The concern of the prophet Zephaniah, from whom one of the lessons was read this morning, was with a society of people who had drifted into a condition of moral and religious chaos. On the one hand, they were pretending to worship both Baal and the Lord. On the other hand, they were in reality a rebellious, defiled, and oppressive people who listened to no voice and accepted no correction from any source.

What Zephaniah saw as essential for them to do was to get their act together by learning to "call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord."

Jesus’ parable in the lesson read from Luke’s record of the Gospel deals with the problem of self-righteousness. Jesus saw a fundamental difference in the way a Pharisee and a tax collector prayed.

The focus in both these lessons, as …