The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Today's Reflections
 

 

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector 

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Lk 18:9-14

⁹[Jesus] addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. ¹⁰“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ ¹³But 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.’ ¹⁴I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Reflection:

Convinced of their own righteousness. The lesson of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is explicitly stated by Jesus: “…everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

It is not wrong to thank God for whatever good we have done. What is wrong is to self-righteously boast of our good actions and virtues. It is still worse when we look at ourselves as superior to others whom we despise, as the Pharisee does in his prayer. All our good deeds are also the work of God more than they are ours. It is God who works in us both the will and the accomplishment (cf Phil 2:13). Thus, we cannot boast of anything. Only our sins belong to us.

Be grateful for God’s grace, and be humble

before God and trustingly ask for his mercy.