Two people went to church one Sunday. One had been a Christian for a long time. He was involved in all kinds of ministry and was an upstanding citizen of the community. He prayed, "God, I thank you that I have been committed to you for all these years. I live a clean life, give 10% of my income to church and volunteer at the food pantry." The other was a woman who came in and sat in the back of the church. She was a single mother. After her job was eliminated she found herself doing things she considered sinful in order to make ends meet. When she had hit bottom, she came to recognize that she really needed to get closer to God and decided to come to church. She had no idea how to pray, didn’t know what to say. She could only mutter, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." That morning, the long-time churchgoer didn’t get a whole lot out of the service. It was the same old sermon, same old hymns, same people he had known for years. It was just another Sunday. But after the benediction, the woman in the back row had tears in her eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was joy or grief or relief or what it was, but she somehow knew that God loved her.

That's how Jesus might have told the story, had he lived in our time and place.

Isn't it interesting that in Jesus' stories, the Pharisees always get a bad rap? In fact, listening to Jesus, it is hard to think or say the word Pharisee without thinking 'hypocrite,' perhaps even fundamentalist. These days, Taliban might come to mind -- with all their arrogant, self-righteous oppression. It is hard to think of a female Pharisee, although I know one or two who might qualify, but the person that typically comes to mind is a patriarchal figure, pompous, immovable and unmoved. The Pharisee knows all the answers, has no doubts, and if he has questions, they are asked only in hopes of correcting other people's errors. His religion is always of the book, whatever book that is in his particular bibliolatry. He will not compromise rules and regulations, rites, rubrics or the rigor of the fast days and has zero tolerance on those who do.

But this characterization of the Pharisees is only one-side of the story. In fact, the Pharisees were a truly devout people and they were, by the way, a school of laity. The word "Pharisee" meant holy or separated. They were good and decent people. I mean, just look at the Pharisee in our story. He was a spiritually disciplined person. I mean, he prayed, fasted and gave his tithe, that is, one tenth of his income to God's work. And of course, we must applaud this. Sometime in the near future we will talk about our stewardship and tithing and in this respect at least, I hope you all will follow the Pharisee’s example.

The other fellow is a tax collector -- sometimes called a Publican. Then, as now, a deeply compromised man. He is a Jew who works for the Roman Imperial Government, on commission. The more taxes he collects, the more money he gets. Whenever he could, he tried to extort money from his fellow citizens and for that he was thoroughly despised. Remember Zaccheus? Next week our lectionary will take us to view Luke's candid camera view of his story.

During World War II, the word 'Quisling' came in to our language to mean a traitor. It was the name of the Norwegian Prime Minister who collaborated with Adolph Hitler to have the Nazis invade his own country. His name passed into the English language, along with "Uncle Tom," who came to us from Harriet Beecher Stowe's cabin. Yasser Arafat, now has a reputation amongst many Arabs as a sell-out and bribe taker; he is hated almost as much by them as by Israelis. Soon Arafat might surpass Rodney Dangerfield as the one who gets no respect. Like these people, our Taxman is a deeply compromised man.

There are people who serve on whatever side has the longest supply of money. I know of enough of them in the pews and the pulpits of the various churches, don't you? There is an old story about the "Vicar of Bray," in England, who kept his job through a succession of monarchs. He was a high-church papist when he needed to be and a protestant at other times. He was Tory or Labor depending on whatever government ruled, he wrote:

"I turned the cat in the pan again, and swore to him allegiance:

old principles I did revoke, set conscience at a distance. . .

and this is law, I will maintain, until my dying day, Sir,

that whatsoever King shall reign, I shall be the Vicar of Bray, Sir."

Our tax collector stands for all of us who have to put our jobs ahead of principle, who believe that we must do what we must do in order to make it in the domination system.

Both the Pharisee and the Taxman go to church. They both pray standing up, though the Taxman bows his head and beats his breast. Now, it doesn't take much for us as individuals to identify with both these characters, does it? We are only too aware about how we are at times like the Pharisee and at other times like the Publican. But they are also the Church. They represent our ways of being church.

The Pharisee Church is the uncompromising church with its self-serving prayers. It is uninvolved and aloof, trying to keep itself separate from the dirty world of needy people and corrupt politics. And it hardly needs God's help. Did you notice? The Pharisee asks nothing of God in his prayer. He brings to God a sample case of his good deeds and merits. He fasts on Mondays and Thursday. He pays a tithe. But the Pharisee doesn't stop there -- he also to points out his superiority to the one next to him: "I am not like the tax collector -- I am different, he is of the others."

Sociologist and Baptist preacher Tony Campolo was teaching a course, examining many of the pathologies of society. He writes: "One day, in order to get a class discussion going, I asked my students what some of the world's great religious leaders might have said about prostitution. The discussion was lively and intense. I was setting up the class to evangelize, and when I felt that the time was ripe, I asked what seemed to me to be the crucial question, "What do you suppose Jesus would have said to a prostitute?"

"I was all primed to point out to the class the compassion and understanding which Jesus had for the colorful women of the night. I was all set to do my best to make Jesus look greater than all the great religious leaders put together. Once again I asked, "What do you think Jesus would have said to a prostitute?" "One of my students answered, ‘Jesus never met a prostitute.’ I jumped at the opening: here was my chance, I thought. I could show this guy a thing or two about Jesus and about the New Testament. ‘Yes he did,’ I responded. ‘I'll show you in my Bible where ...'.

"The young man interrupted me. ‘You didn't hear me, professor. I said, Jesus never met a prostitute.’ "Once again I protested. Once again I reached for my New Testament. I started to leaf through its pages searching for those passages which showed Jesus forgiving the ‘fallen women'. I searched for the place where he gave the woman at the well a chance for spiritual renewal. "Once again my student, who was Jewish, spoke out, this time with a touch of anger in his raised voice. ‘You're not listening to what I am saying. I am saying that Jesus never met a prostitute. Do you think that when he looked at Mary Magdalene he saw a prostitute? Do you think he saw whores when he looked at women like her? Professor, listen to me! Jesus never met a prostitute!’

"I fell silent. My theology was under judgment. I was being corrected by a Jewish student who, in some ways, may have understood Jesus better than some of us who go by the name Christian." To be a Christian is to see people as Christ sees them, Campolo continues. When the church is really being the church, it accepts people that the world cannot accept. A woman is not a prostitute but a sister. A man is not an addict, but a brother. A person is not poor, or mentally handicapped, or politically questionable, or morally suspect, but a fellow saint.

This is a hard lesson: this is why Jesus' stories are so full of irony, what I call Jesus twists. No Jew expected to hear of a "good" Samaritan, just as no Christian fundamentalist expects to hear praise of a "good Muslim" from the pulpit. And no one in Jesus' hearing expected him to speak well of a collaborator with the hated Roman Empire. Can a Hebron Palestinian hear good things about an Israeli settler there, who has taken his house? Can anything good come out of Afghanistan? Did you notice how Jesus in his parables sharply twists the relationships and people's expectations, and lets the light of the gospel shine through? Yes, we know the Pharisee Church and often we are the Pharisee Church. We may be distinguished, influential and may attract many people, and we pray "I thank you God that I am not like the others"

Then there's the Publican church, the Church that is involved, and deeply conflicted, by having filled its pockets by being a servant of the system. Its offering plates are compromised by having been filled with cash from those who cannot see another way to make it except by getting their hands dirty too. And they drool at the money the federal government is offering trying to make the church its lackey.

The Publican Church has got its hands dirty by being servants of the system. It has seen where the money and the power are and have kowtowed to those interests. But we are not here to confess other people's sins--that is the role of the Pharisee Church! The only prayer appropriate to a deeply conflicted church, which has helped to make us all "consumers" even of our religion, is the prayer of the Publican Church. "Lord have mercy on us sinners. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. Drag us Lord, even if we are kicking and screaming, to your Mercy Seat."

Actually, the Pharisee Church does not really pray at all. Luke says the Pharisee was standing by himself, some translations say, praying with himself. But Jesus says, that the Publican Church, because of its acknowledgement and confession of guilt and shame will "go home justified." Not because of anything that it has done, but because of the gift of a merciful and compassionate God. There's nothing you can do to earn that mercy, but Jesus clearly appreciates it when the Church beats its breast and begs the mercy of God. It indicates for Jesus, an openness to God's grace. It is nothing but the gift of God, the merciful and compassionate one that the Publican church goes home justified.

Praying the publican prayer is a hard thing particularly at a time like this. Rev. Jim Queen, the Ex. Dir. of the CMBA had a chat with me last week about the sermon I am going to preach at the Annual meeting on Saturday. God has laid upon his heart to call for a Solemn Assembly, he said. A few weeks ago, I suggested to you that the prophets at the time of national calamity called for national repentance. It called us to acknowledge that like the Publican we are sinners, that we need to come before our awesome God, beat our breasts and cry out saying "God have mercy on me, a sinner." The clearest call for this comes from Prophet Joel, whose prophecy is in our lectionary today.

The context is a national emergency. There was a plague of locusts – insects that destroyed all the crops. Some commentators suggest that Joel was prophesying an invasion by foreign armies, which he compares to a swarm of locusts. Whatever it is, the destruction would be so severe that nothing would be left: "What the cutting locusts left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locusts left, the destroying locust has eaten" (1:4).

So what does he do? In chapter 2, he calls the people to fasting and repentance. "Yet even now," says the Lord, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your garments." (vs.12). Tearing garments was a sign of repentance. People would tear their garments, wear sackcloth and sit on ashes as a sign of their penitence. Sounds like over time it had become an empty ritual. So, Joel says, rend your hearts and not your garments. If your hearts are not torn, tearing garments is of no use. If your hearts are not repentant, fasting is of no use. In fact, you become like the Pharisees.

Then there is the call again to national repentance. "Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast; call a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the aged, gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her canopy." Joel is calling upon the religious and political leaders to call this huge community assembly. It’s for everyone, its to be a holy assembly and its to be a fast.

The thing about fasting is that it really brings you to a place of humility and contrition and to getting in touch with their pain. This is the Biblical witness across the board. Fasting, acknowledging our sin in repentance, puts us in touch with that pain like nothing else can. No wonder we don’t want to do it. But doing the Publican thing is hard. That's why we go through the motions, and do the Pharisaic thing.

And so, what Joel prayed would not happen to the Israelites has become a reality for us. "Do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, "Where is their God?" Isn’t that what people are saying about us? Why? Because God’s power is not evident to people outside our church. How can it be when it is barely evident to us, inside the church? We don’t look any different than any other social gathering! Do you know what’s going on? I’ll tell you what’s going on – our hearts, our lives, our stomachs are so full of it, that we can’t hear God, and if we can’t hear God, how can we respond in obedience? How can God work among us in power?

But then there's the promise. If we do that then the abundance we read about is ours. But not only that, the gift of empowering from the Holy Spirit is ours. Did you hear:

O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.

Then afterward I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

The biblical witness is also clear. This does not happen if we are pharisaic about our religion and simply go through the motions. We have to come to place of real confession and seeking repentance. Let's be honest and say that we are unworthy, for we are sometimes Pharisees at other times Publicans -- however we cut it, we are a deeply conflicted people, living in a deeply conflicted land, and in deeply conflicted churches. Where can we find a way to God, cutting through the jungle of wickedness of this age we live in, and how can we be pharisaic in our obedience to God's word, and publican in our humility to the merciful and compassionate God? To be able to go home "justified," we will need to begin by beating our hearts and crying out to God, "Lord, have mercy to me, a sinner."