Last Sunday I took my 4yo daughter to her new Sunday school class (new because she’s been promoted from the younger group), and they were looking at the story of the pharisee and the tax collector. And I learnt something – well, saw something incredibly obvious that I hadn’t really thought about before: The underdog, whom Jesus says went home “justified before God” was the rich guy. The rich guy in league with the Romans. That had never hit me before: I’ve always pictured that guy as the poor, oppressed one, whose humble approach is better than the highly-esteemed pharisee. But it’s a more provocative picture than that: It wouldn’t work as a movie, because it’s not heart-warming. It’s a challenge to accept that God freely accepts ANYONE who comes to him in heartfelt repentant humility… even those we might smugly dismiss as more worldly than ourselves.
The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
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Huh. Never noticed that. Crazy.
Yeah… I think I should do less assuming and more listening when it comes to the Gospels!
hey this is an assumption – tax collectors usually collected taxes for local rulers eg Herod Antipas in Galilee, a client King who would pay taxes to Rome but individual tax collectors weren’t directly in league with the Romans and they weren’t necessarily rich.
Yeah that’s true – but the stereotype (especially in opposition to a Pharisee) is of someone who has sold out
Rich, yes, but I think that an appropriate point of contact (to capture the sort of disgust with which these ’sell-outs’ were treated) is to imagine the tax collector being treated the same way in which people in our culture might treat a wealthy person who helps to fund Al Qaeda.
Yep, that’s a good parallel. If you think of the Psalms of Solomon or 1-2 Maccabees, those who sell out to the foreign power are treated as the cause of God’s judgement on Israel. I think the stereotype of the “tax-collector” in Jesus’ parable is designed to be thought of in that way…. it’s astonishing that such a person might go home “justified before God” rather than a Pharisee.
What is equally astonishing is how few of the people Jesus proclaimed as “justified before God” are welcomed into our churches.
That’s a challenging thought. Jesus is so unceasingly provocative!