In the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, our Lord teaches a simple truth that makes no sense whatsoever to the sinful mind. The evil man—the one who was not only a traitor to his own people as he worked for the hated Romans who occupied their land, but who also stole from them by charging more than was required and pocketing the excess to make himself rich—God justified. He declared him not guilty of sin, which means that the kingdom of heaven was opened to him.

In contrast, the good man—the one who dedicated his entire life to keeping the laws which God gave his Old Testament people on Mount Sinai, who fasted not just at God-appointed times but twice a week, avoided many sins prevalent in his society, and gave a tenth of all he possessed—God did not justify. So he remained in his sins and was condemned to hell.

Do you see what I mean by making no sense? The “good” man is sentenced to burn in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels, while the “bad” man is forgiven and welcomed to live in blessed and eternal communion with his God. How can He who is holy allow it to be this way? He doesn’t. To those who know neither man’s sinful state nor God’s grace, Jesus’ parable may appear that He does. But what is it people say about appearances? They can be deceiving.

It is true that the tax collector didn’t deserve to be justified, but then, neither did this Pharisee. Listen carefully to the prayer he prayed in the temple court, and you will see that though he appeared to be good outwardly, he in his heart had no respect whatsoever for God’s holy Law. This Law demands that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. But the Pharisee’s prayer revealed that the one he truly loved was himself: “I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.” How similar his prayer was to the prayers and hymns frequently offered in “happy, clappy praise worship” today.

The Law also demands that our love for God be revealed in the love we show our neighbor. But void of love for God, this Pharisee expressed no love toward others either: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.” So proud was he of himself that he could do nothing but despise his neighbor, whom he regarded as far less pious and therefore far less deserving of God’s favor than he.

Now, do not think Jesus’ parable is only a story about two men who didn’t really exist anyway. We actually see the ungodly characteristics of this Pharisee in Cain, the first child born into this world. Though he believed in God, as did the Pharisee, he loved himself more than God. He revealed this not in prayer, but in his sacrifice. He offered it not out of love for what God promised to do for him, but to show God how worthy he was of blessings. And when God rejected his profane sacrifice, his anger over what he perceived as unfairness moved him to murder his brother in jealousy.

Let that be a warning to you, for whom these things were written. Do not exalt yourself by foolishly comparing your supposedly good deeds to the sins of others, concluding that you are better, as did this Pharisee. And do not think so highly of yourself that you become deeply offended when the Lord, through the preaching of His Law, reveals your sins, as did Cain. For the Lord’s warning is clear: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.” He who trusts in his own merits to gain favor with God will be judged as sinful and condemned. But “he who humbles himself will be exalted.” And that brings us now to the tax collector.

No one who believes what God in His Law decrees will excuse his sinful life with the absurd statement that a loving God would never send anyone to a place of suffering like hell, and then try to justify that lie with the equally absurd claim, “God hates the sin, but loves the sinner.” It’s not the sin God condemns to everlasting punishment, is it? It’s the sinner. Though our culture excuses—and in many cases accepts and even defends—acts of wickedness, violence, and sexual perversion, what God labeled as sin in the past, He still regards as sin today, and He condemns those who refuse to repent to suffer with this self-righteous Pharisee in hell.

But returning now to the tax collector, it’s not just our Lord who viewed his life as worthy of damnation. Even more remarkable, that’s how he viewed it as well. Look at his shame. He stood off in a corner of the temple court, too embarrassed to have others see him. He would not even look up to heaven, for he knew full well what he deserved from God, but instead beat his breast, a Jewish sign of shock and horror.

Yet his shame, great as it was, did not turn into despair. Blessed by the Holy Spirit through the Word he heard, he believed that this holy God was also a merciful God, who not only desired his salvation but promised to send a Savior into the world to merit it for him. So he prayed in faith, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And God was merciful to him, as he went down to his house justified—not because he felt shame, nor because he prayed, indeed, not by anything he felt, said, or did, but freely by God’s grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Again, we see this played out in real life. Unlike Cain’s, God accepted the sacrifice of his brother Abel, who “by faith offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness he was righteous.” Abel’s sacrifice was a confession of faith in what God promised to do for him. He gave what he did not to obtain favor with God, as did his brother, but because he believed God’s promise that the Woman’s Seed would crush the serpent’s head, even though the serpent would strike His heel.

And as ones who also believe that they are justified not by works, lest they should boast, but by the bloody Sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son on the altar of the cross, I now invite you to come up to this Altar to feast on that Sacrifice as a blessed Sacrament for the forgiveness of your sins. For he whose sins are forgiven is justified in God’s sight, and therefore as welcome as this repentant tax collector to enter the kingdom of heaven.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen