Jesus tells another parable today. He loves to tell parables, not because they are easier to understand, but because it makes His listeners think. This story takes place in the temple.

Could it have taken place somewhere else? Not likely. The temple is where people would go to find God, because this is where he said He would be. This is where He is to be found in His mercy, just as we seek the same in the Word and Sacraments of the Divine Service.

Now, out in the temple courts, according to Jesus' parable, are two men. One man is filled with himself. He is turned in on himself, busy reminding God all he does. He doesn't even really care where he is. God sure is lucky to have him. His prayer consists of basically saying, "Thank you Lord for making me so great!" He stands up straight and tall, and is confident about his standing before God. His denomination, the denomination of the Pharisees, with its emphasis on the law, unwittingly encourages this.

It's obvious; he is a very religious man. We have no reason to doubt he wasn't sincere. He gives his offerings and not just a little bit. He does his devotions, devotedly, even going above and beyond everyone else. He's like a lot of us who are active church members. You can see him tooling around the temple or the synagogue, making sure things were being done. He also knew he was in the right religion, and everyone who wasn't with him, well, they were pond scum. And apparently, he let them know it.

Speaking of pond scum, standing near, and in view of this extremely religious man was another. He was the pond scum. He's a tax collector. As much as people of our day may not like IRS folks because they take our hard-earned money--that is, after the big oil companies get their cut--at least the IRS uses it for our government. Tax collectors in those days, collected for the Romans. These tax collectors were sell-outs. They could never be seen as being patriotic. They would not be allowed to love their country. If people were to talk about Israel, they would be shunned. Even if they didn't skim the proceeds for themselves, they were considered the worst of the worst.

In most people's minds, if anyone was lost and rejected by God, it was these guys. They gave up their heritage as Israelites, as God's people. They sold their soul. There was no hope for them.

Now, something happened to this tax collector. Maybe he had a near brush with death. Maybe his world was falling apart. He had been cheating on the taxes he was to collect, and the Romans caught wind of it and were auditing him. Maybe his wife was leaving him or his children were dying. Something clearly had rocked his world. Maybe a religious leader had spoken truthfully about his condition and the Holy Spirit convicted him, giving him reason to be afraid he was truly as good as lost. Whatever it was, he was not merely going through motions. He beat his chest as he prays, begging for mercy.

I've been trying to think of what that would look like. Do you remember Celine Deion? She sang the theme song for the movie, Titanic. She's a tall, slender woman from the British Isles. Anyway, she really gets emotional when she sings, and if you have ever seen her sing in concert, you will see she beats her chest. She thumps on it so hard, it looks like it might cause her heart to go out of rhythm, but she seems unaware of it.

Maybe this is a gesture this man had learned, but I think like her, he is hardly aware of it. He is so caught up in deep emotion, he doesn't know what he is doing. The only thing he knows he is doing is begging God for mercy. He feels--no, he knows--he is as good as lost. All he can do is throw himself at God's mercy. He has no hope otherwise.

This, my friends, is faith. Faith says, "Give me your gifts of life." It says, "I don't deserve them, but you are generous, Lord, and you rejoice to give them, even to me."

Now, this guy is a creep. In our books, he would still be a creep. Or at least that is probably what we have said about him up to this point. But he knew himself better than we know ourselves. He knew his lost condition without God's mercy. He knew he was a creep, and perhaps in that way, he is ahead of us. He didn't feel entitled. He knew God would have mercy through His Messiah, the Christ, and that's what he begs for.

Isn't this how we ought to want to be? After all, Jesus said, "I didn't come for the healthy but for the sick." This guy knows he is sick.

In some ways it would be good to see ourselves in this way. The man may not have lifted his eyes to heaven because he didn't feel worthy, but he never took them off Christ. This is what faith does. There would be no question in his mind what Jesus was all about. Jesus was all about restoring this poor sinner to life. As miserable as it might seem to live like this, this is pure faith.

Back when Martin Luther lived, people watched the mass celebrated when they went to church. That's all they did. When the body and blood of our Lord was offered to the people, they would usually refuse. Why? Because they didn't feel worthy. They were sure they could never do enough preparation to receive something so wonderful. They had been told they were sinners, and undeserving of these great mysteries. When Luther discovered why God was offering His flesh and blood, that it was for the forgiveness of sins like Jesus said, he realized people were doing a disservice to themselves by not eating and drinking His Supper. To get them to understand that it was for them, he wrote in the small catechism, "Fasting and bodily preparation are indeed fine, outward training, but he is worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words, "Given and shed for you," for the words "for you" require all hearts to believe."

"For you" This is what that tax collector understood. This was for him, and he knew it was for him.

Now, I don't recall anyone in this congregation ever acting like either of these two. They are the extremes, wouldn't you agree? We do have people in our congregation who are as active and devout as this guy from the Pharisee denomination. That doesn't mean they behave like him, though. Can a person be just as active just as religious as this guy and have the faith of the tax collector? Definitely. In fact, if they were active but didn't have a faith that was anything like his, then I fear their contributions to the church would be made for the wrong reason. It would be to please God, rejecting what Jesus has already done to please Him. This would not be good.

At the same time, I don't think I have ever seen anyone beating their chest during the confession of sins. The words we speak in the confession of sins are usually words that would express some very deep emotions, but we may not actually feel those emotions. Nor, do we need to.

And my calling is not to beat you until you feel those emotions, to bring you to the point where you are blubbering with guilt and fear. That would be wrong. If you were to think you had to have those feelings in order to know you are saved, to know you really had faith, then you would find yourself trying to stir them up and make them happen to provide the assurance you were saved. No, you are simply to believe these words, "You are a sinner," and "Christ Jesus came to rescue sinners"

My job is to speak those words, especially the sentence we actually have a harder time believing, "Christ Jesus came to rescue sinners," and not just that he rescues sinners, but that he rescues you.

I just got back from Nebraska where I had attended Doxology, an intensive course in pastoral care. While there, my calling as a pastor was made clearer. First, although I do provide pastoral care in the Divine Service, as I deliver the Word and the Sacraments, I have also been called to provide pastoral care on an individual basis. Of course, hospital and shut-in calls, but also office calls in my study or wherever it would suit anyone who needed to talk. I want to open my door and say, "I'm here for you." It may be individual confession and absolution, but it might just be something that is bothering you or maybe some good news you want to rejoice over, where I could give some spiritual guidance from the Lord's Word.

The bottom line: My job is to provide pastoral care, which is delivering the good news to souls that need to hear it. And although it is not terribly individual right at this moment, I still have a word for you from the text.

Jesus said, "This man went down to his house justified." This creep, this pond scum, went down to his house justified. This is not the one you should have expected to be justified. Had Jesus listeners actually seen these two men, and knew who they were, they would not have expected the story to end up like it did.

Sure, the way I told it--actually the way Jesus told it--made it clear what would happen, but if they were to see it happening in front of their eyes, they wouldn't have expected it that way.

But it did go this way. The religious fellow, as good and devout as he was, was not interested in what Jesus, the One come into the world, would do for him. He was doing fine on his own. He did not think he needed Jesus to remove his sins.

The other one was desperate for it.

Jesus death removed the sin of all of the world. Everyone has been pronounced not guilty, but not all will hear it. They reject the working of the Holy Spirit which speaks through His word telling them this is so. But they will not hear it. That's the case of the first man.

The second one, however, knew he needed it. He needed Jesus to pronounce him, "Not guilty." The faith given to him by the working of the Holy Spirit, said, "This is just what I need."

Therefore Jesus said, "This man went down to his home, justified." The other man had also been declared not guilty, but he would not have it. This one did. Justified. He was justified by God's pronouncement and remained justified. That's the point of the word Jesus used. Declared holy and righteous and remaining in that declaration.

The same is said to you. As you recognize your sin--not as you beat your chest, or cry out with loud wailings--but as you recognize you are a sinner; as you recognize as true what you have already said is true in the confession of sin, then that word of justification is said to you.

As you go to the Lord's Table, you recognize you can't claim to have rights to go there. You don't deserve to be there. You have simply been invited to receive forgiveness of sins, and when you have, then you can hear the same words said about you, Jesus said about that man, "He went back home justified."

AMEN