Luke 18:9-14

Do you know of a perfect church-goer? There are many Christians I admire for all the love they show to hospital patients and all kinds of needy people. Yet these people are the first to admit their imperfections and short-comings. Just like in today’s parable, we learn of two different kinds of people in God’s House; so too our churches are made up of all kinds of imperfect men and women. Our churches are like hospitals, helping sinners receive help and healing for their sins. Church-goers are often referred to as “a mob of hypocrites”. Sadly, those who say that often have faults of their own, faults to which they’re often quite blind.

There is no shortage of Pharisees in today’s world. Perhaps, there’s a bit of Pharisee in each of us. Whenever we’re tempted to criticize someone else, we need to say: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” It’s always wrong to compare ourselves with other people around us because we don’t know what difficulties they have to deal with in their private lives. Criticising others blinds us to our own faults. That’s why Jesus says to us that we should first remove the log in our own eye before speaking to someone else about the speck in their eye.

When we study the lives of the saints, we see they have these things in common – they’re kind to everyone and they remind us of Jesus. Despite being aware of their sin and need for God’s grace and mercy, they radiate goodness and gratitude. Jesus is the only example they point to, as they pray to be free of hypocrisy. Hypocrites, however, consider their actions and comments to be well intended. But the good they intend so often does more harm than good. It’s quite dangerous to think that “at least I’m not like the Pharisee in today’s parable.”

This morning’s parable is the only one told by Jesus that takes place in the temple. Most of Jesus’ other parables take place in everyday situations. Jesus tells this parable to those people who thought they were better than others and who looked down on everyone else. A rabbi called Simeon ben Jochai (jock-eye) said, “If there are only two righteous people in the world, I and my son are these two; if there is only one, I am he.” Jesus’ audience would have recognised that what the Pharisee said was true. He really had done many good deeds, doing way more than was expected. He had committed no crime. He represented what many Jews thought was good about their religious community.

You see, the Pharisees did a lot of good for their religion. Their problem was that, considering themselves to be better than others, they kept to themselves so that their practice of their religion couldn’t be contaminated. The Pharisee in the temple stands apart from others and prays aloud so that others can hear all the “good” things he has done. He’s talking to himself about himself, as he congratulates himself on what a good job he has done.

The word “I” occurs five times in this prayer. He gives thanks for what he is and not for who God is, for what God has given to him, and worked through him. He asks for nothing from God, not even for God’s mercy. His prayer is all about how great he is, and not about how great God is. He fasts and tithes more of his income than is suggested. He’s pleased that he is so much better than other sinners like the tax collector nearby. He expects to leave God’s House confirmed in his own estimation of himself as a righteous person.

God, however, thinks otherwise.

Meanwhile, the tax official’s body language speaks volumes about how he views himself. He makes himself as inconspicuous as possible with his face cast downwards. He realises what a rotter he is. He makes no excuses for what he has done. He doesn’t seek to justify himself in any way. In his confession, he speaks as if he is the only sinner on earth. Echoing the opening words of Psalm 51, he throws himself totally on God’s mercy when he says, “God, be merciful to me, THE sinner”.

It was rare in Jesus’ time for a man to beat his chest. But this loathed tax official is so overcome by all the wrong he has done that he beats his chest where his heart is, at the source of the sins he now so bitterly regrets. There is only one person whose sins he is concerned about and that’s his own. He acknowledges that God’s verdict on him up to now is just. The only thing that can help him and make a new future possible is God’s great mercy. The word he uses for mercy means “to make atonement for my sins”. He has come to the temple where atonement for sins is made by God.

Now there is no prayer that thrills God more than “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”. There’s no more welcome statement about our merciful Lord than “the mercies of the Lord are new every morning”. This means that each new day you can make a new start in your relationship with God, because what God forgives, God forgets.

A man named Christian was worried about his friend Jim. Jim was always so hard on himself. He blamed himself for everything. He told Christian he felt guilty for not caring for his family as well as he should have, guilty for not spending as much time with his children as he should have, guilty for not being as successful at work as he should have. The load of guilt he carried affected his sense of well-being, as well as his relationships with others. Christian didn’t know how to help him. One day as he read the Letter to the Romans in his Bible, he realized. He read of how we’re justified, that is, put right with God, by what Christ has done for us. This means that no further charge can be brought against God’s people because the verdict of “not guilty” has been pronounced over them (Romans 5:11). Immediately, Christian thought of Jim. He couldn’t wait to tell his friend that in God’s eyes, he wasn’t guilty. Jesus had taken Jim’s guilt on Himself. Through faith in Christ, we’re declared no longer guilty. We read in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

The closer we are to God, the more we’re aware of our sinfulness. God welcomes the broken-hearted who have no one else to go to but Him. That’s why we sing to Jesus our Saviour, 

          Nothing in my hand I bring

          Simply to Your cross I cling.

In telling us this parable, Jesus is pointing to what He will do for us on Good Friday when He paid the price for our sins so that we might be free of them.

This parable, like many of our Saviour’s other parables, had an unexpected conclusion that would have shocked His listeners. They would have thought that the Pharisee and not the tax collector merited God’s approval. Jesus reverses their expectations, in that someone considered the lowest of the low, with no righteousness of his own, is put right with God by grace alone. The Pharisee asked for nothing from God and got nothing; the tax collector received all he asked for: God’s unmerited mercy!

Today’s parable asks each one of us who we identify with. There may be something of both the Pharisee and the tax collector in most of us. Salvation through faith in Jesus Christ eliminates every idea of spiritual superiority by any of us. Instead of any feelings of spiritual superiority, we thank God for all our fellow Christians and all the good things they do for God behind the scenes, things only God knows about.

In gratitude for the fact that the mercy of the Lord is new every day, we eagerly do what our Lord encourages us to do. He encourages us to “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and what mercy the Lord has shown you (Mark 5:19).”

Our hymn 317 sums up so well the message in today’s Gospel:

          On God’s grace we have no claim / Yet to us His pledge is given;

          He hath sworn by His own name / Open are the gates of heaven.

          Take to heart this word, and live / Jesus sinners doth receive.

We pray:
Merciful God, help us to be more like Jesus and less like the Pharisees, day by day, as long as we live. Amen.

Luke 18:1-8

‘Then Jesus told his disciples a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray, and not to lose heart.’ v 1

Do you ever lose heart in your life of faith?

Do you ever grow weary in the practice of prayer?

What sorts of things cause this to happen for you?

Perhaps when prayers go seemingly unanswered… 

Perhaps when God seems far away or indifferent…

Perhaps in your day to day life when you feel isolated as a Christian and that no one else around you bothers with God…

Perhaps when you feel the weight of sin and shame and so feel unworthy to pray…

Perhaps when life simply wears you down…

All these and more can tempt us to ‘lose heart’, to give up on the faith, to grow weary in prayer.

And if this is you, when this is you, here’s a word of encouragement from your Lord not to lose heart, but to keep the faith, to keep praying. 

Notice that Jesus assumes we will sometimes feel like this. The temptation to lose heart isn’t a sign we’re not a real Christian or anything like that. It’s almost the opposite. Jesus assumes this will be the experience of his disciples.

That’s why he wants to speak into this experience, to encourage and help you.

His parable does this in two very simple ways: by reminding us who God is, and who we are.

Who God is, and who we are.

Let’s take a closer look at it.

THE PARABLE – JUDGE AND WIDOW

‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people’ v 2.

So in short, this guy is a real piece of work. He’s in a position of significant responsibility where he is supposed to arbitrate justice on God’s behalf, and for the sake of God’s people…

But he doesn’t care about God, to whom he is accountable, or about people, who he is there to help.

He’s interested only in number one. Pure self-interest.

So there’s the judge.

‘In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent”’. v 3

So on the one hand you have the judge in his position of responsibility, power and influence, on the other hand you have the widow,

A picture of the little person in the community, the vulnerable one, the one who is basically in a position of helplessness.

She has no money and resources to use, she’s on her own, she has no one to advocate for her, she has no great status in society or relationship with the judge.

She’s in a desperate and somewhat hopeless situation.

Even in our modern times we may be able to resonate with the situation.

It’s often still the case that the vulnerable, those without the necessary resources, have more trouble getting justice. 

And yet even in this seemingly hopeless situation, eventually the unjust judge does give her justice. 

Why?

Well the judge says, ‘because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, So that she may not wear me out by continually coming’.

The one resource she does have is persistence. Annoying persistence. And the judge is so sick of this he is ready to do anything just to get it off his radar.

And it has the ring of truth doesn’t it?

‘The squeaky wheel gets the grease’, we say. 

You parents know you sometimes give your kids things you shouldn’t because you just want them to leave you alone for a few moment’s peace!

This is the way it is, isn’t it?

This is the parable, fairly straight forward really.

But what does it mean?

What does it teach us?

How does it encourage us to keep praying when we lose heart?

We need to be careful here not to jump to our conclusions from this parable, but rather listen very carefully to how Jesus applies it, because he is most emphatically not saying that God is like this judge, and if you just pester him enough you’ll get what you want.

That is not what Jesus is saying here.

Indeed he wants to encourage us to keep praying always, but the big point is to use this judge and widow as a contrast to us, to remind us that actually God is nothing like this judge, and our relationship to him is far more than this judge to the widow.  

THE APPLICATION – WHO GOD IS, WHO WE ARE

So the parable goes on in verse 6,

‘And the Lord said, “listen to what the unjust judge says”’… (v 6)

In other words, did you hear what this unjust judge said in the parable?

He said that even though he is so crooked and uncaring, he’s going to hear this widow’s request and give her justice.

And so here’s the punchline, ‘Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them’.

So the point isn’t that God is like this grumpy unjust judge and we need to wear him down so he’ll give us what we want. 

The point is that if even this unjust judge, who is completely selfish, who cares nothing for the widow, who has no particular relationship to the widow, if even he will give her justice…

then HOW MUCH MORE, how much more, will your perfectly just and righteous, all loving and compassionate God, who does care for the people he has chosen as his very own, how much more will your God hear your prayers,

and bring justice to you?

That’s the big point of the parable, to remind you of who God is.

It’s very much a parallel from a few chapters earlier in Luke’s Gospel when Jesus said: ‘If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children,

How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him’.

So that’s who God is.

But remember I said the parable also reminds us who we are in relation to God.

Who are you?

Well you’re not just another case on the to-do list, you are not an insignificant number to him.

The text speaks of his chosen ones, his elect. In other words, unlike the widow, you do have a special status with God, you do have a particular relationship to him, he has chosen you to be his own,

He has chosen you from before the foundation of the world to be holy and righteous in his sight.   

Your God is not unjust, he is not indifferent, he is not hard to access,

God has chosen you, he loves you, he cares for you, he is with you and ready to hear you, he wants good for you.

And through this Word your Lord wants to remind you of this, and the Holy Spirit wants to drive that truth deeper into your heart and mind. Because as he does you will be encouraged to pray always and not to give up.

WHO WE ARE IN COMMUNITY

But notice something else about ‘who you are’, namely that you’re chosen as part of a community rather than just as an individual. 

Did you notice in the parable it was one widow, but in the application Jesus speaks not about an individual, but of the ‘chosen ones’ plural.

Jesus wants all his disciples together to be praying always.

Notice too this mention of crying out ‘day and night’ which I think points us to this same truth. Because in the Bible praying ‘day and night’ may mean something more like ‘in the morning’ and ‘in the evening’, which goes right back to the morning and evening sacrifices at the Temple,

In other words ‘day and night’ can point us to a regular, ongoing communal rhythm of prayer.

This is what you’re doing here this morning, as you gather in God’s presence and pray, as we pray for the church, the world and all those in need, and as you add your ‘amens’ to the prayers we bring. 

Historically and traditionally the Sunday gathering of the church has flowed into times of morning and evening prayer in the Christian community. That’s not so common in our Lutheran tradition these days. Perhaps all that might be left of this is the Mid-week Lenten services, or a Sunday evening prayer service.

And actually Luther’s rhythm of morning and evening prayer is just another extension of this for the family. 

So perhaps this is encouragement is to be part of a praying community.

This means it doesn’t all rely on you, the individual.

You are part of something bigger.

The prayers of others can carry you along when you’re losing heart, and vice versa.

In fact we often learn to pray by being in the praying community of the church and the family.

Here’s a hymn that prays:

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,

The darkness falls at Thy behest;

To Thee our morning hymns ascended,

Thy praise shall sanctify our rest.

(It’s number 549 if you want to look it up.)

In that hymn it pictures the church in one part of the world finishing her prayers and going to sleep, as the church in another part of the world wakes up and continues the vigil of prayer, as the world rolls around. 

It’s a beautiful picture. It’s an encouraging reality, to know that while I sleep the saints of God on the other side of the world continue crying out to God,

And so together as a body we are praying always, according to Jesus’ promise that God will bring us justice quickly.

CONCLUSION – WILL HE FIND FAITH ON THE EARTH?

Now, as we begin to draw to a close, it is important to say that the justice God brings may not always look like what we think it should. He promises to bring justice, but not on our terms.

Ultimately it’s always, ‘not my will, but yours be done’.

And it’s also worth remembering that our sense of things happening ‘quickly’ may be very different from God’s.

But after Jesus gave this teaching there was one thing that did happen quickly, and that is that Jesus went to the cross.

Which is ultimately how you know God is faithful to his promises, that he does hear the cries of his people day and night, because it’s at the cross where God has brought justice to you, his people, once and for all.

God has sent his Son to take on himself our unrighteousness, and in exchange to give us his perfect righteousness.

God puts things right for us in Jesus’ death and resurrection,

God brings us justice for Christ’s sake.

So, ‘When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?’

Jesus began by saying he was encouraging his disciples to keep on praying and not to lose heart. Now he ends by asking:

Will it happen?

Will his chosen ones give up?

Will they persevere in prayer?

Will faith be found on earth when he comes again?

In light of all we’ve just said, how do we hear this final question?

First, it’s a challenge of sorts, a final word of strong encouragement.

Christ is coming back to judge the world and take his own to be with him.

And he wants, he expects, to find his people waiting in watchful, patient, ongoing prayer.

But then as well, this question can cause us to rejoice.

Because even though so many times in history it has seemed as if people were giving up on God, if Jesus returned today what would he find?

He’d find faith on the earth. He would find faithful praying communities all over the world, even here in our congregation

I don’t about you but I still get a buzz to go to a new place and visit a new congregation, and to find a community of chosen ones crying out to God day and night, a community who hasn’t lost heart, a community of ongoing prayer.

God grant it to us all, in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Luke 17:11-19

What’s the best feeling you’ve ever experienced?

Could you endorse those Christians who say that feeling grateful for the gift of life is the best?

It’s wonderful to be thanked for what you’ve done for someone else, even though we don’t do it for acknowledgement.

It’s uplifting to be appreciated and not taken for granted.

It’s sad that many people who help us in our daily lives like doctors and teachers often go unthanked because people feel they’re “just doing their job”. It’s expected of them.

When we really understand the cost of God’s grace to us and appreciate the huge impact it has on our lives, our response can only be gratitude, gratitude that we show every day of our lives. The greatest danger we face as Christians is to take God’s grace for granted. The spiritual life of many Christians is impoverished because they give too little place to verbally giving thanks. It’s been said that our eagerness to give thanks is a barometer of our spiritual health. Doubt often begins the first time we think that expressing thanks to God or a family member or friend is superfluous. Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues; it is the parent of every other virtue.

We all have many more things to be thankful for to God than to complain of. Why, then, isn’t gratitude so much more common than complaint? A computer thesaurus lists only seven alternatives for the verb “to thank”, but 19 possibilities for “to complain”! Humans have many ways of showing grumpiness, but aren’t so skilled at expressing appreciation. Today’s Gospel suggests that giving thanks isn’t as common as it ought to be, and we are the poorer for it. This morning’s account of the grateful Samaritan highlights the fact that often the most unlikely people are the most grateful. Often those who have much less reason to be thankful are the ones who show gratitude; they’re thankful just to be alive, to have a caring family and friends, and food on the table, things that we so often take for granted.

We can’t imagine how wonderful it must have been to be cured of the dreaded disease of leprosy. Why, then, did only one of the ten lepers return to thank Jesus for the gift of healing? A Samaritan would have been the last person expected to go out of his way to thank his Jewish healer. But then, there was no one who cared more for people who others avoided, like the Samaritans, than Jesus.

The ten lepers in this morning’s Gospel had no doubt heard how Jesus had compassion on other outcasts and healed them. Stories about how our Lord Jesus cared for those no one else cared for spread like wildfire. So when these lepers see Jesus in the distance, they saw in Him their only hope for a better future. They cry out from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Jesus, in humility, directs the lepers to the health inspectors of the time, the priests. Jesus puts their faith to the test by asking them to act as if they’ve been already cured. Obedience to Jesus precedes their healing

Now that they are healed, nine of them are all too absorbed in their joy at being healthy again to bother going out of their way to thank their Healer. They’d experienced God’s mercy, but failed to see how amazing and astonishing it is. We need to continually seek God’s mercy as long as we live. There’s no better prayer we can pray every day than “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” God’s mercy is something we can never take for granted, but can only be received with lifelong gratitude. For “the mercies of the Lord are new every day (Lamentations 3:22).” “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).”

We can easily think of reasons why these nine lepers fail to thank Jesus for the mercy He has shown to them. By failing to thank our Lord for His grace and mercy, they miss out on an even greater blessing than the Samaritan alone receives, that is, the assurance that his faith has led to his salvation. The ungrateful nine felt they had more urgent things to do, like businesses to return to, and family and friends to see again. They treasured the gift more than the Giver. Failure to show gratitude means “biting the hand that feeds you.” An outsider, a Samaritan, puts God’s people to shame.

This Samaritan leper is also a “good” Samaritan in the deepest sense of the word. He knows that “It is good to give thanks to the Lord (Psalm 92:1).” He shows his gratitude publicly, not in a temple or synagogue, but to God in the person of His Son Jesus. The Samaritan worships and praises God at the feet of our Lord. He sees Jesus as much more than a miracle-worker. He sees Jesus as God in human form, who is worthy of praise of thanksgiving. He is grateful to the Giver, not just for the gift itself. His gratitude brings the wonderful blessing Jesus initiated to a glorious completion.

Unless we show gratitude as soon as possible, we’re unlikely to show it at all. By immediately returning to show our Lord his gratefulness, the Samaritan receives so much more than he originally asked for. He is made whole, that is, he is saved through his faith. Jesus says to him, “Rise and go, your faith has saved you.”

Gratitude is a celebration of the bond that unites giver and receiver. We taste the goodness of God’s gifts to us twice over when we delight in thanking Him for all that He has given us. Thanking God for all good things, great and small, takes the focus from ourselves and puts it onto God. Anything that takes the focus from ourselves is healthy.

Gratitude deepens our sense of dependence on God for life, protection and love. Gratitude dissipates discontent and increases our contentment with all we have already received from God.

As we grow in gratitude, we will discover God’s blessings in the most unexpected places. We may find that some of the things we thought were liabilities and limitations are really blessings in disguise. Grateful people are perhaps more open to recognising and receiving new and deeper blessings.

In one of the classic graces we pray before meals we say “For what we’re about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.” You see, in the New Testament, God is also thanked for future blessings as well as past and present blessings. Week by week, God blesses us in ways we often don’t see at the time.

In retrospect, we might see how tough times we’ve experienced have become blessings in disguise, as they’ve drawn us closer to God. Gratitude is enhanced rather than diminished by lavishing it on everyday blessings.

We can thank God for everything that’s been going right in our lives.

We can express our gratitude for all the parts of our bodies that are healthy and functioning well.

Thank God that your car brought you safely here to worship this morning and has taken you safely to and from home each day this week.

Thank God for everyone worshipping with you here today.

Thank God for every fellow Christian who has enriched your life in one way or another.

Thank God for everyone who has shown you love in one way or another, and for those who have been grateful to you for the love you’ve shown them.

Jesus interprets acts of thanksgiving as expressions of love for Him. Love and thanks are two sides of the one coin.

There was once a grandmother who said “Thank You, God; thank You, God” at least a hundred times a day. God helps us all to grow in gratitude the longer we’re on this earth. The true test of joy is gratitude. It’s not how much you have that brings you happiness, but how much you’re grateful for what you do have. Gratitude is the shortest, surest way to joy. May God’s grace never stop inspiring gratitude in you.

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above:

then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all His love.

 

Amen.