Humility: The Pharisee and the Tax Collector Props: two puppets - a Pharisee and a Tax Collector. Who can tell me our value for this half term? Humility. Let s remember that humility is not about putting yourself down, or thinking everyone is better than you. Each one of you is amazing. God made every single person in this room, and he loves you and cares about you and knows how wonderful you are. But humility is about knowing that you re not the only one God made and loves and cares about. It s about knowing other people s value, and not thinking yourself better than them. It s about loving and serving God and each other, instead of putting yourself first. Today, we re going to hear a story that Jesus told about humility, and think a bit about what it means. I need two Year 6s to help me. [Choose two Y6 children and give each of them a puppet to hold up. Ask them to listen to the story and make the puppets speak or look up/down where appropriate.] The Bible says that Jesus told this story when he met a group of people who were very confident that they were good and did nothing wrong, and looked down on everyone else.
Jesus said: Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. This is the Pharisee. A Pharisee was someone who tried very hard to obey all of God s commands. Pharisees would fast regularly: can anyone tell me what fasting is? It s going without food for a while, to help you to concentrate on what God wants instead of on what your tummy wants. Pharisees would also tithe: does anyone know what that means? It means they would give away one tenth of everything they had, to help them to remember that everything comes from God. So you can see that the Pharisees really tried hard to be good and to please God. And you won t be surprised to hear that other people admired them, because they seemed to set such a good example by the way they lived. Let s hear what the Pharisee in Jesus story did when he went to the Temple. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don t cheat, I don t sin, and I m faithful to my wife. I m certainly not like that tax collector over there! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of all I get.
There was another man in Jesus story: a tax collector. This is the tax collector. Tax is the money that the government collects to pay for the things that it does, like build roads and run schools and hospitals. That s ok. But sometimes governments collect too much tax, or they tax poor people more than rich people, and then people don t like paying the tax because they think it s unfair. Tax collectors where Jesus lived were paid by the Roman rulers and by King Herod to collect taxes, and the people didn t think these taxes were fair. But what made it even worse was that lots of tax collectors were cheats. They made the people give them more money than the Romans or King Herod had asked for, and kept the extra for themselves. So you won t be surprised to hear that people didn t much like tax collectors, because they set such a bad example by the way they lived. Let s hear what the tax collector in Jesus story did when he went to the Temple. The tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner. And here s where Jesus story gets interesting.. Because it doesn t end quite as his listeners might have expected.
Because then Jesus said, When the two men went home, it was the tax collector and not the Pharisee who was pleasing to God. The tax collector not the Pharisee was pleasing to God. That s a bit surprising, isn t it? Jesus certainly wouldn t have liked the tax collector s behaviour, if he spent his life cheating and stealing from other people. And he certainly would have thought it was a good thing for the Pharisee not to cheat or sin, and to give money to the poor. So why did Jesus say that it was the tax collector who pleased God, not the Pharisee? [Take answers.] The Pharisee thought that his behaviour made him better than everyone else. The tax collector knew that he d messed up and needed God s help. Let s hear the very last bit of Jesus story. At the end, he said: If you put yourself above others, you will be put down. But if you humble yourself, you will be honoured. Jesus loves it when we try our best to be good. But he doesn t like it when we think that makes us better than other people. Jesus wants us to be humble, and that means knowing that we all mess up, and we all need God s help. And when other people mess up, Jesus wants us to help them, not look down on them.
Let s just hear the whole story again, before we close with a prayer. Jesus said: Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don t cheat, I don t sin, and I m faithful to my wife. I m certainly not like that tax collector over there! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of all I get. The tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner. Jesus said: When the two men went home, it was the tax collector and not the Pharisee who was pleasing to God. If you put yourself above others, you will be put down. But if you humble yourself, you will be honoured. Let us pray