Christian Art | Parable Of The Pharisee And The Tax Collector
Luke 18: 9-14 | Week 3 Saturday Lent | Audio Bible KJV
9 And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
This is among the most perfect of the parables to listen to during Lent – indeed, it has resonances that must extent to each and every time we receive the Eucharist. We are simply not worthy. And God’s mercy extends to us nonetheless.
The prayer of the Pharisee is false. It is not true prayer. We see him, standing there in the presence of God and congratulating himself, as if he does not need God for his redemption, as if he can redeem himself.
‘I do this, I do that, I do the other…’ As if he has bought his place in heaven though observance of the Law – the letter and not the spirit thereof.
The Pharisee shows his lack of love and humility before God, and too before his fellow human beings.
It is not so strange that people of Bible times, before and without the acceptance of Jesus’ teaching, would have considered the Pharisee the more justified before God. He is, perhaps, living his life as well as anyone could according to the Old Law alone. He is probably a ‘good man’, living as best as he knows how. This is one reason why Jesus’ message is so radical, and so dangerous: because this, justification by good works, is not enough; it is the publican who empties himself before God, and who gives himself utterly as a helpless sinner, begging mercy, who is justified. We may imagine that, in the light of the squabbles among the Jews and the dangerously disintegrating effects of sectarianism, Jesus is seeking to shock his listeners into a new and universal awareness of every man’s true, and only true, relationship with God, and so with himself and with his fellow man.
The parable reminds us of our own proper and true frame of mind as we approach Jesus. The publican, the tax collector, cannot see himself as able to approach God closely and remains afar off. For all his sins, he has humility. He cannot lift up his eyes to heaven. He knows that he is a sinner. He only offers God sincere repentance.
We remember this man when we are called to behold the Lamb of God.
Jesus teaches this parable to help us to have confidence to repent, to confess our sins, and to recognise that it is honesty about ourselves, and our relationship with God, that God most values. We are not here to show off to God; we are here to ask him for everything that we cannot do for ourselves, and to admit that, on our own, we cannot do so.
‘Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.’
Audio Bible KJV | Endnotes
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector is one of many parables told by Jesus to illustrate the importance of humility and the danger of self-righteousness.
In the parable, Jesus contrasts the attitudes of two men who went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, a member of a religious sect known for their strict adherence to the law and their sense of superiority over others. The other was a tax collector – in the KJV a ‘publican’ – a hated figure among the Jewish people because of their collaboration with the Roman occupiers.
The Pharisee prayed with great self-assurance, thanking God that he was not like other men, nor like the tax collector. He also listed his good deeds, such as fasting and giving tithes, as evidence of his righteousness. On the other hand, the tax collector, recognizing his sin and unworthiness, simply prayed: ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’
The parable teaches an important lesson for Christians, who are called to humility and self-awareness of their own sin, rather than boasting about our righteousness. As Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 5:3)
In the Christian tradition, the parable of The Pharisee and The Tax Collector is often associated with the larger theme of the Crucifixion of Jesus – the Christian Cross as sign of the redemption of humanity from sin. Through his death and Resurrection, Jesus brings salvation to the penitent – he who prays: ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ Through such modesty, through becoming small, becoming as a child, we may receive the unmerited gift of eternal life in heaven, rather than condemnation to hell.
Baptism, Christian prayer, the celebration of the Passion of the Christ in Christian worship, recall us to the Cross, as to the glorified Christ the Redeemer. We are asked to pray with Jesus as it were in the Garden of Gethsemane. As Jesus taught in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we are asked to humble ourselves and so be welcomed home.
Saint Augustine begins by asserting that our lives on earth should center on the praise of God because this is what we shall do eternally in heaven. His well-known anthropology, articulated in the Confessions (Book I), declares, ‘You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ In this restlessness, Augustine sees a divine gift: a yearning that trains us for heaven. The joy of praising God is not merely a future reward but a present discipline that forms the soul in divine love [ … ]
Today’s Bible verses are an extraordinary act of forgetting and of remembering. What do we mean by this? First off, we mean that Mark has not forgotten that he has already told us one story of Jesus feeding the multitude. To suggest otherwise than this would be absurd. We are intended to read this Gospel account of the feeding of a multitude in the light of our reading of the previous miracle of feeding. That’s part of the point [ … ]
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
