This sermon was preached on Sunday 26th October 2025.

Bible Reading: Luke 18.9-14

Do you think you are a good person? It’s a somewhat forward question, but also somewhat vague. What does it mean to be a good person? Does thinking I am good make me a good person, or is being a good person evaluated by others? Are there certain rules or metrics by which we determine if someone is a good person? I don’t want us to overthink it; otherwise, we will be here all day trying to determine what it means to be a good person. But just on instinct, do you think you are a good person? 

Personally, I think you are all good people. You have all been wonderful to me since my arrival, and when people ask me how I am settling in Corby, I tell them that I have lots of good people around me. So, I hope that you can recognise that you are good people, because you are. 

However, we should never mistake being good people as the same as being perfect people. A perfect person is someone who never does anything wrong, always does what is good, and is without sin. But we know that no one is perfect. Everyone gets something wrong or makes a mistake. Everyone sins, and therefore no one is perfect. The only perfect person, and without sin, is Jesus of Nazareth. 

The danger becomes when we forget this and mistake being a good person for being a perfect person, and this gets us into all sorts of spiritual difficulty, and this is what we see in the parable Jesus tells us in our gospel reading. The parable begins by telling us that Jesus ‘told this parable to people who were sure of their own goodness and despised everybody else.’^[1] Jesus was speaking directly to people who had fallen into this trap of delusion about their own goodness. In fact, they went a step further by not only thinking about how good they were, but by thinking they were therefore better others they considered less good, and they looked down on these people. 

So in the parable, there are two men. One is a Pharisee and the other is a tax collector. A Pharisee is a religious leader and holy man. They were the priests and teachers of the law in Jesus’ day. As religious leaders and teachers, they were revered as upright and righteous people who followed the laws and teachings of God. 

Whereas a tax collector was considered a sinful, wicked and unrighteous person. The Jews despised fellow Jews who became tax collectors. They hated them because they took money from their fellow Jews and gave it to the Roman government, which had taken over Israel. The Jews hated their Roman oppressors, and they hated it when their own people were taking from them and giving what they had to the Romans. In addition, tax collectors would usually take more money than was required of them, so they could take a cut of the tax money for themselves. It was viewed as theft, betrayal and corruption at its worst in Jewish society.

So, you can see the difference between the Pharisee and the tax collector. In summary, the Pharisee is good and the tax collector is bad. But look what happens when these two men get to the temple to pray. 

‘The Pharisee stood apart by himself and prayed, ‘I thank you, God, that I am not greedy, dishonest, or an adulterer, like everybody else. I thank you that I am not like that tax collector over there. I fast two days a week, and I give you one tenth of all my income.’^[2]

Now, on the surface, this Pharisee seems like a good man. He stands separate from other sinners, indicating his purity compared to them. He gives lots of thanks to God in his prayers. He thanks God that he is a good and righteous man. He acknowledges that he does not do bad things such as lying, cheating, and being greedy, like all other people do. He fasts two days a week (oh, he must be really holy to do that), and he gives one tenth of all his income away to charity work and temple offerings. He sees the wicked tax collector on the other side of the temple and recognises that he is the complete opposite of the tax collector. He does what is right, while the tax collector does what is wrong. 

But then we look at the tax collector. We see that ‘the tax collector stood at a distance and would not even raise his face to heaven, but beat on his breast and said, ‘God, have pity on me, a sinner!’^[3] The tax collector recognises his sinfulness and where he has gone wrong. He would not even look to God because of how unworthy he felt because of his sin. He cried out to God for mercy and forgiveness. Then the parable ends there. 

Jesus then turns to the crowd of self-righteous people and says, ‘I tell you, the tax collector, and not the Pharisee, was in the right with God when he went home.’^[4] How is it that the good man came away from the temple bad with God, and the bad man came away right with God? 

Can I assume that most people in here have watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? If you haven’t seen it, please be assured I am not going to spoil the whole thing, but also, you’ve had 36 years to see it, so you’ve had plenty of time. As Indiana Jones and everyone search for the Holy Grail, they come to what they believe to be the resting site of the Holy Grail, the cup that Christ used at the last supper, and the cup which caught some of Christ’s blood at the crucifixion. To reach the Holy Grail, they must face three challenges. Luckily, they have three clues to get them through the challenges, but that doesn’t mean that it is going to be easy. 

So, Indiana Jones goes to face the three challenges. Now, a few people have tried to get past the first challenge, but unfortunately, they seem to end up beheaded. How is Indiana Jones going to get past with his head still on his shoulders? Well, as I said, Indiana Jones has a clue to help him through this first challenge. The clue is ‘Only the penitent man will pass.’^[5] ‘Only the penitent man will pass.’ Indiana Jones repeats this to himself until it finally clicks. ‘The penitent man is humble before God. Kneel.’^[6] Then Indiana Jones kneels and does a cool duck and forward roll to avoid the spinning blades that decapitated the previous people. He then carries on with his quest, and I won’t reveal more, so I don’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it. Though I do believe all people should watch The Last Crusade.  

The reason I bring this up is because Indiana Jones hit the nail on the head about this parable. It is the penitent man who is able to come before God. Where the Pharisee is saying to God, ‘Look how great I am. I am so much better than that tax collector,’ the tax collector says, ‘Don’t look at me, I am unworthy and ask for your forgiveness.’ But all that happens is the Pharisee never turns towards God; instead, he is looking down at the tax collector next to him. Whereas the tax collector, even though he dared not look to God in heaven because of his sin, chooses to give over everything before God’s mercy. In his penitence, he receives God’s renewal and transformation in his life, and he is made right with God. 

When I say he is made right with God, I mean that in the same way you make things right with a friend after a falling out. You make it such that none of the bad stuff or mistakes, or hurt is present anymore. You have forgiven each other and moved forward. To be made right with God is to have our sin dealt with and wiped clean so that we can come before God as a friend. 

The Pharisee, in his self-assured self-righteousness, considered himself perfect before God and forgot that he stands alongside the tax collector as a fellow sinner before God, as someone who has made mistakes, sinned, and turned away from God. The Pharisee might have been better than the tax collector in following God’s laws and teachings. But his heart became filled with pride, and he forgot who he was before God. 

You see, the problem for the Pharisee is that he is comparing himself to the wrong person. He compares himself to other sinners, which is why he thinks he is so much better than the tax collector. But whether you do ‘small sins’ or ‘big sins,’ there is no getting around the fact that they are both sins. However, as Christians, we are not called to compare our sins or righteousness with other people, but we are called to compare them with Jesus Christ. We are not meant to look down on others, but we are to collectively look up at Jesus. And from this view, we see that all of us fall short of Jesus’ perfect ways and perfect life. 

If the Pharisee had compared himself to God and walking in God’s ways, he would have seen that he is in the same position as the tax collector. But because he does not turn to God with self-recognition of his sin, he is unable to bring the wound of his sin to be healed by God. His sin of pride and unrepentance becomes a barrier between him and God that he is not willing to address. Whereas the tax collector humbled himself before God, admitted his sinfulness, and prayed for God’s healing and redemption, and he got what he prayed for. The tax collector was made right with God. 

At the start of today, I asked you if you thought you were a good person. Now, having preached this sermon, I don’t want you to start denying that and thinking that you are bad people. But I want us to be clear that us being good does not mean we are perfect. In fact, when we all compare ourselves before God, we see that none of us are perfect. All of us sin. All of us get things wrong. 

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus famously said to the rich man, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.’^[7] We must remember that when we call ourselves good, we must maintain that pinch of salt that recognises that none of us are perfectly good. Only God is perfectly good. 

God, and I would say specifically Jesus Christ, needs to be the marker which informs what is good. Jesus is the one to whom we must compare ourselves. We need to be asking, ‘Am I living like Jesus in what I am doing, saying, and thinking?’ But often we forget to do this and compare ourselves against others instead. How often do we look down on others, thinking we are better than they are? Or let me rephrase it. How often do we say to ourselves, at least we are not as bad as they are? As though being comparatively less bad makes us good. But that is not how it works. 

Only God is good, and we are good because God puts us right with him. Like the tax collector is made right by his penitence before God, we are made right by coming to Jesus for his forgiveness, salvation, and sanctification. 

When we gather to worship God and come to meet him at his Holy Table, we always begin with an act of confession, a prayer of penitence, when we bring our sins and unworthiness before God. It is in this act of confession that we open ourselves up to the saving and healing work of Jesus’ victory over sin on the cross, which brings us redemption and makes us right with God. So that when we come to God’s table, we come as friends to Christ’s table, just like Jesus’ disciples came to the table with him. 

Today, this week, let us come before God not with the closed pride of the Pharisee, but with the open penitence of the tax collector. Here before God, we are made right by him, and we receive the work of his goodness in our lives. And when we do, we get to walk away like the tax collector without any shame. You don’t need to feel guilt or shame about the sin and wrongdoing in your life. Jesus takes it all away, makes us right with him, and brings us the freedom of new and good life with him. Let’s come with open penitence of the tax collector to be made right with God. 

Amen.

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^[1] Luke 18.9 [GNB]. 

^[2] Luke 18.11-12 [GNB]. 

^[3] Luke 18.13 [GNB]. 

^[4] Luke 18.14 [GNB]. 

^[5] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, directed by Stephen Spielberg (Paramount Pictures, 1989).

^[6] Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

^[7] Mark 10.8 GNB].