Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "There are Two Kinds of People in the World"

Text: Luke 18:9-14

Benchley himself became famous as a self-deprecating humorist and by playing befuddled characters in the movies of the late Depression-era and World War II period. In some ways, he was like Rodney Daingerfield, but with brains. Here are a few of his famous sayings:

As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did.

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.

Robert Benchley not only gave us "Joe Doakes," and memorable humor, he also is responsible for what has come to be known as Benchley’s "Law of Distinction." We all know this "Law," although we might not have known its creator. It goes like this:

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t.

And this unexpected route brings me to this morning’s parable from the Gospel according to Luke. Last week, as you may recall, the first eight verses of chapter 18 in Luke’s Gospel offered a parable about "The Widow and the Judge." In that parable, Jesus told his audience about "their need to pray always and not to lose heart." To make his point, Jesus presented the case of a widow who sought vindication from an unrighteousness judge. Here in verses 9-14, Jesus offers a parable about "The Pharisee and the Tax Collector."

This parable is unusual because it is not aimed at the disciples nor at the crowds who were always following Jesus along the way. Instead, Jesus explicitly targets this parable at "some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt" (v. 9). This, of course, provides the connection to the previous parable – where the judge had been characterized as being "unrighteous" and as one "who neither feared God nor had respect for people" – in other words, he was self-centered. The unrighteous judge seems to fit "Dear Abby’s" distinction of two kinds of people – i.e., those who walk into a room and say, "There you are," and those who say, "Here I am!"

Ultimately, this unrighteous judge dealt with the widow’s complaint not because he saw any justice in her complaint, but because she kept hounding him. She was a pest, and he just wanted to be quit of her!

In this morning’s parable, a similar situation is presented. On the one hand, the Pharisee is standing by himself, literally (in the Greek) "praying to himself," saying: "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income."

But this is not what Jesus sees. For Jesus, this Pharisee is just too prim and proper, just too self-centered, just too self-righteous for his own good, just too sure of his own place in God’s world, and just too disdainful of other people, who – in the eyes of the Pharisee – seem to lack the essential evidence that God’s hand rests lightly on their shoulders. Despite all his prayers, all his fasting, and all his tithing, the Pharisee is not "right" with God and his fellow human beings – in fact, he ends up becoming "un-just" in Jesus’ way of seeing the world.

On the other hand, we may think that the Pharisee is not without a couple of desirable qualities. He not only fasts twice a week, he also gives a tenth of all his income. As Robert Farrar Capon has written (The Parables of Grace, 1988, p. 179),

The Pharisee . . . is not only good; he is religious. And not hypocritically religious, either. His outward uprightness is matched by an inward discipline. He fasts twice a week and he puts his money where his mouth is: ten percent off the top for God. If you know where to find a dozen or two such upstanding citizens, I know several parishes that will accept delivery of them, no questions asked and all Jesus’ parables to the contrary notwithstanding."

As the other protagonist in the parable, we have the tax collector, a character always despised in first-century communities – and not even very popular in our own century! Just imagine the reaction were a first-grader to bring his dad or mom to visit his classroom on "Parents’ Day," and announced proudly, "My dad works for the Dallas Country Appraisal District" or "My mom works for the Internal Revenue Service." You can just see the other parents in the room ditching their plans to have these nice parents over to their homes for a Sunday afternoon barbeque meal. (pause) . . .

According to Luke’s Gospel, this tax collector was "standing far off" and "would not even look up to heaven" as he stood there praying in the temple. His prayer was not about his own righteousness; far from it! He was "beating his breast and saying ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’" The tax collector is hardly presented in an admirable way, yet Jesus says to the people listening to this parable, "I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted."

But – like all of Jesus’ parables – this one is not just about humility in our prayers before God. Nor is it just about righteousness. It is about far more than that. As with any of Jesus’ parables, it is about re-evaluating what we take for granted, thinking outside the box, and – ultimately – subverting the dominant paradigm,. Through this parable, Jesus intends to invert our usual understandings about who counts in this world.

Speaking of counting, this reminds me that, earlier this week when we were discussing the Gospel text for this sermon, Julie offered up an interesting variation on Benchley’s Law of Distinction: She said, "There are three kinds of people in the world – those who are good at math and those who aren’t." (pause). . . .

Anyway . . . follow me closely here, because I want to analyze what Jesus is doing with his unexpected inversion of these two types. First, Jesus accepts the classification of people into two types – the humble and the exalted. Then, he notes what can happen to them: i.e., they can be humbled or exalted. This yields four possibilities – for those of you who are statistically inclined, imagine a 2 x 2 matrix, containing four cells. Here are the four possibilities:

(1) a humble person who is exalted;

(2) a humbled person who is humbled;

(3) an exalted person who is exalted; and

(4) an exalted person who is humbled.

Jesus focuses his attention on the first group (the humble person who is exalted) and the last group (an exalted person who is humbled).

Why didn’t Jesus say anything about the other two possibilities – namely, the humbled person who is humbled and the exalted person who is exalted? Perhaps, Jesus ignored these two categories because they seem to represent the "normal" state of affairs in human life. We have many sayings to cover these situations, such as "The poor get poorer, the rich get richer" or "Nothing succeeds like success; nothing fails like failure." No one is surprised when the "haves" get more and the "have nots" get even less. This is the way of our world.

Every time that the United Nations declares another "Decade of Development" to bring the poorest nations up to the standards of the "developed" nations, the result is that the gap between them grows! So, we are not surprised when the humble get humbled nor when the exalted get exalted. This is the way of our world!

But this is not the way of the world that God would have us inhabit. Instead of accepting our human tendency to exalt the exalted and to humble the humble, Jesus asserts that God will reverse this pattern. Jesus proclaims that we ought to be righteous rather than self-righteous. We need to be justified with God and our neighbors, not self-justified.

Let us not forget that Jesus’ original audience for this parable was composed of "some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt." Of course, this means that this parable would work for virtually all of us human beings, whether back then in the first-century or now in the twenty-first century. On those days when – like the Pharisee – we are feeling pretty good about ourselves and our faith, we especially need to be on the lookout. When we become more interested in proper religious practices than in caring for others in need, we are very likely to be getting out of line with God.

The parable makes clear that "self-justification" and being "self-righteous" does not satisfy God. According to Jesus, we would be better off being the tax collector who simply declares "God be merciful to me, a sinner." Recall what the apostle Paul proclaims in chapter 3 of his letter to the Romans,

For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (3:22b-24)

In this passage, Paul provides another spin to Jesus’ parabolic treatment of the human condition. According to Paul, all of us – whatever our station in life – need to see ourselves as the sinners we are. All of us – no matter what our good deeds, no matter what we give to the church and to other good causes, no matter whether we are rich or poor, no matter whether we are admired or despised – all of us are sinners in need of salvation through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. All of us, regardless of our prayers, still depend on God’s grace for now and forever.

And this brings us full-circle – to reconsider Robert Benchley’s Law of Distinction, not from his somewhat cynical human perspective, but from God’s graceful and merciful point of view. And this is what I hear God saying to all of us,

There are two kinds of people in the world, those of you who know you are sinners and those of you who don’t. But, without distinction, I love you all.

All I can add to that is to say, "Thanks be to God. Amen."

© 2004 Robert V. Kemper (e-mail: rkemper@trinitypresdallas.org)