Saturday in the Third Week in Lent, March 18, 2023

Luke 18, 9-14

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity - greedy, dishonest, adulterous - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

“Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.”  The Greek literally says, “. . . to those who had persuaded themselves that they were righteous”.  The distinction is that on the one hand, other people may have helped convinced the, of their righteous state, and, on the other, that they had done this themselves.  The latter is more reprehensible because it disallows the thoughts of others which might help one arrive at a truer conception of oneself.  One who persuaded himself that he is righteous is also not so much interested in being righteous as in believing others not to be righteous.

Now, this righteousness, as the Pharisees understood it, had to do with following through with certain external commitments.  The ones the man in the parable concerns himself with are fasting and paying tithes on his whole income.  This might have fulfilled a certain legal requirement entitling a person to call himself righteous, but it is obvious that he did not know Psalm 15:  “Lord, who shall dwell in your tent? Or who shall rest on your holy hill? He who walks without blemish, and works justice: he who has truth in his heart, who has not used deceit with his tongue, nor has done evil to his neighbor, nor taken up a reproach against his neighbors.”  To “work justice” meant to feed the poor and extend a helping hand to widows and orphans.  For the Christian, righteousness is fulfilled by the Lord through his own holiness and so now it means to be in a state of grace, that is, to be baptized (and so forgiven sin and filled with sanctifying grace) and to be living the life of faith. 

The Lord says in his parable that this Pharisee went to the Temple to pray, but he was only speaking to himself: “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector.”  We see also the Pharisee’s poor and uninformed opinion of “the rest of humanity”.  Since the name “Pharisee” came from a word meaning “separated” and because the whole Pharisaic project depended on the Pharisees not mixing with non Pharisees unless absolutely obliged to do so, this man could not possibly know much about other men and women.  He does, however, use the tax collector whom he must have passed on his way into the Temple as an example of all that he hated.  In fact, the way he speaks, “or even like this tax collector” makes it sound as though he holds him in lesser repute than the greedy and dishonest people and the  adulterers about whom he speaks.  The Pharisee is in fact engaged in the sort of “judging” our Lord forbids the Christian to do.

“But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven.”  Not feeling worthy of heaven, he does not raise his eyes to it.  Whereas the Pharisee took a prominent spot in the Temple in order to speak his piece, the tax collector, knowing his unworthiness down to his marrow, stays in the back so that he might not be observed.  “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”  This is the prayer that God loves best, short and straight out of the depths of the heart: “The Lord is close to those whose hearts are broken, and he will save the humble of spirit” (Psalm 34, 21).  Prayers of this kind do not trivialize God as though he is one who can be persuaded or manipulated to do something nor do they allow us space to attempt to justify ourselves to him.  We should keep in mind here that in those days, prayers would have been spoken aloud.  We should think of the Pharisee speaking his prayer so others could hear it and of the tax collector speaking his quietly in the shadows.

“I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former.”  “Justified” also can be translated as “made righteous”.  So the tax collector, not righteous when he went into the Temple, came home righteous; but the Pharisee went there not righteous and red turned home no better.  “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”  We humble ourselves when we engage in a serious examination of conscience, knowing that we are accountable before the Lord, and when, with broken hearts we cry to him for mercy.  We are exalted by the God of mercy through grace in this life, and eternal blessedness in the life to come.