The Pharisee and the tax collector
The Pharisee and the tax collector
But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
The most convenient way for me to meditate each morning is to open my email from Daily Gospel. The day’s readings are in front of me and, at the bottom, there’s always a short commentary on some aspect of the lessons contained within them.
Today’s commentary comes from a sermon by St. Augustine, who discusses the Pharisee and the tax collector in the parable Jesus tells about who shall be first and who shall be last. About the sinner who beats his breast and doesn’t dare raise his eyes to God, St. Augustine says:
He makes himself his own judge and God pleads his cause; he accuses himself and God defends him.
Rather than exalting himself like the Pharisee, the tax collector’s sin is “ever before” him, as in Psalm 51, the Miserere, that is today’s psalm reading. He does not brag to God about his own narrow view of holiness, as the Pharisee does, but provides the words of contrition that form the simple Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, Savior, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
We sinners are always conscious of our sin if our desire is to follow Jesus. St. Augustine, the reformed wild child whose mother prayed for his conversion, must have recognized himself in the tax collector, as should we all. God does not condemn us when we fall; He condemns us when we fall and do not repent. Even the most hardened murderer has the opportunity to return to God: why can’t we whose sins are also forgiven?
The majesty of God and his power to peer into our souls should indeed make us lower our eyes to Heaven. The greatest saints sometimes began as sinners–didn’t St. Paul call himself the worst sinner?–but their contrition and their humility before the Father saved them.
The sin of the Pharisee is that he imagines he is God. He can judge others and trumpet his own virtues, but he doesn’t have the divine quality of mercy the Father has. He is a false god, a fraud who refuses the see the value of every human being. After all, Jesus directs the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector “to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.”
We are sinners and sinners we shall remain until we are redeemed or condemned by God. The knowledge that He is the Father of Mercy should give us comfort or make us tremble. During our days on Earth, we can live in a manner that will make either one inevitable.
