Luke 18:9-14 (Year C, Proper 25)
The one where a tax collector teaches us how to pray at church.
The gospel reading for Sunday, October 23rd comes from Luke 18:9-14. It teaches us how to pray, but, more specifically, it teaches us how to pray among the gathered people of God at church.
Luke 18:9-14
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up 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, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
What it helps to know
The two men “went up into the temple to pray.” What was the occasion? Daily prayer, either morning or evening. Here’s how that would have gone: Inside the temple, the priests would have burned incense; outside, they would have offered a lamb as an ascension offering. Around them, a Levitical choir would have sung psalms, accompanied by trumpets. Here’s a dissertation describing it. And here’s a short, accessible article.
The two men stood by themselves (“standing by himself”; “standing far off”). While there is some meaningfulness in their self-isolation, this is actually normal, given the liturgy for daily prayer. During an outdoor sacrifice, when a lamb was being offered up, congregants would have been prompted to reflect devotionally on the atonement sacrifice of the lamb. Many men stood by themselves to “behold the lamb,” as it were, and pray. That situates this prayer-scene as a combination of private prayer in a public space during corporate worship.
The Pharisee’s prayer sounds a lot like this prayer, recorded in the Talmud, used in morning-time liturgies: “I thank thee, Lord, my God, that you have given me my lot with those who sit in the house of learning, and not with those who sit at the street corners; for I am early to work, and they are early to work; I am early to work on the words of the Torah, and they are early to work on the things of no moment. I weary myself, and they weary themselves; I weary myself and profit by it, and they weary themselves to no profit. I run and they run; I run towards the life of the age to come, and they towards the pit of destruction.” The upshot is that Jesus’ audience has not only heard this Pharisee’s prayer before, but many of them may have learned or even prayed this prayer when they came to worship.
What I noticed
This, believe it or not, is the only parable which an evangelist introduces by describing the hearts of Jesus’ audience. When Jesus teaches parables “to Pharisees,” or to “tax collectors,” we relate to those audiences metaphorically—insofar as we are like Pharisees or like tax collectors, however we conceive of what those people were like. In this case, the distance is immediate. We relate to the audience insofar as we identify this condition in our own hearts: “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.”
The posture of the Pharisee’s prayer is gratitude (“I thank you …”), but a perverse gratitude. And it is gratitude for a negative idea, a non-resemblance (“… that I am not like other men.”) He does not even name what he is.
As the smoke from the lamb rises to Yahweh, the mind of the Pharisee is stuck on the other people around him. He is so distracted by the people around him that he is not even able to “behold the lamb.”
God, I thank you that I am not like this Pharisee.
In an already-Christianized society, many of us have turned the parable upside-down, having contempt in the opposite direction!
Contempt, of course, is not the goal.
What the tax collector achieves is a real, personal, orthodox devotional response to the atonement sacrifice. More unaware of the Pharisee than the Pharisee is of him, “beholding the lamb,” the tax collector asks God to “make propitiation for me” (ἱλάσθητί μοι).
Although most English translations render this in the general sense of “have mercy,” Luke’s tax collector uses the rarer word which, in the New Testament, takes the technical and ritual sense of propitiation-making (i.e., Heb. 2:17). The point is that the tax collector knows what the propitiatory sacrifice means, and he applies that meaning to himself.
Although this parable can apply to our own private prayer, it applies more immediately to the focus of our hearts pay in our gathered, Eucharistic worship services: When we carry our naturally contemptuous hearts into gatherings of people we know, and we think about what we want other people to internalize, it is difficult to simply “behold the lamb,” and reflect on our own sinfulness and Jesus’ propitiation.
Scripture says everywhere that God exalts the humble. The Church aspires to be humble but, unchecked, we can participate in worship arrogantly, going home not justified. The tax collector shows us what humility looks like at church.
How this resonates in the other lectionary readings
Jeremiah 14:1-10, 19-22 depicts Israel acknowledging her own sins (i.e., “We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord.”) and asking for pardon (“Do not spurn us."). This is a good prayer.
In 2 Timothy 4:6-8, St. Paul appears to be boasting about his own accomplishments, which sounds odd, on a Sunday where a Pharisee is blasted for doing the same thing. In verse 7, for example, he says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” Just before this, though, St. Paul relates to the sacrificial offering differently than the Pharisee does. He says to Timothy, “I am already being poured out as a drink offering.” While the Pharisee reflects on his own giving of offerings, Paul reflects on his identification with Jesus’ offering. Paul doesn’t pour one out; he is poured out.
The Pharisee and the tax collector go up into the temple. Psalm 84 describes the temple: “How lovely is your dwelling place,” and “Even the sparrow finds a home… at your altars.” The tax collector is the sparrow who finds not one home, but two, resting at worship and going home justified. The Pharisee of the parable doesn’t appear to be hurting anybody, and perhaps he isn’t, but, in his heart’s felt need to use other people justify himself, he never experiences the temple as “lovely.” He does not “find a home” (v. 3) or “make it a place of springs” (v. 6). And that’s his loss.