The Common Liturgy calls all of the world to consider for this Sunday, Luke 18: 9-14. In my Bible the paragraph is entitled, “The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector”.
There are those religionists' who recoil at the mere mention of the possibility of Christian Phariseeism. They recoil because it is so easy to live really close to the definition that Jesus found appalling. The Pharisee in the time of Jesus and today is one who holds himself to be separate, set aside as the best of what spirituality should look like. In verse 11 we are told that “The Pharisee stood by himself to pray”, it would seem that the shoe fits. The Pharisee took pride in doing little else than a meticulous worship of the Jewish religion, to include praying, fasting and tithing. All was accomplished from a desire to appear super spiritual, above and beyond the common crowd. Incredibly, this self centered lifestyle did not impress Jesus.
Instead, Jesus pointed to the tax collector. These folk were doing the dirty deeds of the Roman occupiers, they were despised and rejected by all of society who were largely Jewish. The tax collector worshiped in the back corner of the synagogue and Jesus notes in verse 13, this tax collector would not look heavenward but “beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner’.” Jesus declared that this heart felt utterance pleased God more than all the fancy public prayers of the Pharisee. Verse 14 ends with these words of Jesus,“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those that humble themselves will be exalted.” Some of us insist that these words from Jesus are about heaven and hell but that is incorrect, so say I!
The God of the galaxies is all about mercy, is not that what Jesus is saying? The Pharisee is about condemnation and hell, at least for the other guy! The truth is that we all need the mercy of God, we all are on a spiritual journey toward God whether we seek it or whether we claim our supposed independence. We all can be derailed or apathetic. Yet we all will eventually experience the mercy and love of God in this world or the next, while in this world we can make progress toward a heavenly certainty. Could it be that in heaven there will be those of us who are exalted and those of us who are humbled? It makes sense to this dummy, heaven will be an interesting place.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
