Link to the Audio File of Matins & Ante-Communion for the 11th Sunday after Trinity
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself
We live in a world awash in hypocrisy and self-aggrandizement, a world ethically challenged and endlessly divided. This Gospel concentrates the ethical problem and its solution rather wonderfully. “Two men went up into the temple to pray,” Jesus tells us in a parable. Luke’s introduction provides the key interpretation. Jesus says “this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous.” The whole point of the parable is to highlight our self-delusions about our sense of our own self-righteousness and thus to point us to the wisdom which is humility.
The key lies, I think, in the attitude of the Pharisee which, quite apart from the Pharisees, a strict and devout religious sect within Judaism which Jesus elsewhere commends, illumines the whole problem, a problem which is very much part of our age and world. He “prayed thus with himself”. To be blunt, that is not prayer. Prayer is not simply with ourselves. That is the problem, the problem of the narcissism of our age, the problem of our endless preoccupations with ourselves and our denials of one another and of God. No parable illustrates this problem more fully than this and no parable points us as a result to the much more radical and freeing nature of prayer.
The paradox is that when we are like the Publican, who “standing afar off, and wouldest not lift up his eyes so much unto heaven, and smote his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner,” then we are more truly ourselves and nearer God. Prayer, simply put, is not with ourselves but with God in whom we are with one another and with ourselves. Only as broken can we be made whole. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,” as the gradual psalm reminds us (Ps. 51.17). It serves as the mantra for Lent from the great penitential Psalm 51; there it belongs to our turning back to God in repentance, here it is about our being with God in prayer, in humility, the ground of wisdom.
The illustration is heightened by the arrogant self-absorption of the Pharisee’s prayer. He calls attention to himself at the expense of another whom he puts down. In his self-absorption and braggadocio, he despises the Publican. Nothing reveals more profoundly the problem of being closed off to God and to his mercy and grace. Nothing reveals more profoundly the utter vanity and emptiness of ourselves when we are turned in upon ourselves. It is the definition of sin; incurvatus in se, turned in upon ourselves to the exclusion of God and one another, and even more to the putting down of others. Total self-delusion is the point which Jesus is making.
Pharisee and Publican are moral types, symbols and archetypes of certain attitudes about our relation to God, or not, as the case may be. Praying thus with himself is the attitude of arrogant ignorance and self-righteousness. On the other hand, the Publican, which means here a tax-collector and not the host of the local pub, illustrates the completely contrasting attitude of humility, an openness to the truth and mercy of God which belongs to human dignity.
Such is pretty straightforward but only begins to touch the deeper meaning and purpose of the readings for this Sunday. They are really all about our life in Christ, our life in and with another. Far beyond the moralism and sentimentalism which masquerades as religion, we have the much more profound sense of our life in Christ through his grace. It is not about trusting in ourselves but about the openness of our entire being to the grace of Christ. “By the grace of God I am what I am,” Paul says; and not by any sort of self-presumption to superiority and judgement but through a kind of self-awareness.
This is not any sort of determinism. Quite the opposite. It has very much to do with willing the truth of God in our lives through a profound realization of our own emptiness and vanity. That is our freedom. In such a view, it is impossible to pray “thus with oneself” because who we are in ourselves is entirely bound up in our relation with God in Christ. Such is the burden of the Epistle reading.
Only as humbled can we be exalted. That is a kind of reality check for all of us in our lives. Far beyond moralistic self-righteousness, looking at ourselves honestly compels us to look to Christ. Only then are we truly ourselves. Only then are we truly with one another. Rather than despising and putting down the other, we see ourselves in the other.
This challenges our current world and culture. On the one hand, we assert certain rights and identities that belong to linguistic, ethnic, and cultural traditions; on the other hand, we participate in a global culture which both fractures those identities into endless divisions and yet levels them into utter meaninglessness. The problem lies in the forgetting of ourselves in God and with God. We forget the strong creedal principles outlined in Paul’s letter and in so doing we become mired in ourselves to the utter detriment of ourselves and at the expense of one another. To put it in another and more positive way, we are never more truly ourselves than when we are with God. That is the openness to truth that defines the Publican and condemns the Pharisee. It is really about our being mindful of the God who is mindful of us; “a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”
These lessons bid us think seriously about our life in Christ. His grace is our freedom. We are never more truly ourselves than when we are with him and he with us.
“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself”
Fr. David Curry
Trinity 11, 2020