Reimagining the Prayers of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

In order to learn from the prayers of the Pharisee and the tax collector we must step away from the common caricature of Pharisees as hypocritical foes of Jesus, and view this Pharisee as a respected leader in first-century Judaism. The person whose prayer is compared with the Pharisee is his opposite, a tax collector hated for collecting taxes and fees on behalf of wealthy land owners and Roman overlords. It was expected that tax collectors take a cut for themselves from what they collected. Of the Pharisees of that period, we have little information, but it seems that they were men of the people, bringing to ordinary people the practices and traditions of temple piety. Christian descriptions of them are somewhat skewed, for as a group they did not accept Jesus as a religious leader; religious leadership was their responsibility, and they never believed Jesus’ claims. The point of this parable is not to caricature them, but to teach all of us to pray well using examples of good and bad prayer.

The Pharisee in the today’s Gospel is devout and eager to pray. He fasts twice a week, and pays tithes (ten percent!) on his entire income. Jesus quotes his prayer, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity‑‑ greedy, dishonest, adulterous‑‑ or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” This is not a good example of prayer. The Pharisee himself is the subject of every verb. The only “other” in the prayer (apart from “O God” at the beginning) is the tax collector standing behind him in the Temple courtyard, whom he despises. He is praying to himself, not to God, and puts others down in order to make himself look good in God’s eyes.

The tax collector’s prayer is equally revealing: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” God is the subject of the only verb in the prayer, “Be merciful to me.” He does not praise himself nor does he compare himself to others. Most important, he asks God for forgiveness, showing he desires a closer relationship with God by ridding himself of sin. He assumes that God is merciful and ready to forgive.

What does the parable teach us today? Jesus compares two people and their prayers. The person who should know how to pray does not, and the one who (you would think) doesn’t know how to pray, actually does. We learn three things. (1) Prayer is turning our attention to God, not to ourselves. (2) To identify oneself as a sinner does not take away our dignity, for it is the proper stance when we are in the presence of the All-Holy God. We call ourselves sinners, because we so strongly believe that God is merciful and delights in us being there. (3) It is not for us to judge sinners. Let God do any judging that needs to be done.

Richard Clifford, S.J., has taught biblical studies for 55 years, most recently at the Clough School of Theology and Ministry, Boston College, and has written many scholarly and popular books and articles.