PARABLES OF CHRIST
THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN
DR. JIM DIXON”
LUKE 18:9-14
OCTOBER 11, 1998
Pharisees and publicans hated each other and yet there was a sense in which they were the same. Both Pharisees and publicans were servants of the law. Now, Pharisees were servants of the Jewish law. They were the custodians of the Pentateuch, the Torah, the Decalogue. They were extremely religious, and they were sometimes self-righteous and therefore sometimes condemned by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, publicans were servants of the Roman law. In fact, the word publican is a Roman word. It is a Latin word, and the publican was the name of the Roman treasury. All of those who served the Roman treasury through taxation were called publicanai. Amongst the publicana there were many ranks, many levels of authority. The highest-ranking publicans were Roman citizens who lived in the city of Rome, but the lesser or the lowest ranking publicans were those who were called “portotaurez.” They collected taxes in the Roman provinces, and they tended to be native to the province in which they served. So, in Israel, the portotaurae, the publicans, were Jews. They were Jews who collected taxes from their fellow Jews and then sent money back to Rome to the oppressors of the Jews. The publicans, therefore, were hated by their Jewish brothers and sisters.
The Greek word for the portotaurez, for these publicans that ministered in the provinces of the Jews was the word “tolonai” and this is the word Jesus uses in this parable of the Pharisee and the publican. A lot of people think that this parable has primarily to do with prayer but that is not true. The setting is the context of prayer, but this parable is not primarily about the subject of prayer. It’s about two other subjects. First of all, this parable focuses on the subject of pride. This morning God wants us to examine our hearts and see if we have any pride.
In the year 1872, there was a presidential election here in the United States. In that year, 1872, there were three candidates for the presidency. The Republican candidate was Ulysses S. Grant. He was the incumbent, but his candidacy was weakened because his prior administration had been accused of corruption, and Grant, himself, had been accused of alcoholism. Now, the Democratic candidate was a man whose name was Horace Greeley. Horace Greeley was the Editor of the New York Tribune. He made famous, he popularized, the slogan, “Go West, Young Man, Go West,” a slogan which had first appeared in an Indiana newspaper in 1851.
The candidacy of Horace Greeley was weakened because Greeley was so liberal. He was really a Socialist and he advocated communal living. In fact, he established a commune right here in the state of Colorado which he called the Union Colony. Of course, today that colony, established by Horace Greeley, is called Greeley, Colorado, named after Horace Greeley. Now, there was a third candidate for the presidency in 1872. This third candidate was an independent candidate. His name was George Francis Trane. George Francis Trane was a multimillionaire. His claim to fame was that he had traveled the world. He had circled the world, traveled around the world, faster than any other human being. In fact, Jules Verne wrote his novel, “Around the World in Eighty Days,” and he based it on the travels of George Francis Trane.
George Francis Trane was a great orator. He loved to speak, and people loved to hear him speak. When he ran for the presidency, incredibly, he charged admission to his speeches as he went around the country. He’s the only man in the history of the United States to make money off of running for the presidency of the United States. Now, historians tell us that George Francis Trane really had no ideology. He had no political philosophy. He had no purpose in attaining the presidency. He simply loved ascendancy. He simply wanted to be politically exalted. He simply loved the idea of being president. He always sought self-exaltation.
Of course, God only knows what the motives of Greeley and Grant were, but psychologists tell us that throughout history there have been many people who have sought political office out of a desire for ascendancy. The concept of ascendancy is at the core of the meaning of the word pride. To be a prideful person means that you seek ascendancy. Maybe openly. Maybe subtlety. But if you have pride, you seek ascendancy, and indeed all of the Greek words in the New Testament for pride are ascendancy words. From the word “hupsoo” which means “to lift up” to the word “hupereuphainos” which means “to appear over.” Those who have pride seek ascendancy in some form or some fashion.
God would ask us this morning, “Do you seek ascendancy? Is there any sense in which you seek to exalt yourself? Is there any sense in which I seek to exalt myself?” This is the essence of pride. Of course, pride is in all arenas of life, not just the political arena. There is pride in the religious world, and there is pride in the spiritual arena.
The year was 390 AD when a man named Simeon was born in Salacia. Simeon was born into a shepherd family. He tended flocks until he was 13 years old. At the age of 13, Simeon heard a sermon on the Beatitudes, and he resolved that he wanted to be poor in spirit. He resolved that he wanted to be meek. He resolved that he wanted to be righteous. In fact, he resolved that he wanted to be the meekest man in the world. He wanted to be the most righteous man in the world.
Simeon joined a group of monastics. He went out into the Syrian desert with chains around his ankles and he became an ascetic, thinking that self-denial would make him pious. He moved around out there in the Syrian desert with chains around his ankles, joined by other monastics. Then he decided that that was not enough and so buried in the desert sand with the sand up to his neck. The other monastics fed him, and he remained in that condition for three months, somehow surviving. But others had done those things before, and if he wanted to be the meekest man on the earth… If he wanted to be the most righteous and the most spiritual, then he needed to find something new, and so Simeon came up with a whole new form of self-denial. He decided to live on the top of a pillar. At first, he built a little platform on the top of the pillar that was only six feet high. People were not very impressed, and so he built a higher pillar. He put a platform on the top of a 60-foot pillar. I know you find this hard to believe, but he lived on top of that pillar for 30 years. He died in the year 459 at the age of 69.
He lived on that pillar on a small platform, bound there by chains and ropes. People ascended a rope ladder to give him his food and they took his waste down by that same ladder. Crowds gathered by the thousands and Simeon loved that. He would preach to them as he sat on his pillar. It was a kind of pillar piety. Of course, strangely enough, he became a saint. Church historians began to refer to him as St. Simeon Stylites. Of course, it is a fact of ecclesiastical history that for the next thousand years, from the 5th century all the way through the 15 century, there continued to be pillar sitters, those who came in the mode of Simeon, those who sought piety by living on top of a pillar. What was it all about? I mean, Christians actually did that for a thousand years. What was that all about? I was all about spiritual pride, wanting to appear more spiritual, more self-sacrificial, more self-abasing than any other person.
Of course, that is a little bit like the Pharisees. They had a kind of pillar piety. They loved to march around the city of Jerusalem and throughout the Middle East, exhibiting their spirituality, praying in public, fasting with long faces. As Jesus describes the Pharisee in this parable, the Pharisee goes into the temple in Jerusalem and he actually stands before God and he says, “God, I thank you that I’m not like other people, extortioners, unjust adulterers.” He felt morally superior. Indeed, in a sense, he was morally superior, but it was not a truly spiritual morality because his morality was not based on love of God. His morality was based on love of self and a desire to be better than others and to look better than others and to feel self-righteous. His morality was not based on a love of God and a desire to please and serve God. He also felt religiously superior, this Pharisee. He said, “I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I have.” I mean he was religiously superior.
The Bible tells us that there are times when we should fast, and the Bible tells us that we are all commanded to tithe as a minimal standard of giving amongst the people of God. But our fasting and our tithes should be motivated by a love of God and a desire to serve God. There should be no motive of wanting to be better than others or look better than others. There should not be the motive of self-righteousness. There needs always to be an awareness of a desperate need for God’s grace. This Pharisee in his self-righteousness was condemned.
I think pride is a very difficult thing. I think that there are a lot of people throughout history who have struggled with pride. In all honesty, there is some pride in each of us here today. There is some pride in each of us here today. I’m reminded of the old story of a guy who was one of the most famous preachers in the United States, Dr. Harry Ironside. Maybe you’ve heard of Dr. Harry Ironside. In his time, he was probably the most respected clergyman in America. Harry Ironside ministered in the city of Chicago. He constantly received accolades and he constantly received praises from people. The problem was he believed those accolades and he believed those praises.
That’s what historians tell us, and his wife must have agreed, because Harry Ironside’s wife one day came up to him and said, “Harry, do you know what your problem is?” Harry said, “I don’t have a problem.” His wife said, “Your problem is pride. You’re a proud man, Harry.” He said, “Well, what do you suggest I do about it?” She said, “Do you know what I think you ought to do? I think you ought to experience a little bit of humiliation.” He said, “Well, how do you propose that I do that?” She said, “I think you ought to take one of those sandwich boards and put it over your head and go down into the city. On the front board and on the back board, you should write Bible verses and you should put words like ‘Repent’ and words like ‘All Have Sinned.’ Wearing that board, then you should go downtown, and I don’t mean into the poor sections. You should go down into the business district amongst all the respectable people and wear that board around all day long.”
Harry Ironside thought about that a little bit and said, “Alright. I’ll do that.” He put on one of those sandwich boards and he put all those verses and stuff on it and went into downtown Chicago to the business district and did this all day long. At the end of the day, he came home, sat down on the sofa and he was just quiet, absolutely silent. His wife looked at him and she said, “Harry, what are you thinking?” He said, “Well, I was just sitting here thinking there’s probably not another minister in America who would have been willing to do what I did today!”
You see, spiritual pride is kind of like that. Pride is like that. It just kind of creeps in everywhere. The way to get rid of pride is not so much to focus on pride but the way to get rid of pride is to focus on the biblical meaning of humility. This is really the second subject in this little parable. The first subject is pride, but the second subject is humility.
Now, in the Bible there are two different types of humility, and they are both important to God. First of all, there is what we might call vertical humility. This is humility before God. Vertical humility. This is the humility that makes us embrace God’s grace and God’s mercy. This is the humility that drives us to repentance. This is the humility that drives us to our knees and makes us seek the forgiveness of God.
At the conclusion of our service this morning, I’ve asked Marcia to sing “Amazing Grace.” I know that most of you are aware of the fact that John Newton wrote this great Christian hymn, “Amazing Grace.” “Amazing Grace” is the most popular Christian hymn in the world today, so popular that even many non-Christians love this song. I think there is in the souls of most people an awareness of a desperate need for God’s grace.
John Newton, who wrote the hymn, was born in London, England in 1725. In his very early years, he was educated in Stratford, in Essex, but at the age of 11, he went to sea. From 11 to 17, he went to sea on his father’s ships. During those years, he developed what he himself would later call a “debauched life.” He had access to women who were being sold in slavery, and he lived a sexually promiscuous life, so promiscuous that even seasoned sailors were appalled at John Newton’s lifestyle. His entire life was an embarrassment to his father.
At the age of 19, John Newton went into the British Royal Navy. His father worked that out. His father even worked it out, so John Newton received an officer’s status, but John Newton was not fit for the Navy. I mean he had nautical skills, but he was not fit to work in a system of discipline or to exercise authority over others. John Newton wound up running away. He wound up leaving the Navy. He was captured and he was incarcerated, and he was beaten, and he was flogged. He was dishonorably discharged. John Newton then found himself the property of a slaveowner. For an entire year, he was owned by a slave runner, a slaveowner.
During that year, he experienced all kinds of atrocities, and he perpetrated all kinds of atrocities. He was only 21 years old, but somehow at the age of twenty-two, John Newton became himself a captain of a slave ship, and he dealt in the buying and selling of human flesh. He traveled to many parts of the world, buying slaves, and selling slaves. It was on March 9 of the year 1748…
He was at sea, and he was bored, with nothing to do. He decided to read a little bit. He picked up a book by St. Thomas A Kempis, a book called “The Imitation of Christ” and he began to read about Christ. John Newton found himself wondering, “What if Jesus Christ really is the Son of God? What is Jesus Christ really is the Savior of the world? What if He really died on the cross in atoning death and what if Christianity is true? What if He really is able to forgive my sins?”
Well, he went to bed that night and the seas were calm, but he woke up the next morning, March 10, 1748, and the seas were raging. Water had come into his cabin, and he heard his fellow sailors shouting, “The ship is going down!” The pumps could not rid the ship of water, and indeed, it did appear the ship was going down in a stormy sea. In the midst of desperation, he got on his knees, and he said a prayer to Jesus Christ. He said, “If You will somehow bring me through this alive, I will give my life to You and serve You the rest of my life.” Throughout the rest of his life, he never understood how that ship failed to sink. No one else on the ship could ever explain it, but somehow, he did survive. He came back to England, and he honored his commitment to Christ. He gave his life to Christ.
Over the next few years, he came under the tutelage of some Christian leaders like John Wesley and George Whitefield. He studied Latin and Hebrew and Greek. He actually became an Anglican priest, and he became a Pastor of the church at Olney. He was beloved until he died at the age of 83. It was John Newton who, along with William Wilberforce, ultimately brought about an end to slavery in England. That is why in the year 1792, Princeton University gave out three honorary doctorates. They gave an honorary doctorate to Alexander Hamilton. They gave an honorary doctorate to Thomas Jefferson, and they gave an honorary doctorate to John Newton, this man who had once lived a debauched life.
John Newton had learned about the amazing grace of Jesus Christ, and the humility of John Newton is described in that first verse of that famous song, for John Newton wrote, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found. I was blind but now I see…”
You see, that’s vertical humility. What Christ would ask me this morning and what He would ask you this morning is, “Do you have vertical humility?” When you sing those words, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” do you MEAN those words? Are you aware of your own fallenness? Have you ever contemplated the perfect beautiful holiness of God, and in the light of His holiness, seen your own fallenness and your own sin? Can you come and rejoice in the incomprehensible grace and mercy of God?
There is another kind of humility. The second kind of humility is horizontal humility, humility before people. This also is important to God. God would ask us this morning, “Are we humble before each other? and “Are we humble before those people with whom we live?”
The word for humble in the Bible is the word, “tapeinos” and that means “to lower yourself” But when it’s used in the sense of horizontal humility, it always means “to lower yourself in order to exalt someone else.” Humility has not to do with lowering yourself just for the sake of lowering yourself. It has to do with lowering yourself in order to exalt another person.
You know, in Great Britain, in England many years ago, the favorite food of the nobility was deer meat. Amongst the nobles, amongst the nobility, amongst the royalty, they loved deer steaks and deer roasts. They would take all of the leftovers… They would take all of the leftovers, the heart, the liver, the gizzard, and they called those leftovers “humbles.” They made a pie out of all those leftovers which they called “humble pie” and they gave it to the servants. They ate steak and roasts, but they gave the humbles, they gave humble pie, to the servants. Of course, that’s where we got the expression, “to eat humble pie.”
There is no doubt that servants and common people in England in those days would have loved to have had steak and they would have loved to have had roasts, but they ate humble pie by compulsion. That does not mean that the common people were humble, because they ate humble pie by compulsion, not by choice.
If you and I would be truly humble, then there must be times in our life when we eat humble pie by choice in order that someone else might have steak or roast. This is the biblical essence of the Greek word, “tapeinos,” that we lower ourselves in order to lift up someone else. The great example of this biblically is, of course, our Lord Jesus Christ. He lowered Himself in order that we might be lifted up, in order that we might be exalted. And though He was in the form of God, though He was enthroned in glory, though He was in charge of the angelic hosts, though He had co-created the universe with His Father, though He had shared love and joy with His Father from “before the foundation of the world,” He willingly came to our world, took our flesh upon Himself, was born in a stable, and lived among us, and He willingly went to the cross to die for you, to die for me.
He lowered Himself in order to lift us up and He is the great example of humility. That is why the Bible says, “Have this mind in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but He emptied Himself, taking on the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of man. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient even unto death on the cross.”
When you think about it, there is really only two models in this world. There is Satan and there is Christ. These are the only two examples. In Ezekiel, chapter 28, and in Isaiah, chapter 14, the mind of Satan is revealed. We see the thoughts of Satan at the dawn of time when Satan says, “I shall ascend above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will make myself like the most high God.” That is the mind of Satan. That is the philosophy of Satan. This world is riddled with his philosophy.
Most people in this world live for ascension, live for pride, but we are to be the people of Christ and we are to practice humility. Every day when we get up, we are supposed to ask ourselves, “Is there anything I can do today to lift someone else up? Is there anything I can do today to exalt someone else?” If you find yourself in a position of leadership, you are in Christ, to use that to lift others up, to exalt others and not yourself. This is hard because we are fallen but this is the call, the great eternal call of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And so, He told this parable of the Pharisee and the publican, the Pharisee representing pride and the publican representing humility. He concludes the parable with these words, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” The Bible says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. “Humble yourselves, therefore, unto the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you.”
As we close in prayer, Marcia is going to come up and sing “Amazing Grace” and then Dick will lead us in the benediction.