The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” — Luke 18:9–14
When Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow, He created a picture that would have surprised the disciples. But the next parable Jesus shared would have had a familiar ring, with two characters who would have been immediately understandable to the disciples: the Pharisee and the tax collector. Both were fixtures in the imagination of those who heard Jesus tell this parable. The Pharisees were ubiquitous in Jerusalem, loud in their piety and ostentatious in their self-righteousness. They lived to be seen. The tax collectors, on the other hand, were a part of the underclass. Indeed, they epitomized complicity with Rome, criminality, and unrighteousness. As you might expect, there is far more to this parable than meets the eye. But it begins with a comment about those to whom Jesus spoke it.
We learn that Jesus told this parable “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt.” Those two descriptors go together. Self-righteousness is one of the primal sins identified in Scripture. It is rooted in an illusion and an arrogance that simply cannot be hidden. It is true that men and women live lives of variable righteousness in terms of personal morality. The Bible is clear about that.
Christians are called to obedience to God’s Word and to holiness. We are called to avoid sin and unrighteousness. But even as we are called to live holy lives, we recognize that there is absolutely no righteousness in us.
The Bible’s indictment of our unrighteousness is comprehensive. Indeed, the prophet Isaiah declared that our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). There is no goodness in us. In the words of the Book of Common Prayer, “There is no health in us.”
Understood in this context, Jesus told this dramatic parable to puncture the illusion of self-righteousness among those who heard Him.
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God, be merciful to me a sinner!
From the earliest days of my Christian experience, Bible teachers trained me to hear the word Pharisee with judgment. Most Christians have the same response. And yet, there is more to the Pharisees than that quick judgment. The Pharisees were truly seeking to be righteous and to show their righteousness before others. The Pharisees’ central problem is that their righteousness was a self-righteousness, not a righteousness that comes from God. Pharisees were evidently traumatized by the understanding that they could not demonstrate righteousness, even to themselves, merely by obedience to the law. The Pharisees kept adding to the law in order to try to convince themselves that they had actually achieved a form of righteousness that would be acceptable to God.
In Matthew 6, Jesus warned the disciples not to pray as the Pharisees prayed, with their ostentatious piety. Throughout Scripture the Pharisees are shown to commit the fatal error of trusting in their own righteousness.
They were right to seek after righteousness, but they were wrong to think they had found it in themselves.
The tax collector, however, presented a real problem for Jesus’ audience. The temple represented the apex of holiness — after all, God’s presence filled the temple. This would be the last place a first-century Jew would expect to find a tax collector. The tax collectors lived traitorous lives, selling out their nation to the Roman Empire by exacting pagan tolls and taxes on the people. They were opportunistic men who did business with idolaters and enforced Roman oppression. They lined their pockets with the wealth of their own neighbors by predatory action. In the minds of those hearing this parable, the tax collector should have had no place in the temple of God.
In short, in starting the parable by saying that two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector, Jesus surely grabbed the attention of his audience, as he has ours.
Two Men at Prayer
Jesus described the prayers of these two men, and significantly, He told us something of their posture as well. In both the prayers and the postures we see a contrast between self-righteousness and a heart that comes before God knowing that it bears no righteousness at all. The prayer offered by the Pharisee is almost like a set piece — a caricature of what we would expect a self-righteous person to pray. And yet, this prayer is entirely believable coming from the lips of a first-century Pharisee. We are told that the Pharisee stood by himself. His posture was one of self-assurance: he stood apart, seeing the masses as un- worthy of being in his presence. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.”
The most important thing to recognize about the Pharisee’s prayer is that it is essentially self-referential. Even before speaking to God about himself, he thanked God that he was not like the others he observed — the great mass of Jewish men worshiping alongside him and especially the tax collector, whom he had noticed. Both the Pharisee and the tax collector were standing apart from the larger group of worshipers, but for two diametrically opposed reasons.
The Pharisee considered himself superior to others, while the tax collector knew himself to be inferior.
The Pharisee in this parable represents exactly what is wrong with false religion and false worship. It is about ourselves, rather than about God. There is no declaration in the Pharisee’s prayer of the holiness and righteousness of God. There is no confession of sin. It is all about the Pharisee, from beginning to end. His purpose in worship is to convince God of his superiority as compared to others.
Meanwhile, the tax collector was praying at the same time as the Pharisee, standing far off by himself. His posture was of one who knew himself to be unworthy of worship, but he was drawn by the compulsion to find God’s mercy. While the Pharisee stood proudly, the tax collector was unwilling even to lift up his eyes to Heaven, opting instead to beat his breast, a near universal sign of self-abnegation and humiliation.
To bring our fist to our chest with bowed head and lowered face is to demonstrate grief and brokenness. That is all this man knew to do.
His prayer was short, and it had nothing to do with others in the temple. He simply cried out, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” It is an exceedingly short prayer. It reminds me of the thief on the cross who, in a moment of agony as time was running out, simply turned to Jesus and said,
Jesus, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom. — Luke 23:42
Sometimes the shortest prayer is the sincerest prayer. Sometimes we simply have no words adequate to express our grief and remorse, our broken-heartedness and our repentance.
Christians should be encouraged by Paul’s message to the Romans about how the Holy Spirit helps us, even articulating our prayers when we are unable to find the words. Paul wrote,
Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
— Romans 8:26–27
Jesus’ point is clear. The brief, sincere prayer of the tax collector is the prayer of authentic repentance.
He prayed for God’s mercy.
Christians must keep in mind that the word mercy does not just mean kindness. It means grace extended to those who have no claim upon it. Mercy as extended by a parent, a ruler, or a judge is understood to be undeserved. That’s what makes mercy. And this is infinitely true when we speak of the mercy of God. This tax collector simply asked God to be merciful upon him, a sinner. That one word, “sinner,” encapsulated everything he knew to say about himself and everything he needed to say about himself.
Excerpted from Tell Me the Stories of Jesus by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., copyright Fidelitas Corporation, R. Albert Mohler Jr., LLC.
We may not understand the grace and mercy of God until we see Him face to face but what joy it brings when we also understand our sin and the sacrifice of God to bring us salvation!
Pastor Dale