28-10-01 Langham/Stiffkey
Luke 18:1-8 – Our Attitude in Prayer
Story: Leonardo da Vinci took seven years to paint his famous picture the "Last Supper".
He used living people to depict the figures representing the Twelve Apostles and Christ.
He started the fresco with Christ. It is reputed that he viewed hundreds and hundreds of men looking for one who most perfectly exhibited the innocence and beauty he was looking for. A face and personality unaffected by sin.
Eventually he found a young man 19 years old and for the next six months he worked on the face and demeanour of Christ using this young man as his model.
Over the next six years, he found appropriate people to represent each of the Apostles, with a space being left for the figure representing Judas Iscariot – which he left as the final task of the masterpiece.
For weeks, Da Vinci searched in vain for a man with a hard, callused face and a countenance marked by scars of avarice and deceit. A man who could depict the man, who would betray his best friend.
After much discouragement, word came to Da Vinci that a man whose appearance fully met the requirements had been found.
He was in a dungeon in Rome, sentenced to die for a life of crime and murder.When Da Vinci arrived he found the epitome of what he was looking for. A man who was wretched, unkempt and vicious - the perfect Judas.
By special order of the king, the man was taken to Milan, where the fresco was being painted. When the picture was finally finished and the warders came from Rome to retrieve their prisoner.
As he was leaving, the man turned to Da Vinci and said. "Don’t you recognise me" he said.
Leonardo replied: "I’ve never seen you before in my life"
The man broke down sobbing. "Have I sunk so low" he said " Seven years ago, you used me as your model for Jesus!"
You can’t judge a book by its cover. Man looks on the outside but God sees the heart.
He is not interested what we look like but where our heart is, what our attitudes are.
In this morning’s gospel reading Luke 18:9-14 Jesus focuses on prayer - using the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector to encourage us to come with a right attitude to God.
We can fool our friends, we can even fool ourselves but we can’t fool God.
Prayer is very precious to God.
We read in Revelation 8: 3 and 4 the prayers of the saints are equated with incense offered to God at the altar
“Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel’s hand.”
This morning’s parable - of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector - in Luke 18:9-14 is all about motivation for prayer.
I would like to look at two aspects from this parable today.
1. The impact that the parable would have had on Jesus’ audience
2. Our motivation to pray?
1. Let us look at the first aspect:
The Impact of the Parable
For many of us who have heard the story in church many times, the impact of the parable has been lost.
Jesus was scathing about the Pharisees – and this has rubbed off on us today. Nowadays a Pharisee is a figure that we look down upon. None of us would want to be seen as a Pharisee. We equate Pharisees as being hypocrites.
But in Jesus day, it was different.
In Jewish society of Jesus’ day a Pharisee was someone who was looked up to. He was seen as a godly man - keen to please God by keeping the Law – the Torah. In fact so keen that the Pharisees added further rules to make sure that the Law couldn’t be broken by mistake.
Pharisees were held in the highest esteem for their moral stance and commitment to God. They were regarded as the “crème de la crème” of society
On the other hand, in Jesus’ day a tax collector was seen as the lowest form of life.
Israel was a country under Roman occupation. And the Romans demanded draconian taxes from their subjugated people. So they arranged their provinces into fiscal districts, and appointed certain Jews as tax collectors.
These districts were fiscally assessed. How the tax collector got the money did not bother the Government.
The tax collector had the power to raise the necessary taxes. He could - and often did - use the Roman army to enforce payment. And there was no appeal from his assessment. Once the Roman return was achieved, whatever the tax collector earned on top of that was his profit.
Whatever you think about Her Majesty’s Inspector of Taxes –the Inland Revenue, at least there are rules that govern how much tax they can take from you and on the whole we don’t think of them as being corrupt.
In Jesus’ day, tax collectors were different. Tax collectors were often unscrupulous and corrupt. As a result they were despised in Jewish society. And on top of that they were seen as collaborators with the enemy – the Romans.
They were outcasts in society and they were a byword for scum.
Story: If Jesus were alive today he might have told the story this way to get the same effect:
A bishop and a paedophile went down to St. Paul’s Cathedral to pray.
The bishop, having paid his entrance fee, went up into the choir stalls and saw that people were looking at him and so sat down and prayed:
“Almighty and everlasting God, who alone workest great marvels; Send down upon our Bishops and Curates and all Congregations committed to their charges the healthful Spirit of Thy grace; and that they may truly please thee, pour upon them the continual dew of thy blessing. Grant this, O Lord for the honour of our Advocate and Mediator, Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Having prayed, he felt good and so got up and left.
The paedophile, slipped into the back of the Cathedral without paying and snuck into a corner. Not daring to look up he said:
“God, you know I am a scumbag, my mind is full of vile thoughts. Have mercy on me”
I tell you that it was the paedophile and not the bishop who went home justified before God.”
Perhaps that shows us more the impact of Jesus’ words to the first century Jews.
The second aspect of the parable that I would like to look at is the key to this parable. Why do we pray?
Jesus is saying that it is not what we do but our attitude before God that counts.
There are many of us who find praying difficult.
Often it is our motivation that brings us down.
How do we view prayer?
1. As a divine insurance policy.
We are bombarded on television with advertisements for insurance – house insurance, car insurance personal liability insurance. Do we see prayer as a divine insurance – just in case?
2. To appease God
I don’t know why I should pray but God wants it so I’d better do it.
And we have various set prayers, in Common Worship, the ASB and the Book of Common Prayer to help us formulate the words.
Perhaps by praying we will appease an angry God. Praying may take all my troubles away.
3. Because I am someone special – someone holy
Do we pray because of who we are? We are good and part of our being “holy” is to pray.
2.1 Look at the Pharisee’s attitude in the parable.
At first blush it may seem that the Pharisee has a point. He has done well.
Yet a man steeped in the Old Testament Scriptures would know how far short man falls of God’s standards.
The psalmist in Psalm 14:3 put it well when he said:
They have all turned aside. They have together become corrupt. There is none who does good –No, not one.
God’s word reveals what the Apostle Paul says in Rom 3:23
“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”
God’s word reveals that we have no reason at all to be proud of what we have done in God’s presence.
2. If we want to go home right with God, we need to look for the clue in the Tax Collector’s attitude.
The tax collector knew that he was not worthy to stand in God’s sight. All he could ask for was mercy.
Yet that is just the attitude God wants. Because it is an attitude of repentance.
3. Conclusion.
When we come to pray, how do we come into God’s presence?
Story: A friend of mine, Alun Morris is a pastor in a Swiss Pentecostal Church.
One day, he went to a funeral and saw a man who he knew to be an atheist come into church and bow his head for about a minute in front of the altar as he came in. It seemed to Alun that the man was praying.
Alun was intrigued and after the service asked him when he had become a Christian.
“Why never” the man replied.
“But I saw you praying in church today.” Alun said.
“ I wasn’t praying” the man replied. “I just stood there and counted to ten!”
Can I leave you with a question this morning?
What motivates our prayer?
Do we want to be seen doing the right thing – or do we want the real thing - to be right with God.
