Dear Faith Family,
"Two men went up to the temple to pray,
one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector."
Can you finish the story? I am sure most of us can. Still, if you need a refresher, you can find out what happens in Luke 18:9-14.
Despite the parable's context, this is not a story about prayer. As we discovered on Sunday, this is not a story depicting a person praying arrogantly and blamed for their attitudes, while another prays humbly and is praised for so doing. Though that is the standard assumption.
Yet, as more than a few commenters and pastors note, and Kenneth Bailey sums up, “Too often the unconscious [and unfortunately stereotypical religious] response [to our standard assumption] becomes, Thank God we’re not like that Pharisee!" And so quickly, and ironically, we become the offenders, guilty of our interpretation!
Perhaps that's why Jesus frames the story the way he does. Jesus anticipates that we'll be as surprised at what proceeds from our hearts as the Pharisee was at what poured out of his. Yet He hopes our surprise will compel us to take advantage of the moment, just as the tax collector did, rather than wiggle our way out of grace.
Remember what we discussed on Sunday, this story takes place at the twice daily atonement service. At dawn, a new day's beginning, and at three o'clock, in the middle of the heat of life, a visual and visceral way was made for God's people to receive righteousness, to be restored so they might live rightly with God, one another, animals and earth. A service where the saving act, an innocent lamb's life given, was because they needed it to be done to live. The only expectation was to allow the elaborate production to be for them at their moment of need, and respond in prayer: be drawn up (exalted) into communion with One who makes them righteous.
While the parable is not about prayer, it has given our faith heritage perhaps the most repeated prayer over the last several millennia:
"God, make atonement for me, a sinner!"
The "Jesus Prayer," as it became known, and often translated as "God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" became the prayer for moments of communion with God. It has been a centering prayer amid meditation on scripture and examining a day. It has been a plea from under the weight of relationships unraveling. Yet most often, and most aptly, it has been a recollected prayer amid our daily tasks and interactions, prayed at nine o'clock and three o'clock, inviting us to receive again and live at this moment in response to the grace we so desperately need.
While we no longer have a morning and mid-afternoon atoning service, we do have notification reminders and the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in which we boast of God's righteousness received. So, faith family, let's set our alarm and "go up to the temple to pray" together, taking advantage of the sacrificial grace of this moment, God's righteousness for us.
Love you, faith family! God bless.