Tax Collector

"God, be merciful to me a sinner" the Tax Collector cries out as he beats his breast (a cultural sign of grief and penitence).  Now that's a proper prayer.  So  humble that he won't even look up to heaven, this Tax Collector humbles himself....as is only right.....and asks nothing of God but mercy.

Being a tax collector isn't a great career plan.  Pharisees, on the other hand, are better liked and welcomed a lot of places.  Nobody wants a job where everyone hates them, a job that makes them a pariah in their own home town. Everyone would expect the Tax Collector to be the object of Jesus' disdain or even wrath and yet.......

when Jesus tells his little parable about these two men praying in the temple, it is the Tax Collector who 'goes down to his house justified.'  See Luke 18.9ff to get the whole story.

That word 'justified' means to be in a right relationship with God.  It is the Tax Collector who leaves the temple justified.  I kid you  not....and it's good he's in a right relationship with God because he is in no relationship with everyone else on the street.

Yet we understand that this 'humble civil servant'is spiritually aware enough to know that he stands before God with little to offer the Creator of the Universe.  He has nothing to brag about and a lot of which to be ashamed.  He knows that God is so enormously more than he.....so holy in every way....that he can only lower his eyes and beg for God's mercy and grace.

In this he gives us a wonderful example of spiritual awareness.  Standing before God (wherever you might be standing) is to be in the presence of the holy, and most of us would be hard pressed to brag about our own holiness.  Most of us are all too aware of our own broken places, those nasty secrets we hide in our hearts and those deeds we pray no one ever learns about.  The holiness of God should, in fact, take our breath away as it does this anonymous Tax Collector.  Therefore, he leaves the temple in right relationship with God.

But here is where I want to challenge you.  What does he do on Monday morning?  How has this spiritual insight and heart felt cry for God's mercy transformed his life?  How has he begun to conform his behavior to Jesus'?  Does he begin to love his neighbor?  How does he take a first step towards Jesus' command to care for his neighbor?

For those with any spiritual sensitivity it is easy to stand in the presence of God and acknowledge that we have fallen away, we have behaved badly, we are in need of mercy.  It is also easy to walk away and block any attempt by the Holy Spirit to lead us into a path of repentance and righteousness.  We confess on Sunday and go back to business on Monday.  There are prophets in the Old Testament who had a lot to say about that kind of behavior.

It is all one piece: knowing Jesus, seeking his mercy, acknowledging our sin, and allowing our lives to be transformed.  Both confession and right living are necessary.  Both confession and right living require practice...practice....practice.

Thanks be to God that God's mercy is never failing, because in the end, it is failing that we are so very good at.