The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (18:10-14)
What is the heart of prayer? What is it’s purpose? What is it’s goal? Do we pray in order to “look religious or spiritual?” Do we pray because that’s just what we are supposed to do? Do we pray because we feel that somehow it is our duty or obligation to do so? Or perhaps we have even less noble intentions. We see two different sides of prayer in today’s gospel reading. This parable of the publican and the Pharisee, told by Our Lord Jesus Christ, effectively puts everyone who prays into one of two camps, on one of two sides. Those who pray rightly and those whose prayer is all wrong.
There are some differences between the two and they are important enough that Our Lord Jesus Christ found it necessary to teach us, His children, so that we would be like one of these two men and not like the other. Our Lord taught all of this in the most loaded and controversial way possible, so that everyone would get the message and no one was left unaffected or in the dark.
He says, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” Thank God! It is a good thing that these men went to the temple to pray. It is a good thing when a man or woman comes to the church to pray. Yet, this isn’t enough. The Lord gives us insight into the prayers of each man. He dissects the human heart in a way that is not seen anywhere at any time in any other religious tradition. He tells us that the Pharisee, a religious man who is publicly seen as pious and holy and good prayed in this way, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other men, extortionists, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’
And then Our Lord tells us of the prayer of the publican. We are reminded that the publicans or tax collectors were viewed with suspicion and generally they were very disliked. They were considered evil and unjust men because they cooperated with the Romans in taxing their own people, the Jews. Many of them also took far more than their fair share because they had the power to do so. If an IRS agent wants to come and take everything you own, you will be nearly powerless to fight back, because they have the power and the resources of the empire at their disposal, and you have nothing. So this was how the publican was seen. But listen to his prayer my friends, “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!’” Wow!
When I read this verse, I have to step back and ask if I have ever prayed like this for a single moment in my whole life. Each of us should probably be asking that question. Have we ever felt truly broken in our prayers? Have we ever scraped the depths of our heart and found ourselves so fallen, and so powerless that we didn’t even have any substantial words to give to the Lord, we didn’t even have the power to lift our eyes to the heavens. As if we felt the weight of our sins and felt like we were standing completely naked and exposed before God. That is a feeling of true vulnerability, and true weakness. And it turns out that this is exactly the mindset and the condition of the heart that will provoke a response from our God. “A broken and humble heart, God will not despise.”
The publican’s prayer is like medicine for us. It should humble us and serve as a powerful example of what our prayers can be. Prayer is good when it looks and sounds like this. However the Pharisee’s prayer was outward focused. He was concerned with his outward acts of piety and he was even focused on the failing of others and compared himself to others and made himself feel really good by comparing himself to others. But he was in delusion. He focused on the outward appearance of others and couldn’t see their heart. So his prayer was not counted in his favor. It was the opposite of true prayer, it was counted against him because he turned it into a weapon against others and as an opportunity to boast of all of his good qualities. He came to the house of the Lord, a place where we meet God in a powerful way, but he wasted this chance and turned what should have been something really good, into something really evil. He squandered the gift of prayer and the gift of the temple.
On the other side of this equation we see a man who did nothing short of unlock the kingdom of heaven! He captured God’s heart! He stole God’s attention. He made himself like a beggar and God rewarded him richly. This example of the publican reminds us of what it really takes not only to become holy but to bring healing to the world around us. Because he unlocked the kingdom, he was healed. When we learn to truly pray, everything is restored in life.
Our Orthodox Christian understanding is not so much that we need to go out and take part in protests and parades to effect change, no! Likewise, posting self righteous posts online and even too much political talk within the parish, none of these things will really glorify God or change the world. The change that will affect the whole world is right here (in the heart). We don’t transform the world through the waving of banners, but through the changing of the banner of our hearts. For this reason St. Seraphim of Sarov said “acquire a spirit of peace and thousands around you will be saved.”
What a gift that Our Lord Jesus has given to each of us in this parable. Let us embrace this parable and the prayer found in it. For this is the roadmap to the heart of Christ, and only within the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ is our hope and salvation to be found. Glory be to God forever AMEN.
