In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever.

Brothers and sisters, today we remember both the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, but also the eve of the Meeting of the Lord in the temple, one of the twelve great feasts of the whole year of the church. And when we consider these things, we realize that all that we are learning from it this particular day comes from going up, going up to the temple of the Lord.

In the Meeting of the Lord, we rejoice in the promise that is fulfilled on this day. Joseph and Mary in obedience to the commandments of the Law bring their child Jesus into the temple to make an offering as was commanded for every firstborn son. So they offer two turtledoves as a sacrificial offering. But as they do so, the righteous Simeon and Anna recognize who this is that they have brought—that they're making this little offering in obedience to the Law but what they have brought in is far greater. The one who is in their arms is an offering that is beyond all expectation, beyond all that is possible for the human race to offer.

And so Simeon rejoices that his eyes have seen the salvation that was promised. Now he can rest in peace. After long years of waiting for the promised Messiah, here he is, the one who will enlighten the Gentiles and be the glory of God's people, Israel. And so Joseph and Mary, Simeon and Anna, all have nothing in their hearts but gratitude and awe and rejoicing in this gift from God. That is everything that they have to lift up on this day at the Meeting of the Lord.

But consider the Publican and the Pharisee in the parable that the Lord gives us today. The Pharisee goes up to the temple to pray. And what does he offer? His offering is himself. He congratulates God that God has done such a marvelous job in making the Pharisee into a wonder of righteousness. He's doing everything he's supposed to do perfectly down to the last detail. And so, "Thank you, God, for making me so excellent, so upright, not like all these wretched people—extortioners and adulterers, and this tax collector right over here. Look at him. Look at him. Isn't he awful? Thank you, God, that you did not make me like that tax collector. Good job, everybody. Now we can go home."

What kind of an offering is that? You know, it is the same temple that he dares to enter that we were just reflecting on—the wonder, the amazement of Simeon and Anna to behold their salvation coming in through the doors, coming up to the sanctuary of the Lord. They're coming to make their humble little offering faithfully as just among the people, but in their arms is the Christ, the Son of God in the flesh, come to bring light to all of us who have been waiting in darkness.

And to come into that same temple with pride and self-congratulation and contempt and judgment for others—that is presumption indeed. And so our Lord says that this is the one who goes out not justified. Not justified. In other words, still bent, crooked, because he doesn't realize that he needs to be made straight. That's what it means to be justified: to be made straight, to be able to stand upright at last.

What of the Publican, the tax collector? He knows that he's not like Joseph and Mary that are faithful in their lives. Certainly not the Virgin Mary, all pure, all holy, all blameless. He has nothing to offer from his life. We were hearing last week, the Sunday of Zacchaeus, of just how miserable and corrupt and corrupting a job being a tax collector in that time was. So we can understand that this tax collector might as well be Zacchaeus, someone who has nothing to show from his life until now.

What if perhaps he's like Zacchaeus in that he has recognized that he needs to make a huge change? Maybe he's tried to make a beginning and has started out enthusiastically saying, "I know what I need to do now. I need to turn away from all my corrupt dealing, my cheating and intimidating other people so that I could extort from them extra money. I'm going to give it back, anything that I've taken unjustly. I'm going to give generously to the poor."

I have all these good intentions. And then day by day, slowly I start to stumble and struggle and find it harder and harder to keep to my good intentions, to actually fulfill my promises to the Lord. And I come to this point of dismay, realizing in the words of St. Paul that "which I would do, that I do not do, and that which I would not do, that I do." What help is there for me in God?

So what can the tax collector, this publican, offer? He's certainly not going to be clapping himself on the back like the Pharisee, but instead he bows himself to the ground. He's not even looking up to heaven and says, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner."

And Jesus tells us this is the one who goes away justified, because the Lord hears this prayer because it's a real prayer. He's actually asking for something. He knows that he needs to be made right. He needs to be straightened out. He needs to be shown mercy. He needs to be taught how to live aright.

And so the merciful God hears this cry for mercy and reaches out and lifts him up and makes him to stand upright. He's justified. That's what that means.

And what of us who have come into the temple of the Lord today to hear of these remembrances, of the Meeting of the Lord, of the Publican and the Pharisee? What of us? We heard today in preparation for the Great Lent that stands before us: "Open to me the doors of repentance," for the first time. We will be hearing it in these weeks. And this is the word of the heart of the Publican. And this is of course the word of a faithful Christian who knows that we are all made in the image of God, called to live with him. But we are sinners. We are sinners.

And by our own imaginations and vanity and ambitions, we are not able to stand upright. We cannot fix what is wrong in our lives by our own efforts alone. So we certainly cannot come in to make an offering of some excellence in our lives, some perfection we already have. We cannot stand with Joseph and Mary as those who have lived lives of faithfulness from beginning to end. We've not been standing in patient expectation with Simeon and Anna waiting for the fulfillment of the promises of God.

But we can stand with the Publican. A broken and humbled heart God will not despise. And so we join with him in saying, "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner."

And the merciful God will hear us and reach out to us and begin the work in us as we at last cooperate with him in making what is crooked straight, smoothing out what is roughened and broken, knitting together that which is divided, healing what is wounded, correcting what is false, giving life to what is dead, so that we day by day by the mercy of God, with faithful participation and hope and perseverance appearing in our lives of repentance, we may begin to become what we were meant to be.

That at last we may enter into the presence of the Lord, and on that day we might meet the Lord face to face and be glad.

Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ. Glory forever.