Saturday of the Third Week of Lent -- April 2, 2011
Luke 18:9 – 14
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 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. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“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.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
There are several doors through which a person might step into this short parable. It is rich and textured, worth spending some time with today.
When Jesus wanted to say something about the kingdom of God, he generally spoke in parables. He told stories, throwing them alongside (literally para bole, “to throw alongside”) the reality of this God-framework for life that he called “the kingdom of God.”
The kingdom of God is not accessible by discourse or by prosaic description. Parables or stories illumine it, shed light on it, and slowly unveil it.
Because the kingdom of God is an orientation for life that is so counter to our ordinary ideas about life, parables often shocked those who heard them. They tended to turn the world upside-down, presenting a view of reality that upset the conventional notions of God, religion, social status, and how the world was ordered.
One clue to this “upside-down” nature of parables comes in Luke’s preamble to this story: “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable,” (v. 9). It is an immediate tip-off that those confident of their own goodness and those who felt themselves superior to others would be addressed. These are persons who would have considered themselves “insiders.” In some way, the parable that followed would turn over their notions of how the world is ordered . . . who is inside and who is outside.
The introductory sentence leads to questions like:
Who are those not confident of their own goodness? And what is their relationship to God? They are the apparent “outsiders” (socially and religiously), but are they really?
Who are the ones being looked down upon? There is the probability that they are looked down upon because they are considered “outsiders.” Are they really outsiders?
By the end of the short parable, all expectations have been upset. Those who thought themselves insiders may be outside. And Jesus declared the “outsiders” to be inside.
Is one lesson, then, that there is little benefit in “confidence” about one’s goodness or righteousness?
In truth, we really have very little to be “confident” about. Who among us can say who the insiders and the outsiders are? The kingdom of God may be shaped in very different ways than we have imagined.
In fact, in the kingdom of God, there may be no such thing as “insiders” and “outsiders.”
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 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. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“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.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
There are several doors through which a person might step into this short parable. It is rich and textured, worth spending some time with today.
When Jesus wanted to say something about the kingdom of God, he generally spoke in parables. He told stories, throwing them alongside (literally para bole, “to throw alongside”) the reality of this God-framework for life that he called “the kingdom of God.”
The kingdom of God is not accessible by discourse or by prosaic description. Parables or stories illumine it, shed light on it, and slowly unveil it.
Because the kingdom of God is an orientation for life that is so counter to our ordinary ideas about life, parables often shocked those who heard them. They tended to turn the world upside-down, presenting a view of reality that upset the conventional notions of God, religion, social status, and how the world was ordered.
One clue to this “upside-down” nature of parables comes in Luke’s preamble to this story: “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable,” (v. 9). It is an immediate tip-off that those confident of their own goodness and those who felt themselves superior to others would be addressed. These are persons who would have considered themselves “insiders.” In some way, the parable that followed would turn over their notions of how the world is ordered . . . who is inside and who is outside.
The introductory sentence leads to questions like:
Who are those not confident of their own goodness? And what is their relationship to God? They are the apparent “outsiders” (socially and religiously), but are they really?
Who are the ones being looked down upon? There is the probability that they are looked down upon because they are considered “outsiders.” Are they really outsiders?
By the end of the short parable, all expectations have been upset. Those who thought themselves insiders may be outside. And Jesus declared the “outsiders” to be inside.
Is one lesson, then, that there is little benefit in “confidence” about one’s goodness or righteousness?
In truth, we really have very little to be “confident” about. Who among us can say who the insiders and the outsiders are? The kingdom of God may be shaped in very different ways than we have imagined.
In fact, in the kingdom of God, there may be no such thing as “insiders” and “outsiders.”
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