What Made Jesus Mad?Muestra

Notice the difference between the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee walked right up to the front and prayed about himself, but the tax collector stayed in the back. Why? He knew he didn’t deserve to be there. Actually, as a tax collector, he was forbidden from even being in the same place as a normal Jew, so the story has to be somewhat creatively drawn.  

The church had already decided that if one was going to sell out his Jewish brothers and sisters, he would be treated as such. As a tax collector, he was only allowed to go as far as a Gentile, back where the money changers and the animal sellers were blocking things up. 

Let me make up a term for the issue this Pharisee was struggling with: gracism. In other words, religious racism. Gracism, like racism, excludes a group of people because one group believes they are superior to another. In this case, it’s not about the color of one’s skin but the color of one’s sin. Gracism says “I deserve to be with the Father, but you don’t.” 

We may not understand all the cultural nuances of Jesus’ story, but it’s plain to see that Jesus couldn’t have used a more drastic contrast in humanity, which makes for a better story. The point is that being justified has absolutely nothing to do with goodness or rule-following or what music you listen to. It’s the exact opposite. As a matter of fact, as you watch Jesus interact with people in the Gospels, it seems like the better a person was at following the rules, the harder time they had at humbling themselves before God and asking for mercy. 

Try to name the person you see as a “tax collector”: in other words, someone that you may feel doesn’t belong in the same relationship with God that you have. How is this story challenging you to deal with your own “gracism”?