However, centuries of reading this parable a certain way have worn off its shock. Two thousand years ago when Jesus told this parable the tax collector (our modern-day good guy) was the lowest of the low. They worked for the Roman Empire and they were often rich people and would go to any means possible to gouge people on their taxes. The Shell station in Dominion City will be closing very soon. Some big mucky mucks somewhere made a decision to close the little cardlocks without regard to how it will impact the people that use them. These mucky mucks are the tax collectors. Money is the bottom and only line. The Pharisees were the ones who were well-liked in Jesus day. They look like the internet joke about a perfect pastor. The perfect pastor preaches exactly  12 minutes, condemns sin but never upsets anyone, works from 8:00 a.m. until midnight, makes $60 a week, and gives about $80 a week to the poor, is 28 years old, and has been preaching for 30 years, has a burning desire to work with teenagers, spends every hour with senior citizens, and is always in the office when called." In our dreams! Wouldn’t we love to have those kinds of people in our church! Pharisees come close to those ideal pastors. And just to really get a sense of this character, imagine our most admired church folk. I just have to lift up those Sunday School teachers. In a labor of love week after week they prepare worship for our children and nurture their faith, with far too little thanks. You can’t get much more admirable than a Sunday School teacher.

So in the parable Jesus is saying, “Two people went over to the church to pray one was a mucky muck from Shell and the other was a beloved Sunday School teacher.” Jesus says that the big money-hungry mucky mucks from Shell are closer to God  when they say “Help me!” in their prayers, than  your beloved, committed Sunday School teachers are who say in their prayers, “Wow I made a really good Sunday School lesson!”

To put your trust in yourselves is the biggest bad thing we can do according to this parable.

There is lots of trouble in this parable. At the beginning of the week when I first looked at it, it looked fairly straight forward when the message was, Don’t be like the Pharisee and think you are better than others. Be like the tax collector who knows how much he needs God. But it’s not that simple. The trouble is that there seems to be two conflicting messages. The parable wants us to be better than the Pharisee. But Jesus wants us to know that we are no better than anybody—not even Pharisees. How do we leave church this morning without thinking, “God, I thank you that I am not like that awful Pharisee.” The parable is confusing.
Maybe this parable is supposed to confuse us. I’ve given the title of this sermon: Taxisees and Pharollectors. Maybe we are supposed to listen to both prayers. Let’s take a look.

The Pharisee thanks God for making him good. There’s nothing wrong with that. Now, the Pharisee ends up going too far with his goodness and uses it to make himself look better than others. But much of the Pharisee’s prayer is valid.

Let us pray as the Pharisee prayed: A congregation went into the church to pray. “God, we thank you for giving us a faith, a church home to belong to and a relationship with you. Thank you for honest work that pays our bills and lets us use our skills for the good of others. Thank you God for sparing us from meaningless and emptiness. We are grateful that you give us with what we need to follow your way. We can see the fruits of our labor. We find fellowship with each other, community spirit, and a way to express our talents of carpentry and art at the Craft Centre. We are glad that we have the means to support our local businesses. We are grateful for the energy you give us that keeps events going at the Community Hall. Thank you for giving us warm hearts that move out into the community and visit the shut-ins at the Care Home, and the lonely and lost ones in their homes. In the name of Jesus we pray. Now the Pharisee’s “Thank You” prayer only goes so far and maybe that’s the problem Jesus has with it. God says, “You’re welcome. I’m glad you feel good.” But it needs to continue. Perhaps the tax collector’s prayer helps us to continue in our relationship with God through prayer.

And let us pray like the Tax Collector prayed: God, have mercy on us. We cannot survive here by ourselves. We are trying our best to hold things together and make them continue, but we need your help. We are afraid that more businesses will close and life as we know it will change yet again. We hardly know where to look for hope any more. We give you our fear and ask that you move it to faith.  Faith in possibility beyond comprehension. Help us to believe that even the smallest thing we do will make a huge difference here in rural Manitoba. We give you our anger and our rejection of all those people we look down on. You know who they are. We do not want our hope to be only in our survival or even our growth. We want our hope to be in what you can accomplish through us. We do not want to be preoccupied only in getting more people into the church. We want to be preoccupied in getting the church out into our communities and into the world. And we want to be excited about your mission as you call us out. We don’t want to look at new people and see identifiable givers or potential committee members. We want to welcome new people with a radical hospitality that sees only the face of Christ in all. God, have mercy on us, Help! In the name of Jesus we pray.

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector in this parable show us the two best prayers we could pray: Thank you, thank you, thank you. And help us, help us, help us. In Jesus’ name we pray.     AMEN