Eleventh Sunday After Trinity, August 11, 2024
Eleventh Sunday After Trinity, August 11, 2024
One man listed his virtues. The other confessed his sin. Jesus uses this parable to emphasize distinctions… the distinction between the self-righteous and the confessed sinner… the distance between the so-called “clean” and the “unclean…” and the Temple as a place of conflict versus the home as the place of the saved.
For the self-righteous, their visible works set them apart from sinners. Those that look to their own pious works and ask others—perhaps even God—to witness those works as well… those proud of their righteous deeds, cannot help but think themselves better than sinners. In fact, their distinction from sinners becomes a matter of thanksgiving, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men…” (vs. 11). This supposed distinction permits them to look upon sinners with contempt for their deplorable state.
Jesus uses the parable to emphasize the distance between these so-called “clean” Temple goers and the sinful “unclean” Temple attendees. The clean Pharisee stands by himself (vs. 11). The unclean tax collector stands far off (vs. 13) and won’t even look up and possibly violate that physical distance with the intimacy of a locked gaze. The Pharisee’s perilous and self-righteous cleanliness would not survive even a brush against the tax collector and his unclean clothes.
Throughout the gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, the Temple is increasingly depicted as a place of conflict and persecution while the home grows increasingly important as the place where the saved abide. Take, for example, how the Temple goes from a place of learning for Jesus (Lk. 2:46) to being a “den of robbers” (Lk. 19:46) to a place of testing for Jesus (Lk. 20:1-19) to a place of trial and condemnation for the apostles (Acts 5:27-33). During this same time, we hear Jesus telling people, “Go home!” (Lk. 5:24; 8:39; 18:14; Acts 2:46). The life of faith… your life of faith in Christ is not lived out in pious religious works but in the very plain duties of home and family. That’s where the justified live!
Table Talk: Discuss how religious duties and pious works interfere with the duties of family and home.
Pray: Father, let me not look to the works of my hands but to your nail-scarred hands for my righteousness. Amen
Luke 18:9-14
9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get. 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner! 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.