Perspective: The Prideful and the Penitent

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The Prideful and the Penitent

Let the words of my mouth

and the meditations of my heart

be pleasing to You,

Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Psalm 19:14 (CEB)

I focused on the score

But I could never win

Trying to ignore

A life of hiding my sin

From "Undo" by Rush of Fools

Jesus once told a story about two people who went to their place of worship to pray.  One worked in a corrupt and disreputable industry that was notorious for bankrupting people financially.  He was regarded by those around him as the scum of the earth and a traitor.  Nowadays, one might say that he was "part of the problem" and not "part of the solution."

The other was a good, upstanding individual.  He played by the rules, kept his nose clean, and never got himself into any serious trouble.  He was also very religious: he rigorously observed numerous spiritual disciplines and was charitable with his income.  He realized all of these things about himself, so he walked into his place of worship with his head held high.  He caught a glimpse of the other man who had come to pray, turned his nose up at him, and thanked God that he was so much better than people like him.  He prayed, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income."

The other man hanged his head low, beat his chest, and prayed, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"¹

Something about Jesus' Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector strikes me as unrealistic.  I can totally imagine somebody praying the prayer of the tax collector.  In fact, a long time ago, it was adapted into a traditional prayer commonly called the "Jesus Prayer."  Perhaps you've prayed this prayer yourself.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,

have mercy on me, a sinner.

On the other hand, I simply cannot imagine a person, no matter how arrogant he or she happens to be, actually praying as the Pharisee in the story prayed, thanking God for his or her own goodness and superiority to others.  I think we all know better than to pray this way.  From the days of children's Sunday school, we are taught not to be like the arrogant, judgmental Pharisees, and at some point we're taught, either explicitly or implicitly, that we should demonstrate some humility when we approach God in prayer.

But then again, I think that maybe this parable is not really about the prayers a person prays but rather the state of a person's heart.  Who among us has not known the right prayers to pray while the words of our mouths didn't truly reflect the meditations of our hearts?  Who among us has not prayed a prayer of confession while thinking, "I'm not that bad," or, "At least I'm not as bad as 'so-and-so'"?  (And we all have a "so-and-so.")  I make these observations from experience, for I have the makings of a Pharisee.

In this parable, Jesus is not calling us to pray humble prayers but is rather calling us to be humble.  Jesus closes his parable by saying that it was the tax collector and not the Pharisee who went home justified.  God sees not only all that we say and do, but also what is in our hearts.  God looks beyond the surface to the motives of our actions and the sincerity of our words.  God knows us even better than we know ourselves.  We can all pray the right prayers, but God knows who is prideful and who is truly penitent.

In the early 1900s, The Times newspaper in London requested that people write in with their opinions on what is wrong with the world.  Christian thinker G.K. Chesterton submitted a response that could have fit on an index card.  He wrote,

Dear sir,

I am.

Yours,
G.K. Chesterton²

Of course, Chesterton was not claiming that he single-handedly caused all of the world's problems.  He was merely taking ownership of his share of the guilt we all bear.  We are all born into a broken world, inheriting the brokenness of those who came before us, and each of us, in his or her own way, further contributes to the problems that plague the world.  Hopefully we all want to be a "part of the solution," but we all must first take personal ownership of the fact that we are also "part of the problem."

Nobody likes to own up to his or her own shortcomings, so, like the Pharisee in Jesus' story, many of us resort to Judgmentalism, which is a very effective way for us to distract ourselves from our own faults.  Though we like to rank other people's sins as worse than our own, ultimately we're all in the same boat.  When we focus on the failings of others, we essentially create a giant blind spot around ourselves, and blind spots always bring the potential for disaster.  Perhaps this is one reason that, in the words of the ancient proverb, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."³

Prayer is not a time of saying the right words to God but rather a time of total honesty before God.  Some would say that prayer is meant to change us more than it is meant to change our situations.  Brian Zahnd likes to say that "the primary purpose of prayer is not to get God to do what you want Him to do, but to be properly formed."⁴  May we pray humble prayers so that we may become humble people.


Notes:

1. Luke 18:9-14 (NRSV)
2. http://www.chesterton.org/wrong-with-world/
3. Proverbs 16:18 (NRSV)
4. Brian Zahnd.  "You Are What You Pray."  Brianzahnd.com, 05/27/13.

The Pharisee and the Publican was painted by James Tissot in 1894.