To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 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. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “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.’ “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.” Luke 18:9-14
“To some people who had confidence in themselves as righteous yet showed disdain for everyone else, Jesus holds up a parabolic mirror that pictures once again the radical status inversion effected by the realm of God. If the moral of the story is not clear enough Jesus clinches its point in a closing assertion of the table-upending activity of God that subverts conventional notions of status and honor: “All who lift themselves high will be brought low, but those who lower themselves will be lifted high”…
Two men at prayer in the temple present a study in contrasts — in position and body posture, in the content of their prayers, and in their dramatically different ways of life, on exemplary and the other morally repugnant. The Pharisee stands by himself, his position conveying his attitude toward other people, expressed in his prayer. The tax collector, by contrast, stands “at a distance,” his face turned downward away from heaven, in humility (perhaps humiliation), pounding his chest in remorse…
The tax collector’s prayer is compact (“God, show mercy to me, the sinner” [six words in Greek]), overshadowed by the description of his body language (19 words). The Pharisee, however, is full of words (29 in all): prominent among them are five first-person verbs. Cast in the form of thanksgiving (“I thank you”), the prayer is thus actually self-referential, centering on the meritorious activities of a man who knows himself to be virtuous…
Which of these embodies the reign of God?”
John T. Carroll in Luke: A Commentary (Louisville: WJKP, 2012) 358-360.
So I am at home through Thursday, working on a project for Asbury Theological Seminary. Shortly, I drop Jenni off at the airport to spend the first half of this week with Sophie in California. I’ve been fascinated afresh by these scenes in the Gospels that contain some or all of the Lenten disciplines and that show us what God does not desire from us and what He does desire from us. Jesus is quite clear about the difference.
At first this scene reads like one of those “Two men go into a bar…” jokes, but Jesus is not joking: “Two men went up to the temple to pray…” Jesus holds up a parabolic mirror for His hearers to find themselves in the story. The same holds true for us today. And, this vignette vividly brings together all three Lenten disciplines, showing us how not to live them out and how to live them out.
The Pharisee thought he had them down, and yet, his prayer reveals that his faith was in himself. He used fancy words, talked about how he fasted twice a week, and added that gave a tenth of his income. In show-stopping fashion we discover that Jesus has no interest in his self-righteousness (or ours)! He does not need our fasting, our prayers, our money, He wants our hearts. Only those who humble themselves go home justified.
Jesus does not want us to give a little bit more money than we gave last year. He does not desire we skip another meal here and there. He does not want to hear long prayers. He wants the reign of God to be evident through our humility. Where are you in the story? On this feast day only three weeks until Easter, what do you see when you look in the parabolic mirror?