said the Pharisee loudly, 'that I'm not like other men, rogues, swindlers, traitors, or like that tax man over there.' It was a deliberate dig at him. But then he was used to such abuse. He didn't resent it; why should he? He knew he deserved it, he was under no illusions about his moral and spiritual condition, he was painfully aware of the disease of his soul. There was a mark of judgment set against his destiny, he knew.
And for this reason we hear no self-congratulatory expressions of mock gratitude from his lips. He feels his need. He beats his breast with the sense of it—a gesture no Jew made except in times of profound emotional distress. It bursts out of him in three staccato gasps of inner torture. 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner.' That's what he says literally; ‘the sinner’, for at this moment he feels like the only sinner in the universe. Yet, says Jesus, that's the kind of prayer God hears. That sort of worshipper goes home a different person, whereas the proud and complacent, for all their eloquent supplications, leave the house of God in exactly the same unacceptable state in which they arrived. One recalls Mary's words: 'He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty' (Luke 1:53).
This question of personal felt need may very well be the crunch issue for many. How hungry are we for God? How desperate are we for his grace?
Much has been said in recent years about the renewal of worship in the church; in fact it made the headlines when the present Archbishop of Canterbury was enthroned. But it does seem to me that much of that controversy is concerned with things of interest to the Pharisee but not to the tax man. It's preoccupied with matters of external form. What type of music—traditional hymns or modern choruses? What sort of atmosphere—quiet and meditative or loud and excited? What kind of congregational participation—passive and restrained or active and exuberant? What degree of predictability—
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