A Tale of Two Prayers

The following meditation was written by Nathanael Hood, MA, New York University; MDiv, Princeton Theological Seminary.

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather, he struck his chest and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.'” Luke 18:13, 14 (Common English Bible)

There’s an old story that tells how once, in between his mighty battles throughout Europe, the Prussian emperor Frederick the Great visited the notorious Potsdam Prison. One by one, he spoke with various prisoners, all of whom swore up and down about their innocence. “Not I, Emperor,” shouted one. “I was framed,” vowed another. He continued his review until he came across one prisoner who, unlike his fellows, sat quietly in the corner with his head bowed, avoiding the Emperor’s gaze. Curious, the Emperor asked the prisoner who he blamed for his sentence. “Your Majesty,” the prisoner answered, “I am guilty and deserve my punishment.” Immediately, the Emperor yelled for the prison warden: “Come and get this man out of here before he corrupts all these innocent prisoners!” In that moment, the prisoner’s humility proved his salvation as the Emperor’s act of grace redeemed him of his crimes.

During his ministry, Jesus told a story not unlike Frederick the Great’s prison encounter. But instead of prisoners and convicts, Jesus’ parable focused on the Pharisees, the religious authorities of his day. Self-righteous to a fault, the only thing the Pharisees of first century Palestine loved more than being pious was bragging about being pious to anyone within earshot. For them, no good deed was worth doing unless there were witnesses, and no witnesses were more valued than the religious rank-and-file. Here in the eighteenth chapter of Luke, Jesus sets the stage: once two men went to the Jerusalem Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and he prayed aloud to God that he was thankful that he was better than other people. Better than robbers, he continued. Better than evildoers and adulterers, he trumpeted. Better even—turning to the second man next to him—than a tax collector. Understand that back in Jesus’ day, tax collectors were often corrupt agents of the Roman Empire. As collaborators with the army occupying their homeland, tax collectors were social pariahs among their fellow Jews. Having duly humiliated the tax collector in front of God and neighbor, the Pharisee turned the attention back on himself, crowing about his good deeds.

But the tax collector acted differently. Ashamed and embarrassed, he stood at a distance from everyone else within the crowded temple complex. Not daring to turn his eyes to the heavens, not daring to look his Lord in the face, he beat his breast and prayed “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Despite the man’s sins, Jesus explained, despite his economic corruption and imperial collaboration it was this tax collector who went home justified before God. It wasn’t the Pharisee, the religious expert with spotless behavior and a proven track record of good deeds, who was forgiven. No, it was the sinner who perhaps deserved punishment who received God’s forgiveness. How this must have shocked the people of Judea!

While many people probably can’t relate to the Pharisee, at some point in our lives all of us have felt like the tax collector. We know when we’ve sinned, when we’ve repaid good with evil, when we act selfishly instead of selflessly. When we pray, we come to God knowing that we have nothing to offer God than our guilt. Compare this to the Pharisee who prayed for himself—what did he stand to gain from such a prayer? His was a meaningless prayer, one that demanded nothing and therefore profited him not at all. But grace was given to the tax collector who offered nothing other than repentance. This is the model for how we should approach God in prayer: aware that we have everything to lose and everything to gain. This parable cautions us that self-satisfaction in prayer isolates us from God. The only way to approach God is on our knees.

Joy,