Have Mercy

sermon by Torin Eikler
Luke 18:9-14

Parables are tricky things. They can be hard to understand because they have deal with a whole knot of concepts all together, and they also speak to us in different ways at different times in our lives. That’s nothing new to most of us. We’ve probably all gotten lost in one before – gotten all tied up in that knot as we’ve tried to tease out the meaning. Sometimes, I just want to say, “Lord, have mercy.” But, I think that’s part of the reason that Jesus used them. They keep us coming back again and again as we pick at them and as they pick at us.

And they do pick at us, don’t they. They catch us out in ways that we could not have guessed before hearing them. We find ourselves led down an easy path and then we realize that there is no way back – that the nice, predictable story we’re hearing is really about us and we can’t get out of it without looking at ourselves and rewriting the main character. As one of my colleagues is fond of saying, “parables should come with a surgeon general’s note: warning…you are about to enter a trap.”

They are not for the faint of spirit, but they are wonderfully revealing mirrors once the fog has been cleared away.

So, let’s do a little wiping. There are some cultural details in the background of this parable that it might be helpful to understand. The presence of these two different men at prayer in the Temple would not have been all that uncommon. Twice a day the priests offered a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the chosen people. When they had finished the messy part, they threw handfuls of incense on the altar fire, and the prayers of those gathered in the Temple were carried to the ears of God on the rising plumes of smoke. On this particular day, there happened to be a Pharisee and a tax collector among the hundreds gathered for the ceremony.

Also, the fact that both the men were standing off away from the crowd had as much to do with socio-cultural concerns as it did with any spiritual attitude on their own parts. Pharisees tried to follow as many of the laws in the Torah as they could, and there was a real risk that these devout men would become unclean if they touched anyone in the crowd. Tax collectors, on the other hand, were servants of the empire who were considered to be turncoat collaborators. Nobody welcomed their presence. The crowd would have opened space around them no matter where they stood. I would stand at the back too if that was going to happen to me.

One last thing … the first and last verses we heard today were not really part of the parable. They are interpretive notes about its meaning. They can be helpful … but they can also limit the power of the parable and what it has to say to us. Listen again to the parable as it would have been told….

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went home justified rather than the other.


Is this a story about how we should pray? Should we pray standing with arms outstretched and eyes and voice raised to the heavens? Should we pray hunched over with eyes downcast, beating our chests? If we happened to look around during prayer one Sunday morning and saw someone praying either way, we would certainly be surprised. But most people prayed in just the same way the Pharisee did unless they were caught up in deep grief. Then, they assumed the position of the tax collector.

I don’t think this really about how we stand or sit or use our hands, and there is an old poem by Sam Walter Foss that shows us rather humorously how unimportant all that really is ….

"The proper way for man to pray,"
said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
"And the only proper attitude
is down upon his knees."

"No, I should say the way to pray,"
said Reverend Dr Wise,
"Is standing straight with outstretched arms,
and rapt & upturned eyes."

"Oh no, no, no!" said Elder Slow,
"such posture is too proud;
A man should pray with eyes fast closed,
and head contritely bowed."

"It seems to me his hands should be
austerely clasped in front,
With both thumbs pointing to the ground,"
said Reverend Dr Blunt.

"Las' year I fell in Hodgkin's well
head first," said Cyrus Brown.
"With both my heels a-stickin' up,
my head a-pointin' down;

"An' I made a prayer right then an' there,
best prayer I ever said.
The best darn prayer I ever prayed,
a-standin' on my head!"

I guess we should all pray in the upside down position…. But let’s go a little deeper because the parable does seem to have something to say about how we approach God when we pray. Even when we are not underwater, the attitude we have does matter.


I have heard teaching and preaching that tell me this story is all about the difference between pride and humility. Jesus was, just as Luke tells us, warning about the dangers of self-importance and self-righteousness and extolling the virtues of humility – of recognizing that we are all sinners who have fallen short. I think that’s a good point.

On the other hand, I don’t think it’s bad to have confidence in ourselves. We know that we are not perfect, but we also know that we are not entirely bad either. Our lives are a messy hodge-podge of sin and virtue, purity and corruption, innocence and guilt. To take the position that we have no good thing to celebrate is just as proud as claiming righteousness.

Still I find myself rankled by the Pharisee’s prayer. It’s less about himself and more about what he is not. It’s a prayer of comparison: “Thank you that I am not like other people,” and it feels judgmental and pretentious to me. There is no sense that he values those “other people” at all. To him they are worthless, having made unacceptable choices. And there is no sense of compassion or mercy because he could never put himself in their shoes. He wouldn’t even try.

The other prayer, though, the short, simple one by the tax collector is just as selfish. It’s all about him … but with one big difference. He is looking squarely at himself, not comparing himself to others. I get no sense of judgment from him, and there is certainly no pretension in his words. I don’t know if he would have compassion for others. His job certainly lent itself to indifference. But I get the sense that he could empathize with the struggles of others. It may be the conflict between doing his job and concern for others that led him to the Temple. Asking for mercy from God he may also have been longing for forgiveness from those he taxed as well.

Maybe… maybe not, but is it any wonder that the one who seemed to think he needed nothing from any of “those people” got nothing and the one who judged himself unworthy received mercy? That’s the nature of grace after all … isn’t it? It comes – just as Jesus did – to the lost ones. It takes more joy in the sinner who turns to God than in the ninety-nine devout, righteous people. But that leaves me wondering ….

Most of Jesus parables are explicitly or implicitly about the Kingdom of God, and the question of how we pray seems less germane – less relevant to that Kingdom. The question of justice and mercy though is a common theme. So what about that tax collector? What about the grace he received?


Imagine that you are in the Temple in Jerusalem and you see this story playing out in front of you. You know both the men involved. One is a nice, religious layman who lives down the street from you. He looks after his family well, keeps the 613 rules and gives over and above the required amount to satisfy his social and religious obligations. The other is the man who collects your taxes. Like everyone else, you despise him, but you are intrigued to see him beating his chest like a mother who has lost a child and asking God for mercy. You wonder what’s going on, but you are about to dismiss the sight as just another example of strange behavior from a man that everyone despises when you overhear Jesus telling his followers that the taxman is justified by God rather than the religious layman. It makes you think, and you leave the Temple pondering what, exactly, Jesus meant.

A week later, you are in the Temple again and the same two people are there. During the week, your neighbor continued his excellent behavior. He also paid for medical treatment of another neighbor’s sick son and arranged for a bag of wheat to be delivered to an elderly widow a couple of streets over.

You happened to know that the tax collector had added to his wealth during the week, making sure that the elderly widow handed over some of the wheat sent to her by the religious layman. And you noticed that he had a new chariot with a local prostitute inside waiting outside the Temple.

Now you’re curious. You leave off your own praying to watch the scene unfold, and … the same thing happens. The layman prays up front in the proper fashion. The taxman beats his chest and asks God for mercy.

You wonder, “What would Jesus make of that?”

Another week goes by, and you have paid special attention to the two men. You head back to the temple guessing they’ll both be there again. During the week, the Pharisee had taken his wife to visit her elderly mother and made sure there was enough firewood and food for the mother's comfort. He also hired two extra workers on his farm not because he needed them but because they needed some extra money in order to buy bread for their families.

The taxman gave back the wheat he had taken from the elderly widow and put some of his own money into an account on her behalf, BUT he still took advantage of the rest of the community, AND he arrived at the Temple in his chariot with a local prostitute again.

Once again Pharisee prayed his prayer and the taxman beat his chest and asked God for mercy.


What are you thinking? Are you questioning the tax collector’s sincerity? What if the saga continued – week after week, the Pharisee continued to live an exemplary life while the tax collector only does a few good things here and there? Do you think the tax collector’s prayer for mercy would continue to be answered? Would he continue to be justified – continue to be forgiven – continue to receive grace?

What do you think Jesus would say?


For myself, I think I would wonder. I think I would start to dismiss the prayers of the tax collector as a sham … a PR stunt, maybe, designed to make us all feel a little warmth toward him so that he could more easily rip us off. If he really meant those prayers, if he really received mercy like Jesus said, he would change his ways. He would start taking care of other people for real instead of just every once in awhile. He would stop seeing prostitutes and start living more like the Pharisee.

I would judge him unworthy of mercy, undeserving of grace. And what would Jesus say then?


What would that man who wielded the power of compassion, who taught about infinite forgiveness, who gave his life for the sake of unconditional love tell his followers about me?


Lord, have mercy.
And then have mercy.
And then have mercy again….