Even the Toll-Collector

Luke 18:9-14

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “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.” But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 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.’

As is the case with all of Jesus’ parables, there’s much more to this story than meets the eye. If we do a cursory read of this, the point is obvious—the Pharisee, the powerful religious leader is a self-righteous jerk who, even though he’s doing everything he’s supposed to, is doing it wrong since he’s so arrogant and contemptuous of others; and the tax collector, the guy who goes around taking orders from the state to take people’s money and is therefore hated, is repentant and humble, and is therefore better than the Pharisee. And if I’m being totally honest with you, those points won’t really change, that is the general gist of this passage. So… sermon, over! But in truth, we don’t really understand how truly radical and mind-blowing this parable was in its day, until we learn something about religious customs and what exactly tax and toll collectors did in Jesus’ day.

Now I say toll collectors, because that’s actually more accurate. Toll collectors were different than tax collectors. Tax collection is a more ambiguous thing, it’s more of a typical bureaucratic thing; but toll collectors was different… it was much, much sketchier. So toll collectors were nobodies who collected indirect taxes—things like tariffs, customs, tolls—on behalf of landowners, business owners, elites. And it was kind of like the beginnings of an ancient pyramid scheme. They would be obligated to essentially, lease out a contract, so they would pay said elite landowner for the privilege of collecting money for him. So his collection would have to recoup what he paid to get this job, plus, he’d charge extra so he could make a profit. Now, no one liked paying taxes in Jesus’ day in Judea because taxes weren’t going to fund roads or libraries; they were going straight to the noble Romans. So people hated tax collectors of all kinds, but they really hated toll collectors. I mean, toll collectors were universally reviled; and they also had a pretty public facing job; they were the boots-on-the-ground minions for these elites. So they were deeply hated, and people did not hide that fact.

Now this Pharisee—they were already revered figures in their time; they were learned, they had authority, they had power. And the guy in our passage today really goes above and beyond. The fasting twice a week part—that’s simply a suggestion, not a requirement, but he’s doing it. That tithe he gives is probably a pretty hefty sum since he’s a powerful man. But when it’s written at the beginning that the Pharisee is standing by himself, it’s actually written in the Greek in a very strange way; it could be translated more literally as “standing to himself these things he prayed,” or that he was “praying to himself.” This is probably not an accident. It’s to really emphasize that fact that yes, he’s… technically praying to God. But since he’s being so awful and self-righteous, is he really praying to God? Or is he simply exalting himself, praying about himself? In my reading, it’s probably a little bit of both.

And also—notice that the Pharisee is “standing by himself,” and the tax, or rather the toll collector, is “standing far off.” They’re  both separating themselves from the crowd, but implication is that it’s for wildly different reasons. The Pharisee thinks he’s above everyone else, he presumably doesn’t want to come into contact with anyone he might consider “impure.” The toll collector is standing far off because he doesn’t feel worthy. He’s standing away from people because he doesn’t feel like he is worthy to be in the presence of others.

Now in our day, we understand the context of the Pharisee. Pharisees don’t exactly have the best reputation in the New Testament. So when we hear this story we’re like, ‘oh yeah, that makes sense.’ But in Jesus’ day hearing someone publicly uplifting a toll collector like this would have been unheard of. Jesus’ audience would have been absolutely shocked to hear this, despite the fact that arrogance and contempt of others was absolutely denounced in the Torah; however, the systems of power of the day sometimes blasphemously seemed to trump what the Torah and God commanded of their people. So Jesus is putting this hypocrisy on blast. He’s making it very clear that the humble, the honest, the meek, will always be the ones who are exalted and setting the right example.

So the main source I used for my research is in this Sermon was William R. Herzog’s books Parables as Subversive Speech, and he has a very interesting reading of this parable that I’m inclined to agree with, and that I think it makes especially relevant for us today. He sort of renames this parable “The Parable of the Two Toll Collectors.” And he does this because he takes into account the tithes the Temple officials were taking from average citizens coming to pray and worship. In the next chapter of Luke, in chapter 19, Jesus will cleanse the temple—Jesus will go in his very human anger will get the best of him, and he will march in and drive out those selling sacrifices and extorting temple-goers. “My house shall be a house of prayer”; but you have made it a den of robbers,” Jesus says, quoting Jeremiah.

So in Herzog’s view, these are two men who are working within a broken, unjust system. One believes he’s good and righteous. The other understands the work he’s doing is wrong, understands that he's a flawed human, and deems himself unworthy of God’s love.

Now, I’m thinking of our world today, and I’m thinking of that horrible offensive, but still oft-used term “unskilled workers.” And I’m thinking of how so many look down upon those they deem low-skill, those they deem to be below them because they’re working a low-wage job. And how when someone has all the money in the world, they’re supposed to be revered as innovative, hard-working, world-changing. But when you look at today’s billionaires, are they really any different than the Pharisee in this story? Most of them got a huge advantage thanks to inheritance and generational wealth. They use their money to buy political influence and uplift themselves. They buy widely used apps and bend the law of free speech to their will. They speaking openly with contempt about those they don’t agree with. And what are these “unskilled” workers doing but simply doing work that needs to be done, that makes the world go round, work that so many people believe they’re too good for—often work that’s backbreaking, that’s physically taxing, that requires one to be face-to-face with the very people to revile them for no reason.

The toll collector in our story probably hates his job. He probably hates the fact that he has to price gouge in order to get by. But he wasn’t born into nobility. He likely had little or no other options. So he leased out a contract, and he has a thankless job of collecting money for bosses who don’t care about him, as long as they get what they believe to be theirs. And so he knows how bad things are, he knows he’s part of the problem, and he hates it.

The Pharisee is also part of the problem. The Pharisee is a bigger part of the problem. Because he’s actively perpetuating the system of power that puts other down; the system of power that makes it so that “thieves, rogues… even this tax collector” exist—the system of power that puts people like him in a societal position above others, that makes him believe that he’s a better, more righteous person than others, just because of his position in life. But to be honest, that’s not really the point of this story. It’s a fact that there are some people adding to the problems of this world more than others, absolutely—but the point of this story is that we’re all part of a broken world, and it’s whether or not we’re aware of that, and whether or not we have empathy and compassion for one another that truly matters. The point is humility and understanding that until we bring about an earth as it is in heaven, we will all be guilty of adding to the inequality and sin of the world. Some of us will be more victims of this inequality than perpetuators; some of us are more perpetuators than victims. But we’re all guilty.

Whenever my friends and I are trying to justify some stupid purchase we’ve made, some brand we like that maybe has questionable labor practices, we joke with each other using the phrase “well, there’s not ethical consumption under capitalism anyway.” It’s simply not possible to be a wholly ethical consumer of goods in this world, because there’s always some being exploited in some way. It’s kind of the same depressing principle. There’s really no way to be a perfectly righteous person in this world. But the point is that we’re aware. And that we take that awareness and try to change things for the better.

Since the Pharisee in our story already thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread, since he’s comfortable in life, since he has very little to worry about, he’s not going to care much about changing anything for the better since he’s benefitting from the brokenness of his world. But the toll collector knows he’s living within the brokenness. He’s a victim of it, and he’s adding to it, and he rightly hates it.

But okay, this sermon has taken a slightly depressing turn, so let’s end it with something a little more uplifting. There’s surely a middle ground between what the self-righteousness and contemptuousness of the Pharisee and the self-flagellation of the toll collector. Jesus is surely using these two as rather extreme examples, and his point is, is that it’s better to be a aware of the brokenness and repentant of your part in it, than to have a position of religious authority and believe you’re sinless and perfect.

It's crucial to be aware of our part in the brokenness of the world around us—and the good news for us, is that a lot of us have the chance to work to make this world better. To begin with, we recognize that so-called “unskilled” or “low-skill” workers are wildly skilled and many are working much harder than your average office employee; and we can also recognize that they are likely in those low-wage jobs because of circumstances beyond their control. We can choose to work for change in this world so that those circumstances that oppress people no longer exist. We can vote, we can run for office, we can petition our officials, and of course, we can create a space like this one, right here, starting small, in which everyone is on equal footing, where everyone is welcome. We start be looking at our neighbors here as our peers, regardless of how much education they’ve had, what they do or don’t do job, what they took like, and we take that out in the world, and we give that grace to all we encounter—because we understand that this world is broken, the system is rigged, and so we work to change that; but we begin by loving all our neighbors—the “thieves, rogues, adulterers…even [the] tax-collector.” Amen.