THE PHARISEE
AND
THE TAX COLLECTOR

Jesus really couldn’t bear hypocrisy; white washed, puffed up, pompous spin doctors he had a special antipathy for. He turns upside down our naïve attraction to status. No wonder he was unpopular.

The tax collector had a low status job - perhaps in Sydney he’d drive a bin-collecting truck or do some street cleaning. The most important thing about him was his heart, his attitude, his spot-on awareness that before the Almighty he was but a speck. His knowing emptiness left room for the inpouring of the fullness of God. His common sense accuracy about his position vis-a-vis the Lord, placing himself ruthlessly in context, endeared him. Wise holiness can be found in unexpected places, even dirty ones, even black ones, even sleeping rough. Smugness though seems always unattractive.

The Pharisee looked to externals and dared not examine with integrity his human heart. Perhaps he felt fear of rejection, causing a disordered mind set, not only in relation to his God but towards others he ‘despised’. He didn’t get away with it. How long and assiduously we can need to deceive! There’s a relieved freedom when we can bring our true heart self before our God. He embraces us despite what he sees, or even because of what he sees, for here is the whole, flawed, much loved individual person. Veritas will out.

Maybe judging, competing, comparing was the problem. Our insecure society is doing that all the time, jockeying, manipulating, climbing. Being convinced of one’s own righteousness if one is a celebrity with a media pack could be easy. A decorative garment and hat and a chauffeur and one can presume one deserves it. Despising everyone else as did the Pharisee is not too far away. Power corrupts even to this day. Let us pray for those in Authority.

May we cultivate daily a grateful heart and
a prayer - filled sense of proportion.

                                                          Margaret Moore
Dominican Ex-student

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