30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Ages 9-12): The Jesus Prayer

thebetterpart
2 days ago
3 min read

Listen here to the Gospel and Reflection

In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus tells another parable about prayer. We know that prayer is conversation with God, both listening and speaking. Conversation deepens relationships. This parable, then we can say, is about relationship with God.

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The people listening to Jesus know Pharisees and tax collectors. Pharisees are good people. True, some of them make it pretty clear that they are better than everyone else, and that is annoying. But they know the Law written in the Torah and they live life accordingly.

Tax collectors, on the other hand, are not known for living their lives according to the Law in scripture. They work for the Romans who took over Israel. While we may excuse them for collecting taxes—everyone has to earn a living somehow—it is a well-known fact that many of them collect more money than they should and put it in their pockets.

The people listening to Jesus know the sorts of people his two characters are. They also know that Jesus likes to turn things around. Who will be the good guy? Who will be the bad guy?

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.’

The people listening nod, knowingly. Yup, they could have predicted this prayer. "Tooting his own horn," some might say. "Exalting himself," Jesus might say. Comparing himself with everyone else. Thinking he is better.

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!’

Well, the people could have predicted this, too. The one they love to hate is the hero of this parable.

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.”

Like the people listening to Jesus, we get it. We know, because Jesus tells us, that our prayer ought to be like the tax collector's. To be in right-relationship with God, we need to look truly at ourselves—not at everyone else—and at the same time, keep our focus on God.

It is easy to separate the world into two groups of people:

those who are like the Pharisee—who do good things and know it, who compare themselves to others and congratulate themselves for being better;
those who are like the tax collector—who do wrong things and know it, who seek to make things right again by asking for God's mercy.

But if we try to separate the world this way, do we not in some way act like the Pharisee? Do we not judge people, deciding who knows they are a sinner and who does not?

Might we do better to consider whether sometimes

we are like the Pharisee,

and other times,

we are like the tax collector?

We do good things, right? We want to do these things—we like doing them—because we do them for God. This is good. We help build the Kingdom.

But do we also sometimes compare ourselves to others, thinking about how much more good we do compared to them?

Can any of us, ever give God enough—God who gives us everything in abundance—life, love, forgiveness, mercy?

It is difficult not to compare ourselves with others, but Jesus tells us that when we pray, our eyes must remain only on ourselves and on God—a private conversation. How close we are to God when God gazes on us, and we gaze on God!