He also told this parable to some who trusted in them­selves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘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.' But the tax col­lector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted." — Luke 18:9-14

There were these two men who went up to the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. It's a shame, really, that one of them was a Pharisee. A shame because it spoils the surprise ending. When we hear the word "Pharisee," we know right away who the villain is. To us, "Pharisee" is just the Bible word for "bad guy." So if you have a story that starts out, "there were two men ... one of them was a Pharisee," you don't even have to get to the end of the story to know who the hero is. The hero was whoever wasn't the Pharisee. The story could go "there were two guys, one of them a Pharisee and the other an axe murderer," and you'd know that in the end, somehow, the axe mur­derer is going to turn out not to be so bad. Sure, he might be this crazed serial killer, but at least he's not a Pharisee. Pharisees, to our ears, are worse than everybody. But that's not how it sounded to the people to whom Jesus first told this little story over 2,000 years ago.

The Pharisees, to be fair, were actually pretty good people. They did everything right. The followed the law of God to a "t." We struggle with the daunting job of keeping the Ten Command­ments. The Pharisees went way beyond that. They dug through the Old Testament, from Genesis all the way to Malachi and found a whopping 613 commandments! They found 613 commandments and they kept every single one of them. They went all out to do everything that God asked them to do. And to show how serious they were, how devoted, they even went further than God asked them. The Bible says not to take God's name in vain. The Phari­sees made sure that they never did, not even accidentally. They didn't even want to come close to breaking God's law, so they didn't say God's name at all. Ever. Don't boil a kid goat in its mother's milk? Well, just to be on the safe side, they wouldn't boil any goat meat in any milk, or mix any meat of any kind with any dairy product at all, not even cheese.

They studied God's law and talked about God's law and kept all the rules. This is not some evil gang of thugs we're talking about here. The Pharisees were righteous with a capital RIGHT. Jesus butted heads with another group, the Sadducees, on some pretty important issues. The Sadducees didn't believe in angels. Jesus did. The Pharisees agreed with Jesus. The Sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead. The Pharisees did (and we know who's side Jesus was on there). So why is it that the Phari­sees are always the bad guys when Jesus tells his little parables? Why is it that the Pharisees were so eager to stop Jesus from teach­ing that they arranged for his death?

Here's the problem with the Pharisees. They were good people and they knew it. They followed the rules and wanted everyone else to see how well they did. But their problem was more than just a little misplaced pride or spiritual arrogance. They missed the point. You know what they say about the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The Pharisees followed every letter, but they still man­aged to completely miss the whole point of all those 613 commandments. The Pharisees thought that the whole thing was about following the rules, but the point of the commandments is not the commandments themselves. The point is kindness. The point is mercy. The commandments are there to teach us to love each other and be civil to each other. The point is living as God's holy people: merciful and gracious. The problem with the Pharisees is that they didn't get that.

There were these two men who went up to the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee. The Pharisee didn't get it. He thought that prayer was all about him. He thought that prayer was a chance to submit his résumé to God. "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" (vv. 11b-12). It was not so much praying as it was bragging. The Pharisee's relationship with God was a total mess, and he had no idea.

There were these two men who went up to the temple to pray. One of them was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The tax collector had nothing to brag about. His relationship with God was a mess and he knew it. If he was out to impress God with how holy and righteous his life was, then he didn't have a leg to stand on. His prayer was not a resume. No amount of padding would have helped. The tax collector's prayer wasn't a resume, it was a plea. "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" (v. 13). It wasn't brag­ging, it was begging. Which is to say, it was a real prayer.

God knows how well we do, and God knows how poorly we do. There are things that we get right, but we can't get it all right all the time. The truth is that we have no hope of keeping 613 com­mandments and more. We can't handle ten. The truth is that we aren't always very loving. We aren't always very kind. We can be thoughtless and arrogant, uncaring and cruel. If we were to count only on our own righteousness to save us, we would be in serious trouble. But as it is, God isn't grading us on how well we follow the rules. He's not grading us on how merciful we are either. It's not our obedience that makes us holy and it's not how loving and civil and kind we are that counts in God's eyes. It's not even whether or not we really get the point. It's God's mercy that counts. It's the only thing that counts. We're in no position to brag. Praying is asking. It is begging. We need God to forgive us, to help us, to heal us, and to make us better. In Jesus Christ, in his dying and in his rising from the dead, God forgives us.

Pray for mercy and beg that God will help you to become mer­ciful. Pray for forgiveness and beg to become more forgiving. Pray for the strength to follow God's rules, but more than that, beg for the wisdom and the faith to do God's will. Amen.