get away with that? And would you actually sing the praises of a God who would let you get away with that?
As I’ve told you before, from time to time I tell my wife about all the “schmucks” she could have married. Whenever she says, “Name five,” I never do. That’s because I would be mortally wounded if, upon naming them, she didn’t view them as schmucky as I did. Like the time I said to the lady a couple of churches back: “You know, you’d better get with the program. I mean, I could be out of here, and you could have Rev. Smith as your preacher.” To which she said: “Really?”
What if some guy said to his wife: “Who would you rather have, me or him?” And she took him? And what if the same guy tried the same bluff on God: “Who would you rather have, me or him?” And God took him?
Well, for the moment (and for the purposes of Jesus’ little story), God took “him”….the schmuck. Why? I guess because he was a humble schmuck….and a repentant schmuck. At least that’s what the story says.
To which I can only add one thing. Be wary of making comparisons. We may lord it over somebody in the short run. But, sooner or later, we are all going to meet our match….or more than our match. And then we are going to be shown up for what we are, or what we aren’t. That’s why every prayer ought to be offered in a posture of contrition (beginning with the language of confession). Because who is prayer offered to, anyway, unless it be the one who, daily, makes me look paltry….or puny….by comparison. And the best reason for praying while sitting down or lying down is that, when all is said and done, none of us has a leg to stand on….let alone two.
William Barclay writes:
The question is not: Am I as good as my fellow man? The question is: Am I as good as God? Once I made a journey by train from Scotland to England. As we passed through the Yorkshire moors, I saw a little whitewashed cottage and it seemed to shine with an almost radiant whiteness. Some days later, I made the journey back to Scotland. Snow had fallen and was lying deep all around. We came again to the little white cottage. But this time its whiteness seemed drab, soiled, and almost gray in comparison with the virgin whiteness of the driven snow.
According to a snow advisory that Paul W. Smith will air on WJR, the last mound will melt on the last mountain in Boyne country sometime in mid-May. And when it melts, it will be neither white nor pure….but grainy and gray. I ask you, how will that last resistant pile of shabbiness finally disappear? They tell me that the sun will do it. No kidding. That’s what they tell me. That the Son will do it.
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
