Today's Scripture Reading (January 26, 2024): Luke 18
Sometimes, opposites attract, but
that is not always the truth. There are a few people who try my patience, but,
really, it is just that we are opposites. But sometimes, they do attract. I
remember a particular ride home from a football game that I had in college. It
was long after the game, and I had been changing into my street clothes and
decompressing a little after the game when the team manager offered to give me
a lift home. So, I was alone with him in his car, heading home. And he had a
question. I had just started dating the girl who would become my wife, and that
emerging relationship hadn't missed the attention of John, the team manager.
And so, he asked if he could ask a question. I responded, "You just asked
one, so go ahead." And his question was, "You and Nelda, does that
make any sense? I mean, you two are so different. So much the opposite of each
other. How does that work?"
I don't think I had an answer for my
friend that night. And I probably don't even today. All I know is that it has
worked. Nelda and I have been married for forty-two years, and it has been over
forty-four years since I had that conversation on the way home from a football
game.
Luke tells the story of two
men, and finding a more opposite pairing of people would be hard. The first was
a Pharisee; sometimes, we get the warped conception that the Pharisees were
evil men in the first-century world. But here is the truth: they were righteous
men. They were so righteous that if anyone could claim they lived sinless lives,
it was the Pharisees. I am a holiness preacher, and what that means is that I believe
that God wants to do a work inside of you where he wants to separate you from
this world and make you holy (holy literally just means "set apart.”) God
wants to set you apart for his purposes. He desires that you would be remade in
the image of Christ. It isn't that you are being formed to do the minimum; God
wants to remold you until you want to do the maximum. So, I believe that
becoming a Christian is only the beginning of a lifelong process; it is the
starting point of what God wants to do in your life. The endpoint is that we
will stand at the end of this journey as a holy people before our God, having
been entirely remade into the image of Christ. However, while I am here on the
earth, I understand that I am simply in the process of becoming; it is what I
would call the process of Holiness.
The
Pharisees took the process of Holiness to the extreme. The Pharisees were
committed to the idea that the Messiah would come if all of Israel would
refrain from sinning for one day. So, they were committed to keeping the law,
every little portion of it, every day of their lives. They firmly believed in
the idea of ethical Holiness. And the people respected them for it. That is
what made Jesus's words so weird. These people were at least trying to keep the
law every day of their lives. Some people didn't even try, but the Pharisees
dedicated all of their energy to live sinless lives.
The
Pharisees were the ones that had their theology right. They were the ones who
had gone to Bible School and understood God's laws. The Pharisees believed that
the rest of the nation was deceived; the rest of the church hadn't quite
matured in their God walk yet, but the Pharisees had matured in their faith.
On
the other side of the spectrum was the Tax Collector. Tax Collectors and
Prostitutes are used in the Bible to describe the lowest of the low. A Tax
Collector was essentially a non-person in Israel. A Jewish Tax Collector was
considered to be unclean because of his profession. That meant that no one
could hang around with them. So, when Matthew, a Tax Collector, tells the story
of the day Jesus came over to his house for dinner, that dinner was attended only
by tax collectors and "sinners," probably prostitutes. They were the
only ones who could show up according to the Mosaic Law.
Regarding
religion, the fact that the tax collector was unclean meant that the farthest
into the temple they could come was the Court of the Gentiles. The Court of the
Gentiles was the outermost area of the Temple complex. Only Jewish men and
women could go beyond that point into the Court of Women and the Court of
Israel. But the Jewish Tax Collectors no longer qualified as part of Israel.
They were not only socially cut off from Israel but spiritually disconnected as
well. When the people gathered together to talk about what was wrong with
society, the answer was obvious: the Tax Collectors.
Legally,
they were non-persons. If a crime was committed and the only witness was a tax
collector, the tax collector couldn't testify to the crime; you couldn't trust
that the tax collector would even be able to tell the truth. The criminal act
might as well have happened with no witnesses at all.
Jesus
starts his story with two men, one good (The Pharisee) and one Bad (The Tax
Collector). The people thought they knew how it would end, but Jesus was
planning a plot twist that would amaze and astound all of his listeners.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Matthew 21
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