Grace and Perfection

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men— robbers, evildoers, adulterers— or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

How might we re-tell this story for today?

Two mothers were talking about a third parent listing all the ways in which the other mum was ruining her children's life - and by implication praising their own perfect parenting skills. The other mum was indeed a bad mother, she wasn't as organised and disciplined as the others, she often lost her temper, she had smoked while pregnant and she sometimes hit her children after drinking too much. But instead of looking for someone worse than her to slag off she instead cried out to God 'Oh Lord, I must be the worst mother in the world, I don't deserve to live'. And God was greatly pleased with this mother but not with the other two.

Two Christians were sitting in church listening to the preacher whose theme was the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. One of them thought to themselves 'That's right, I undertstand this parable pretty well and I'm thankful that I often bear it in mind. Thank God I'm so humble'. But the other Christian was thinking 'Oh my God, that's what I've been doing. I've been sitting in church thinking about how good I am (of course I give God the credit for that) but now I see that makes me out to be like the pharisee not the tax collector'. And it's obvious which one's prayers made a real connection with God there and then.

As far as personal humility is concerned we know not to boast. If we want to show off we have to be really subtle about it and if we want attention (which we all do) the best way to get it (like power) is to appear as though you have not sought it at all. But we all know the truth: we like to be praised and we can't stand to be criticised.

But if we want our worship to make that real spiritual connection with God then it must include confession. And if we want to feel part of that connection for ourselves then we must, in our hearts, unburden ourselves of the illusion that we are without sin.

God is perfect, we are not. Jesus is perfect, you are not. The Holy Spirit is perfect, the church is not. And yet we limit what we can achieve in our lives, in every venture whether it's a career or a relationship, we limit what we can achieve because we don't imagine that we get anything wrong.

Parents are a good example in illustrating the theme of this parable, because being a parent means being tormented by visions of perfect parents and perfect children. Some parents pretend, to others, that they are perfect parents when there is no such thing. From before your children are born until the day you die you will make decisions that could be right or could be wrong. Over time this inevitably builds up a mass of wrong decisions - things you chose, things you did that you could have not done, things you didn't do that you should have done - that have effected your children. That have harmed them, limited their opportunites, upset them, damaged them.

Every parent experiences guilt. But some parents are in denial about this. They pretend that everything is perfect when the world outside, their children and God Himself see all too clearly that this is not right.

There's another trick that parents who can't fact the inevitable guilt of parenthood sometimes pull. That's to say that the things they have done, the choices they made over the years may have been wrong - but it was never my fault. I had no choice - 'I had to take that job that meant I would never see them because we needed the money.' 'I never showed them any love because that's not how I was brought up'. 'I fed them on junk food because no one ever taught me how to cook'. Deep down they must know that this isn't good enough.

Every single parent is plagued, at times, by feelings of regret.You can't get out of this by pretending that you were some sort of moral robot without the ability to make independent moral choices. The heavy burden of being a parent is that you must make moral choices and you must live with the consequences of these choices. You can't opt out of this universal truth by lying to yourself that you never made any mistakes, or by believing that you only ever did what you had to do and never made choices for which you were responsible.

So given that the guilt is crushing and utterly unavoidable isn't it wonderful that there is a way to be free of it. And that's to be like the tax collector and to freely and honestly admit all your shortcomings without making excuses. Now this situation is clearly seen with the example of parents, but actually it describes the human condition full stop. We are all tax collectors so we should not pretend to be pharisees.


The person who approaches God in this way, aware of all that they do wrong, receives a wonderful response from God. They don't just get a tick against their name, being right with God means receiving his forgiveness there and then. In power and in the spirit.

You can be forgiven. What's more you can feel like you've been forgiven. Tax collectors, unfit mothers, those we like to take comfort from being better than - they may well be much closer to God than we are.

The Perfect Law

Psalm 19: 7-14

The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.

The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.

The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring for ever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.

They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

By them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can discern his errors? Forgive my hidden faults.

Keep your servant also from wilful sins; may they not rule over me. Then will I be blameless, innocent of great transgression.

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer

We live in a post-Christian country. This means that a lot of the ideas, beliefs and policies of our nation have their roots in a time when most of us were Christians. One example of how a Christian belief has mutated into a secular belief would be the question of judging others. The religious context in which Jesus told us not to stand in judgement over others has been jettisoned however and what we are left with is what we now refer to as 'relativism'.

Questions such as how much flesh we should display or how we should eat our food can actually only be answered relative to a particular culture. In some cultures it is not inappropriate to gather provisions stark naked, in others it would be considered provocative, indecent or offensive.

We all understand that many judgements can only be made relative to the time and place in which they arise. Relativism, though, goes one fatal step further and makes a dogma out of a sensible but limited idea. Relativism decrees that to make an absolute judgement about anything is a sin.

When I worked for Southwark social services in the 1990s I came across a departmental briefing sheet on different cultures. It stated 'no culture is better than any other culture'. Not 'in your official role you should treat different cultures equally' but 'no culture is better than any other culture'. Now every group has a culture, its own languge, morals and customs, not just countries. According to this disastrous way of thinking the culture of paedophiles, SS officers, and football hooligans, cannot be said to be inferior to the culture among people who work for oxfam, care for the sick or perform open heart surgery.

Post-Christian relativism retains what Jesus told his followers about judging others but discards the context that made sense of it. Jesus said we should not judge but he did not say that there was no judgement, quite the reverse.

There are absolute standards of right and wrong, the law of God. It's written in the scriptures and its written in our hearts. And following every regulation in the Old Testament is not enough to be said to have kept the law, we must see the spiritual side of the commandments. So, external acts like adultery and murder cannot be separated from internal states such as lust and anger. When Jesus tells us not to abolish all anger from our hearts and all lust from our minds he is telling us to do something that we can't do - to make a point.

The point is this. The law is hard, in fact it's even harder than us religious people think it is. There is a system for dealing with the fact that it is so hard that none of us can obey it, but that system does not involve getting rid of the law, of its standards of absolute truth, of right and wrong.

As the psalm says: the Law of the Lord is perfect. Moral relativism in which no moral action can be criticised does not understand this. It's next to impossible prove to secular relativists that there are absolute laws of morality - but we do not believe in God's perfect law because of a series of abstract intellecutal proofs. We believe in God's perfect law because it has been revealed to us through the prophets and explained to us by the Messiah.

Being Perfect

When I was about nine years old I was sitting at the table waiting for my tea and I promised myself that I would remember that moment for the rest of my life. There was nothing special about the moment but for some reason I decided to remember it. This was a curious but pointless thing for me to do, but if I could get any nine year old to make the same committment to remember what I'm about to say for as long then it really could transform their life.

The message I wish I could get over, to myself and to everyone I meet, is that you are not perfect. God is perfect, human beings can't be. Jesus is perfect, you are imperfect. The holy spirit is perfect, but the church is very far from perfect. Heaven will be perfect but this world cannot be so.

We bandy about the word 'perfect' to describe a child's score in a maths test for example. But getting full marks doesn't make you perfect, because a good teacher will keep setting you new harder tests - and you will find your limits, even if you're a brilliant mathematician there will always be a point beyond which you cannot go. You cannot be perfect.

Children of divorcing parents sometimes think that if only they could become perfect then their parents would stay together. Adults stay with abusive partners believing that if only they could be the perfect wife or husband then their partner would stop abusing them and everything would be alright. I remember as a child making the promise that I would be so astonishingly good that my Dad wouldn't ever be cross with me again. But I couldn't be perfect and neither could he - God is perfect, humans aren't. Jesus is perfect but we're not. And the holy spirit is perfect but the church it calls into being is not and never will be.

There are two ways to get into God's good books. One is to be perfect, the other is to know that you are not perfect. There's nothing that can't be forgiven by God - but what seems most unforgiveable from God's perspective, from the point of view of the Father who is perfect and stands in in judgement over humanity is not that human beings are imperfect - it is that human beings think they are perfect.

Thinking you could be perfect is guaranteed to make you unhappy. Thinking you are perfect is guaranteed to make everyone else unhappy. And what makes us unhappy in this purely secular sense is not unrelated to what puts up barriers between us and God. Perfection is like a beautiful sunset - we gain immesurably from being aware of it but we will destroy ourselves if we try to own it or to be it.

God is perfect, humans are imperfect. Jesus is imperfect, you are imperfect. The Holy Spirit is perfect, but individual Christians and Christians gathered together as the church are not perfect and never will be this side of the Kingdom of God.

Calamity

This blog is all about me exploring what I consider to be a call to ministry so I can't not record the following: I've recently been to a selection weekend with the pastoral care board of the congregational federation and they've rejected my application for training.

It's a devestating blow as I felt so certain that I was suitable. There is an appeal process so it's not definitely the end of the road, and I can still apply next year, but even so it's hard to take. I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of what went wrong and what my appeal is going to say since it's ongoing.

What I will say is that over the past week I've had the opportunity to ask myself some searching questions like how much do I really want to do this and do I really believe I'm cut out for it?

There's also some uncomfortable truths to face which are that although some people are hostile or mocking when they discover your ambitions for ministry there are others who give you an exaggerated respect - and of course it's very flattering. How much, I've asked myself, did I like the idea of being a minister because of the status that (for some) comes with the title?

There's also the question of money - I wasn't intending to do unpaid ministry and theological training does not lead to many other work opportunities. I thought my CV looked pretty good for ministry, it doesn't look that good for other careers.

But I'm still convinced that I'm called to be a minister and I still want desparately to pursue it as a vocation. Hopefully I'll get there either on appeal or next year.