The son wrote back, "For heaven's sake, Dad, don't dig the garden up! That's where I buried the guns!" At 3am the very next morning, a dozen British soldiers turned up. They dug the garden for three hours, but didn't find any guns.
The man was confused. So he wrote to his son telling him all that had happened, and asking him what he should do now.
The son wrote back, "Now plant the potatoes!"
I wonder if you have ever been in a situation where you thought you'd been completely misunderstood. Later on you discover that the other person has heard and responded - better than you could ever have imagined!
Prayer can seem like that. The opening verses of this chapter (which we considered last week) reminded us to "pray and not give up" (Lk. 18.1). Too often we just don't pray - there's enough happening about us to make it likely that we will give up!
But perhaps we have tried all that and it doesn't seem to have "worked". The situation has remained as bleak as ever. We conclude that the fault is with prayer - it doesn't help anyway! Or - could it just possibly be that we haven't really prayed? That's one of the issues that Jesus lays squarely before us as he tells another story.
This story was directed to those "who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else" (v. 9). It's a story about two people as different in attitudes, lifestyle and praying as you could get. It has a surprise ending - for not all prayer leads to a positive relationship with God.
Jesus said, "Two men who went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector" (v. 10).
We need to understand the Pharisees. About three hundred years before Jesus' time, following the death of Alexander the Great, the Greek empire had been split into four. The four rulers were dedicated to continue the spread of Greek philosophy and religion throughout their region. From 175BC the ruler responsible for the area in which Palestine lay was Antiochus Epiphanes. He took severe action to eliminate Jewish religion, decreeing that sacrifice to the Greek gods must be offered in every Judean city and village. On the fifteenth day of the month Kislev (November/December) in 167BC, he had a pagan altar erected in the Temple in Jerusalem. There, on the twenty-fifth of the same month, the first sacrifice to Zeus was made. Any books of the Law that they found were torn to pieces and burned. Anyone found possessing the book of the covenant, or anyone who adhered to the Law, was condemned to death by decree of the king (see 1 Macc. 1).
Some Jews succombed to this Hellenising pressure. Others resisted and joined a Jewish revolt under the leadership of a family who became known as "the Maccabees" - the "hammerers". The zealots for the Law became known as the hasidim - the "loyal ones". They strongly opposed any abandoning of the Law of Moses. It appears that this movement split into two. One group, the Essenes, retreated from public life and established a community near the Dead Sea at Qumran. The other became the Pharisees - the "separated ones," a lay movement who took on themselves to be the keepers of public morality.
By Jesus' time the Jews were under Roman rule and had gained immunity as a religio licita - a legally recognised religion. They were not required to worship the Emperor as god. In a real sense, the actions of the Pharisees and their forebears had helped preserve public morality and the worship of the Lord. Later, with the expansion of the Christian movement, there was a measure of legal protection in the Roman empire for "followers of the Way" - at least until Jews began objecting to their being considered an offshoot of Judaism.
We need to understand the Pharisees. But none of this justifies the extreme attitudes and actions recorded of them. They made a great show of their religious zeal. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus called them "hypocrites" - play-actors. They made sure everyone saw them giving to the poor. They prayed in public places. They fasted so that others would note their piety. Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full" - they have successfully gained human attention and approval, but not the heavenly Father's reward (Mt. 6.1-18).
In the present passage, the Pharisee does all the right things. He stands to pray - like any good Jew. His prayer is in the form of thanksgiving. Yet he "stood up and prayed about himself" - or, as the footnote in the NIV suggests, "he stood up and prayed to himself". Though in a conspicuous place, the prayer is privately uttered. But in the other sense, it is prayer "to himself" - full of self-praise. He thanks God, yet doesn't acknowledge anything that God may have done for him - not even a recognition of the grace of God which has kept him from these particular sins, no thankful realisation that he hasn't faced temptation to these sins, and certainly no confession of his own sins in thought, word and action.
We react against Pharisaic attitudes and actions by congratulating ourselves that we are not like the Pharisees! We wouldn't pray like that - people would laugh at us if we did! Yet, knowing that confession is part of true prayer, we can cast our concern at the attitudes and actions of others in the form of a confession. You know how it goes? "God, we confess that there is such a spirit of unbelief in our denomination - so many who, by word and practice, deny the truth of the Scriptures. We confess that so much of our political and ecclesiastical leadership is more attuned to public opinion than to your opinion..." Have you ever confessed sin like that? Whenever we do, we are like the Pharisee - praying to ourselves and not to God.
The touch of the Pharisee too often enters our prayer requests. After all we have done in the church and community over so many years, God is obliged to listen to us.
"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'." (v. 13)
He stands to pray too, but he doesn't hold up his hands and gaze up to heaven. He "stood at a distance" - he hasn't come to draw attention to himself. He doesn't need the Pharisee to label him a sinner - he knows in his heart and conscience that he is. There is nothing symbolic about beating his breast - he is filled with genuine remorse for the life he has lived. He makes no special plea. He is "the sinner" - the original has the definite article. The sinner - no excuses, no special pleas, no mitigating circumstances.
Ray Stedman puts it this way, "Is it not remarkable that he does not try to add anything by way of merit? He does not say, 'God be merciful to me a penitent sinner.' He was penitent, but he does not urge that as any basis for God's blessing. He does not say, 'God be merciful to me a reformed sinner. I'm going to be different from now on.' I am sure he did do differently. I am sure he stopped his extortion and cheating and his improper reporting, but he does not say 'a reformed sinner'… He does not even say, 'God be merciful to me an honest sinner. Here I am, Lord, willing to tell you the whole thing. Surely you can't pass by honesty like that.' In fact, he does not even say, 'God be merciful to me a praying sinner.' He casts it all away. He says, 'Lord, I haven't a thing to lean on but you'." (Sermon, The Nature of Prayer)
God looks at the heart. Prayer is communion with God at the very deepest level. It is not a question of whether the words we use are lofty or simple, from the prayer-book or extemporaneous… God sees the heart. "I tell you," said Jesus, "that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God." And he added, "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (v. 14).
Paul could write that he was "circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ" (Phil. 3.5-7).
Much later, writing to Timothy, he said, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life" (1 Tim. 1.15-16).
Even a person brought up a Pharisee - one who has not consciously gone about breaking the Law, one who honestly believes him-/herself to be "faultless" - can discover within him-/herself "the worst of sinners" and, in so doing, receive the abundant grace of God. No one need be excluded.
This converted Pharisee wrote to the Romans, "This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Rom. 3.22-24).
Our focus over the past three months has been on prayer. Last week I presented the challenge of a "Covenant of Prayer."
How have you been going? Have you begun by reaffirming your faith in Jesus Christ as your Saviour and Lord? Have you committed yourself to a regular practice of prayer and the study of God's Word, the Bible? And have you committed yourself to the worship, life and witness of this congregation of God's people?
And what about those specific people? Have you covenanted to pray each day for a couple of regular members of our congregation and to encourage them in their faith and life? And also to pray each day for some people not presently a believing and active part of our church life and to seek opportunity to offer friendship?
How's it going? God knows - and it will become evident over time.
It is important that we continue to encourage one another -
Sri Lankan Christian leader, D.T. Niles, said that evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where there is bread.
God puts right with himself the people who know they haven't got it right and come to him for forgiveness and help. Let's spread the word!
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