Tithing for righteousness?

​It’s stewardship month here at St. Paul’s UCC.  Next week is Pledge Sunday, the day when we will ask one another to pledge our financial support for this congregation for the coming year.  A frequent sermon topic during Stewardship month at many churches is the idea of tithing.  A tithe is a biblical concept which describes the Israelite practice of giving one/tenth of your harvest to God, or to the temple in Jerusalem. During stewardship month, preachers often talk about the need to give a tithe of your income; how to work out what your tithe should be, and how you might slowly build from giving one to two percent of your income up to ten.  
Personally, I think a tithe is a good goal for your giving to the church. Planning in advance what you will set aside for God and Christian ministry is a good way to make this ministry a priority in your life. Plus, the more people give, the more likely we are to keep the lights on here, the more likely we are to grow and expand our ministry in the community, and to be blunt about it, the more likely we are to be able to pay my salary.  So yeah, I think giving, especially attempting to give as generously as a tithe, is a good thing, an important thing. 
All this means that I was a little at a loss of what to preach on when I read our text from Luke for this week. Because although this text does explicitly mention tithing, it doesn’t exactly portray it in the best light. In fact, in this parable, the one who tithes is the negative example, he is the one that we are supposed to abhor, the one we are not to want to be like.  After my first reading of the text, I briefly thought about preaching on something else, something that showed giving in a more positive light, something that would make for a better sales pitch.  But, I soon remembered that I’m not just a fundraiser, I’m a Christian minister. My job is preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ above and before all. So even if its not the best sales pitch, I’m gonna go right ahead and preach the Gospel of this little anti-tithing parable during our stewardship month. Maybe I’ll talk us all out of giving entirely, maybe not. I suppose we’ll just have to see.
Within the context of the Gospels the Pharisee and the Tax Collector each represent extreme cases: The Pharisee represents the extreme legalism and self-righteousness that could be found within that sect. The tax collector represents the quintessential sinner. Collecting taxes on behalf of Rome, these Jewish tax collectors made their living by extracting whatever extra income they could from their fellow Jews. The profited from their complicity with the oppression of their own people. The Pharisee is our upstanding, respectable citizen, whereas the Tax Collector is the reprehensible bottom feeder leeching off of the oppressed. 
Jesus intentionally juxtaposes the prayers of these two radically different people to show two radically different conceptions of God and religion. The first understanding of religion is that of the Pharisee.  Listen to the Pharisee’s prayer: “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.” The focus of the prayer is more on the Pharisee and his actions, than it is on God. In fact, the prayer reads a little like a resume listing the Pharisee’s moral accomplishments: I am not a thief. I am not a rogue, nor an adulterer. I fast two times a week and I loyally tithe. The Pharisee is confident in his own righteousness, he is self-righteous.  His relationship with God is transactional, he gives his fasting and his tithe, and in return he may claim righteousness.  He gives to God and the Temple, he doesn’t steal, he is good and therefore God must reward him.  In fact, he already has his reward in part, he has the confidence that he is morally superior to those who are not like him.  While others may be thieves and adulterers, he is righteous. While others do not give, his tithing serves as the positive proof of his moral superiority. 
If the Pharisee’s prayer illustrates the religion of the self-righteous and morally superior, the prayer of the Tax Collector represents the religion of the sinner and the outcast. While the Pharisee proudly describes his own righteousness, the tax collector is painfully aware of his own sin. He is standing at a distance from the altar, the representation of the divine presence, as though he is not worthy of approaching it.  Similarly, he is afraid even to look up at heaven. His prayer lists no moral achievements, as he does not believe he has any to claim. In it he describes himself accurately as a sinner. 
Despite knowing that he has sinned, despite believing in God’s righteousness and knowing how far short of it he falls, the tax collector has nonetheless come to the Temple to pray. His prayer acknowledges his sin, but it also acknowledges the possibility that God, righteous as she is, is loving enough to show mercy to the sinner.  With no pretense of self-righteousness, no defense of his own worthiness, the tax collector honestly confesses his identity as a sinner, and throws himself upon the Mercy of God’s love. 
The Christian Church has been given the mission of continuing the ministry of Jesus Christ, the mission of expanding the kingdom of God here on earth.  It is for this mission that St. Paul’s United Church of Christ exists.  It is for this mission that we ask one another to pledge our financial support for the congregation.  We are trying to create and sustain a community which seeks actively to do the will of God in Jesus Christ.  So when we are presented with these two startlingly different conceptions of God and religion, the question we must ask ourselves is what kind of community do these understandings foster? How does the self-righteous faith of the Pharisee shape his view of others and his community? How does the repentant faith of the tax collector lead him to think of others?
The Pharisee believes in his own righteousness. For him religion is the proof of his righteousness, it is the pathway to moral superiority. For the Pharisee religion is a means to feel confident in one’s own righteousness. Having done his duty, he is entitled to God’s blessing, to his own spot in heaven.  His religion is a place to feel safe among other righteous persons. It is a place that’s inward focus protects it from difference, and difficulty, and dissension.  It is a place where God’s chosen people can live in separation from the sinful mass of humanity, a place where people can be safe from the taint of their fallen brothers and sisters. The religion of the Pharisee creates an entitled and morally superior community with no concern for those it deems less fortunate.
The tax collector believes himself to be lost in sin and in need of God’s salvation. Though he admits his sin, he nonetheless believes God can and will save him from it. He cannot rely on his own righteousness, for he believes he has none. The only righteousness that he knows and trusts is that of God, for whose mercy he now prays. His justification, his receiving God’s grace, is due entirely to God, not to his own works.  He is in the position to identify with all lost sinners, having been one himself.  He is in a position to be incredibly grateful to God without whom he could not have been saved. He is in a position to preach the Gospel, the good news of God’s loving forgiveness, to all those sinners outside of the temple. For if he, lowly sinner that he is, could be justified, there is no one beyond the grace of God.  His overwhelming gratitude for God’s unmerited grace translates into a desire that all other lost sinners should know the feeling of God’s loving acceptance and the glory the new life it makes possible. In the religion of the Tax Collector, there is no inside group and outside group, there is no firm division between the righteous and the sinner, there is only those who have yet to experience the grace of God, and those who have claimed it in faith.  For the tax collector, the difference between the righteous and the sinner is not essential, it is only a matter of timing and luck. The religion of the Tax Collector springs from the gratitude for God’s unmerited Grace, and it exists only for the purpose of spreading the knowledge of that grace to all the sinners of the world.
As a congregational church, we as members, have an incredible amount of power to shape this congregation and its ministry in the world, for the responsibility to do so falls only to us. There is no pope, or no bishop to tell us what we should do. I want very much for this church to be sustainable. I want very much for us to have the money to keep on the lights and to pay my salary. But what I want more than anything is for St. Paul’s to be a church that practices the religion of the tax collector.  Your pledge, even if it is a full tithe, does not buy you righteousness. Your participation in the ministry of this church does not make you morally superior to those outside of it. But should you choose to give honestly and freely of yourself to the work of this congregation, you may experience the overwhelming grace of a God that loves you, claims you, and sets you free to serve your sisters and brothers. Should you surrender all your belief in your own righteousness and come to rely upon God, you may find within yourself a growing sense of solidarity with the sick, the suffering, the poor, and the sinful. Should you choose to invest your entire self in this congregation, you may find yourself recognizing more and more of the kingdom of God right here on earth, right here at St. Paul’s.  It is my prayer that through giving honestly and freely of ourselves, we might create just such an experience of God’s amazing grace, and we might be so bold as to invite others to share it with us.  
Amen.