When we read the Bible today, we think of the Pharisees as the “bad guys.” Full of themselves. Impressed with their own righteousness. Hypocrites.
Nobody wants to be a Pharisee.
If we were Jews living in the 1st century, however, we would not think that way. The Pharisees were the good guys, the religious cream of the crop. They went above and beyond the Law.
Many Jewish mommas probably wanted their babies to grow up and be Pharisees.
Once we get this understanding of the Pharisees fixed in our minds, parables such as the one that Jesus told in Luke 18 take on a whole new light—and reveal just how controversial Jesus was.
In this story, two men went up to the temple to pray: one a highly respected man (the Pharisee) and one a highly hated man (the tax collector). The first was looked up to, the second looked down on. When the Pharisee thanked God that he was not like other men, such as extortioners or adulterers, or even like that tax collector, no doubt many people would have said a hearty Amen. They would have agreed that if anyone was in good with God, it was this man, this Pharisee, who crossed his righteous T’s and dotted his holy I’s.
So, when Jesus commended the tax collector, who beat his breast and would not even lift up his eyes, but prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” then his hearers would have been aghast: “What? That scoundrel? That good-for-nothing traitor to our nation?”
Yes, that man who humbled himself and prayed that God would forgive him, he went down to his house justified, not the Pharisee.
The Pharisee and the tax collector, although different outwardly, were the same men before God: both sinners in need of atonement. One believed this, one did not.
Let us, my fellow sinners, give heed and pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” And our Father will, for the sake of Christ, who came as our atonement.
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