Exaltation and Humility

Psalm 1

Luke 18: 9 – 14

August 17, 2025

The Temple was a place of distinction. By that, I do not just mean to describe it as the epicenter of the Jewish faith – it certainly was. But it was also a place that made distinctions about people. Let me use some pictures in a moment to show you what I am talking about.

As our text begins, two men have come up to the Temple. The Temple sat atop Mount Moriah, the same mountain upon which Abraham had been directed to sacrifice his son Isaac. Sitting at roughly 2500 feet, the Temple complex towered over the surrounding countryside. It is to this Temple that our Pharisee and Tax Collector come to pray.

2,000 years later, we hear the term Pharisee, and it is loaded with negativity. Broods of vipers, whitewashed tombs, hypocrites they were called by Jesus, and with justification. But the Pharisees as a group were a prominent Jewish sect known for their strict adherence to Jewish law and tradition, both written and oral. They believed in the resurrection of the dead and the afterlife, and were influential in Jewish society, particularly among the common people. While respected for their piety, they were also criticized for hypocrisy and legalism.

The issue with tax collectors was well known. Jews who were viewed as collaborators by their fellow citizens, these Jews collected the taxes imposed by the hated Roman occupiers. This was a lucrative franchise granted to the recipient. Not only did they collect the taxes, but they were allowed to add a surcharge to the tax bill to pay the collectors for their work.

These tax collectors were hated individuals. They were considered morally impure and excluded from much of the regular common life of Israel. However, they were not considered ritually unpure like those afflicted with leprosy thus they were not excluded from Temple Life.

You couldn’t have two more different characters in our story. The Pharisee – well respected, morally and ritually obedient and pure, an integral part of both the spiritual and common life of Israel and the Tax Collector – hated, morally impure and cast to the margins of Jewish life.

These two come up to the Temple to pray. The Temple, as we mentioned earlier, was an awe-inspiring complex. It was also a complex initially open to everyone – including Gentiles – but it became increasingly exclusive as one moved to its spiritual center – the Holy of Holies, the place where God was believed to dwell.

As one came up into the Temple area, you came first to the Court of the Gentiles. This large open space was where shopkeepers exchanged currencies from around the Mediterranean into the shekels used for offerings and to pay the Temple tax. This is also where animals were purchased to be used in daily and special sacrifices within the Temple grounds.

Inside the Temple itself one would first come to the Court of Women – where all faithful Jews, men and women were allowed for various purposes. Coming through the Nicanor Gate, women were excluded. This was the Court of Israelites where only men allowed. Past this court was the Court of Priests where the presiding division of priests went about their appointed temple duties of prayer, conducting sacrifices, etc. One then came to the Holy Sanctuary – the large room containing special bread and an incense sacrifice that was attended by only one priest who was allowed to enter each day. Finally, was the Holy of Holies, the place where God dwelt. Only once a year did the chief high priest enter on the Day of Atonement.

So you get this picture of greater and greater exclusion, of distinctions made, first Gentile and Jew, but then gender, and priestly hierarchy.

This is the context for our story – a Temple that granted special blessings and access according to gender and status; a Temple architecturally designed to make distinctions between people; a Temple spiritually designed to recognize and bless these distinctions. And into THIS kind of Temple comes a Pharisee and a Tax Collector. Two individuals who could not have been more different.

They come, probably to the Court of Men, to pray. Our Pharisee, secure in his righteousness, begins to pray. “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.”

Did our Pharisee say anything that was not true? He is not like others. He is NOT a thief, rogue, or adulterer. He does not participate in the oppressive taxation of Jewish people, and his spiritual life is ritually impeccable – he even exceeds the understood obligation for fasting.

In the context of his people, in the midst of a Temple built to exclude and accentuate special individual piety, our Pharisee is nothing more than an expression of special distinction. But our tax collector is very, very different.

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Also true, but in an incredible irony, a spiritual prayer reflecting a maturity far beyond the superficial legalism of the Pharisee.

You see, the sin of the Pharisee is one of comparison. In a spiritual world that honored and actually codified distinctions – each grouping more special, more favored, even closer to God - our Pharisee makes the mistake of thinking that the spiritual standard for righteousness is found in how he did or did not exceed the spiritual piety of the common folk around him.

Yes, he was observant – more observant than the common folk around him. Yes, he maintained a high level of professional religiosity – his ritual purity reflecting a high degree of legalism. Yes, his behavior, his conduct, his vocation placed him in the upper echelons of Jewish society. By comparison to those around him, the Pharisee was exemplary.

The Tax Collector had no such illusions. He may have been observant, but no one viewed him as a spiritual exemplar. His ritual purity was, in the minds of those around him, overcome by his moral depravity. And he knew it! “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Friends, do we not make the same mistake, this mistake of comparison with one another? No, we are not ax murders – we are better than that. No, we are not lazy – we have worked hard to maximize our potential, and our material success is ample evidence of our hard work. No, we are not outcasts like the Tax Collector, and we are sought after citizens by many groups.

We compare ourselves to those around us and we come off pretty well. But friends, our standing before God is not dependent upon how we compare to one another. Our standing before God is not dependent upon on our grade point average, class standing, address, the size of our investment portfolio, or the high school or college from which we graduated.

Our standing before God is not derived by how well we compare to one another. This is the essential truth that the Tax Collector, not the Pharisee, understands. Lord God, be merciful to me – not because I compare well to others, but because I fall far short of your righteousness. As such, I am a sinner.

We need to name and address the sin of comparing ourselves to one another and declaring ourselves worthy of God’s love. To understand the height and depth of God’s love is to understand that we are all sinners, we are all broken regardless of our worldly accomplishments or status.

To understand that we are all broken, and in that brokenness separated from God – our ultimate standard of righteousness – is to begin to understand the height, depth, and reach of God’s grace. Christ came, not because we are special, not because we are accomplished, not because we are first world doers and shakers, but simply because we are separated from God but still overwhelmingly, unconditionally loved.

The Tax Collector went home justified, reconciled by God because he understood that the depths of his brokenness did not depend on his material success or standing. The Pharisee went home, still broken and separated because he thought his special standing merited God’s favor.

Comparisons and self-exaltation versus humility before God. May we choose wisely. Amen.