Luke 18: 9 - 14

This week’s gospel passage flows on directly from last week’s gospel and continues the teaching of Jesus about prayer. The preceding passage emphasised the need for persistence in prayer, while this passage is about the way in which we come before God in prayer. It is the tax collector, whose simple prayer is ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner,’ who goes home at right with God. In this simple prayer, the tax collector recognises that he is not in right relationship with God and asks for God’s mercy. This is a hallmark of the lowly and outcast in the gospel of Luke: they recognise their need and seek God’s forgiveness and mercy. The model of faith that is depicted over and over again in this gospel is the one who recognises their need for God’s loving mercy and asks for it. We are repeatedly reminded that God’s mercy, forgiveness and abundant love are constantly out-flowing towards us and all we have to do is humbly desire and welcome them.

Humility is at the heart of this parable. The Pharisee is representative of those who are assured of their own rightness but who rely on comparison with others to make themselves feel righteous and justified. The actions of this man were not limited to Pharisees alone, nor are they limited to a particular time and place. This man’s attitude of asserting his own faithfulness and religious observance by comparison with others can be easily seen in the world today. All faiths seem to be afflicted with these characters who assure themselves of their own ‘goodness’ by railing against those who are different. But, as the parable assures us, it is the humble who are exalted by God.