Posture Over Performance
January 19, 2022·Jordan Fehlen
If you’re following along in our Pause reading plan, we’ve been in a portion of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus is going on a teaching/healing spree. Chapters 15-20, Jesus is making His way closer and closer to Jerusalem, expectations are building, but expectations are also mixed. Some people love Him, and some people would rather He wasn’t around. The outsiders and outcasts love Jesus and are hoping He becomes King; while the religious insiders (the Pharisees) despise Him and are plotting to arrest Him.
Amid mixed reviews, Jesus is making quite a scene… He’s dropping parables, confronting injustice, healing the sick and the blind, calling out corruption, foreshadowing His death. Things are starting to get out of hand.
And in the middle of this teaching spree, we see Him tell a simple story. He tells a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector — or an Insider and an Outsider.
Now, in the very next verse, we see that everyone is bringing their babies to Jesus… So you have to imagine, Jesus was probably telling this parable with kids in His arms. And if you’re looking to put some Pharisees on blast, but there are kids around, you would probably tell a cute story like this one… a cute story that cuts straight to the heart.
Luke 18:9-14
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13 “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.’
14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
The Pharisee was self-righteous in the truest sense of the word. The source of his righteousness was his own status and achievement, and it was all rooted in comparison to others. At least I’m not like that other guy…
But the tax collector approached God in humility, fully aware of his need for God’s mercy.
It’s the tax collector that goes home forgiven, accepted, and justified.
Apparently, God is far more concerned with our posture, than with our performance.
Isn’t it Good News that you don’t have to earn God’s love, attention, and approval?
Isn’t it Good News that we follow a Jesus who takes our brokenness, sin, and dysfunction and calls us righteous, accepted, and beloved?
Isn’t it Good News?
May you be like a tax collector — fully aware of your need for God’s grace, postured in humility, not caught up in comparison, but instead, caught up in God’s love for you.
A love that’s not based on your performance, but simply received when we’re postured in humility.
“God, have mercy on me, Jordan, a sinner…”
Pastor Jordan Fehlen
