God, be merciful to me a sinner!

 

 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:  "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men -- extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.   I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'  And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'   I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

 

- Luke 18:9–14 

 

Yesterday we read the testimony of John the Baptist, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"  He confessed, and did not deny but confessed, "I am not the Christ."  And they asked him, "What then?  Are you Elijah?"  He said, "I am not."  "Are you the Prophet?"  And he answered, "No."  Then they said to him, "Who are you, that we may give an answer to those who sent us?  What do you say about yourself?"  He said:  "I am 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness: "Make straight the way of the LORD,"' as the prophet Isaiah said."  Now those who were sent were from the Pharisees.  And they asked him, saying, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?"  John answered them, saying, "I baptize with water, but there stands One among you whom you do not know.  It is He who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose."  These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

 

  Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:  "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector."  The Pharisee, my study bible comments, is a highly respected and careful observer of the details of the Law.  By contrast, the tax collector is despised as a sinner who collaborates with the occupying Roman forces, betraying and cheating his own people.  Often, as a matter of course, the Jewish tax collectors, by virtue of their positions enforced by the Roman state, would claim extra revenues for themselves, thus extorting fellow Jews.

"The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank You that I am not like other men -- extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.   I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.'" My study bible characterizes these practices of the Pharisee as all worthy examples to follow.  It says that his good deeds that he names here (fasting and giving tithes) are the primary weapons against the passions of lust and greed (adultery and extortion).  But we're meant to understand that without a humble and repentant heart (a proper Lenten orientation), these outward practices are worthless.  Instead, they lead only to pride and judgment of others.  We note that the text tells us he prays with himself.  My study bible explains that "God is absent where there is boasting."

"And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' "  The tax collector, by contrast to the boasting Pharisee, shows by his posture an awareness of the state of his soul.  He stands far from the altar of sacrifice, and his eyes are cast downward.  The prayer of the tax collector, God, be merciful to me a sinner, is the foundation of the Jesus Prayer, as is the refrain "Lord have mercy" that permeates worship and personal prayer.  

"I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."  My study bible explains that justified means forgiven and set right with God.  Inward humility is blessed, while pride in outward deeds is condemned.  

"God, be merciful to me a sinner!" is indeed the basis for many prayers, including that of the Jesus Prayer practice, which is also called Prayer of the Heart.  The Jesus Prayer has taken on many forms throughout the centuries of Christianity, but is based on a repetition of the phrase "Lord have mercy" or Kyrie Eleison in the Greek.  Its present form is formally "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."   But one need not use that formal form to perform the Jesus Prayer practice.  Here and here are two webpages on the practice of the Jesus Prayer, and there are many others.  But, put most simply, in an effort to follow the admonition of St. Paul to "'pray without ceasing" (see 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), the earliest monastics began using a prayer rule, in which they would repeat a very short prayer all the day long, such as while doing manual work.  This took on various forms, such as the first verse from Psalm 70, "Make haste, O God, to deliver me!  Make haste to help me, O Lord!"  In this context, we must recall that the earliest Christian monastics went out into the wilderness and deserts to follow Christ in His forty-day fast, struggling against their own temptations and tests.  Over the centuries of Christian tradition, this practice has evolved into what is now called the Jesus Prayer.  Put most simply, it is a focus on a simple prayer, repeated for a period of time, in which the mind continues to refocus on this prayer.  It is distinguished from other contemplative practices in that it is truly a prayer practice, with intention as prayer.  If we wish to begin a good Lenten practice, we would all do well to start there, as good discipline and focus for any follower of Jesus Christ.  Be let us turn back to the parable as given by Jesus, in which we are made to understand that it is the humility of the tax collector that saves and "justifies " him, over and above the virtuous Pharisee.   In order to fully appreciate this parable, we must first of all understand that Jesus preached the same point repeatedly about humility.  It is an essential lesson for those who would follow Christ.  Moreover, in the context of Christ's time, humility was not a valued virtue of what it meant to be "great," as Jesus Himself pointed out when He told the disciples, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them . . . Yet it shall not be so among you . . . " (Mark 10:42-43, Luke 22:25-26, Matthew 20:25-26).  But it is a keystone of what it means to be a follower of Christ, and it remains our primary focus for understanding who we are.  This humility is not a groveling sort of understanding within a power hierarchy.  Rather, it is an accurate assessment of what is best for us, and especially our own place before God.  We accept that we are meant to grow, that we don't know everything about ourselves, but that we are dependent upon our relationship of communion with Christ to show us the way in our lives.  In this sense, Christ's parable given in today's reading is meant to be instructive in that it teaches us our proper orientation in life, as contrasted to the Pharisee who seems to be measuring himself by himself, oblivious to the pathway a deeper communion with God might bring.  The Pharisee remains instructive to all of us  particularly in a modern culture where social media plays such a great role.  We have all heard the term "virtue signalling," and that is clearly something this Pharisee does well.  He flatters himself with the picture of himself, and by contrasting himself to the odious tax collector.  Our lesson in humility starts with the idea that a communion with God means we will always be led somewhere beyond what we know, and we need a deep mystical participation in prayer and humility as an ongoing spiritual awareness.  Lent is the right time to remember what we are meant to be about, to find that depth in which we come before God in humility to seek the light we don't yet know, and allow Christ to illumine the darkness of which we are not aware.  We can point to all the good deeds and legalism of rule-following we want to, but that doesn't bring us closer to God in the heart.  For that, we need a different kind of orientation, which is the true heart of repentance or "change of mind" as the Greek word metanoia/μετανοια literally means.  Let us take time to cultivate that inner depth of prayer, retreating from the appearance-focused mantras of today's social rules and paradigms as cultivated by so much of what passes for community in our current phase of modern culture.  Let us focus on the heart where God takes us and Jesus calls, the place of truth and reckoning before God, where we all know we are on a road to somewhere -- and ask for God's help to find His way for us.