OT XXX [C]: Sir 35:12-14, 16-18; 2 Tm 4:6-8, 16-18; Lk 18:9-14

 

Prayer is something very personal to each one of us. How we pray can reveal a lot about ourselves and, in particular, about our relationship with God. This is especially the case with informal prayer. Our informal prayer in our own words tends to remain private.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks a parable about two people who went up to the Temple to pray. They gave expression to what was in their heart before God. They lifted up their hearts to God in the presence of other worshippers. The two men who went up to the Temple to pray came from opposite ends of the religious spectrum. For the majority of Jesus’ Jewish hearers, the Pharisees would have been respected teachers. They not only taught others how to live according to God’s Law, but they tried to live by God’s Law themselves. They took their faith very seriously and were regarded by the people. For a first-century Jew, a tax collector, in contrast, was an agent of Rome. Tax collectors purchased the right from the Roman authorities to collect taxes in a certain region. Whatever they collected over and above their contract was considered a profit for them. It was presumed they were corrupt and dishonest, likely to overcharge people. A tax collector would have been seen as a sinner who likely had shown no mercy to others.

The prayer of the Pharisee begins well. He thanks God that he has lived according to God’s Law, thereby showing his dependence on God for all his good acts. This particular Pharisee has gone beyond what the Jewish Law required. The Law did not insist that everything be tithed, but this Pharisee pays a tithe on all his possessions. There is also no requirement in the Jewish Law to fast as often as twice a week, which this Pharisee does. He would have been seen as expressing outstanding fidelity to God’s Law. However, his prayer had one fatal flaw. In his prayer, he sat in judgment upon the great mass of humanity, conveniently represented by the tax collector alongside him. He expressed a mentality that those who take their faith seriously can sometimes fall into. It is the mentality which compares our own actions favourably to those whose lives seem to us far less religious or virtuous. The Pharisee had forgotten that obedience to God’s Law cannot be separated from loving one’s neighbour as oneself. Religious observance without compassion for others is not acceptable to God.

The tax collector stands far off from others, perhaps indicating his sense of isolation from the community. He does not even raise his eyes towards heaven, suggesting that he feels unworthy to be talking to God. In beating his breast, he acknowledges his sin. The tax collector’s prayer is much more succinct than the prayer of the Pharisee. He recognizes that he is a sinner who is in need of God’s mercy. He has come to the Temple believing that he can find forgiveness from God for his sin, and his humble prayer for mercy is without any judgment of others. Unlike the Pharisee, the tax collector is aware that he has nothing to offer God, but everything to receive from God. He doesn’t say I do this and this. He knows that he can sink no further and that if anyone is to rescue him, it can only be God. Whereas the Pharisee looked around, comparing himself favourably to others, the tax collector looked within, comparing himself unfavourably to God. He recognizes his own inner truth, such as it is, and he hopes, indeed, he trusts, that God can take care of it.

Whose prayer found favour with God, the prayer of the religious professional or the prayer of the religious outsider? Jesus’ own answer to that question would have probably shocked his listeners. It was the tax collector who ‘went home being at right with God’, whereas the Pharisee did not. Of the two people who went up to the Temple to pray, only one of them was empty enough to receive from the fullness of God’s hospitable love. The parable encourages us to place our trust in God more than in ourselves. It assures us that if we come before God, empty-handed, recognizing our poverty, God’s loving mercy towards us will know no bounds.

God cannot be bribed (see Deuteronomy 10:17). We cannot curry favor with Him or impress Him—even with our good deeds or our faithful observance of religious duties such as tithing and fasting. If we try to exalt ourselves before the Lord, as the Pharisee does, we will be brought low (see Luke 1:52).

This should be a warning to us—not to take pride in our piety, not to slip into the self-righteousness of thinking that we’re better than others, that we’re “not like the rest of sinful humanity.”

The prayer of the lowly, the humble, pierces the clouds. 

Let’s pray today for the grace not to compare ourselves a lot with others, before God or before others but rather be grateful for what we’ve received.