Pharisee and publican

• parable of

140:5.71. “Happy are the poor in spirit—the hum­ble.” To a child, hap­pi­ness is the sat­is­fac­tion of im­me­di­ate plea­sure crav­ing. The adult is will­ing to sow seeds of self-de­nial in or­der to reap sub­se­quent har­vests of aug­mented hap­pi­ness. In Je­sus’ times and since, hap­pi­ness has all too of­ten been as­so­ci­ated with the idea of the pos­ses­sion of wealth. In the story of the Phar­isee and the pub­li­can pray­ing in the tem­ple, the one felt rich in spirit—ego­tis­ti­cal; the other felt “poor in spirit”—hum­ble. One was self-suf­fi­cient; the other was teach­able and truth-seek­ing. The poor in spirit seek for goals of spir­i­tual wealth—for God. And such seek­ers af­ter truth do not have to wait for re­wards in a dis­tant fu­ture; they are re­warded now. They find the king­dom of heaven within their own hearts, and they ex­pe­ri­ence such hap­pi­ness now.

• parable of

167:5.1On the way to Judea Je­sus was fol­lowed by a com­pany of al­most fifty of his friends and en­e­mies. At their noon lunchtime, on Wednes­day, he talked to his apos­tles and this group of fol­low­ers on the “Terms of Sal­va­tion,” and at the end of this les­son told the para­ble of the Phar­isee and the pub­li­can (a tax col­lec­tor). Said Je­sus: “You see, then, that the Fa­ther gives sal­va­tion to the chil­dren of men, and this sal­va­tion is a free gift to all who have the faith to re­ceive son­ship in the di­vine fam­ily. There is noth­ing man can do to earn this sal­va­tion. Works of self-righ­teous­ness can­not buy the fa­vor of God, and much pray­ing in pub­lic will not atone for lack of liv­ing faith in the heart. Men you may de­ceive by your out­ward ser­vice, but God looks into your souls. What I am telling you is well il­lus­trated by two men who went into the tem­ple to pray, the one a Phar­isee and the other a pub­li­can. The Phar­isee stood and prayed to him­self: ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, ex­tor­tion­ers, un­learned, un­just, adul­ter­ers, or even like this pub­li­can. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the pub­li­can, stand­ing afar off, would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven but smote his breast, say­ing, ‘God be mer­ci­ful to me a sin­ner.’ I tell you that the pub­li­can went home with God’s ap­proval rather than the Phar­isee, for ev­ery one who ex­alts him­self shall be hum­bled, but he who hum­bles him­self shall be ex­alted.”

167:5.2That night, in Jeri­cho, the un­friendly Phar­isees sought to en­trap the Mas­ter by in­duc­ing him to dis­cuss mar­riage and di­vorce, as did their fel­lows one time in Gal­i­lee, but Je­sus art­fully avoided their ef­forts to bring him into con­flict with their laws con­cern­ing di­vorce. As the pub­li­can and the Phar­isee il­lus­trated good and bad re­li­gion, their di­vorce prac­tices served to con­trast the bet­ter mar­riage laws of the Jew­ish code with the dis­grace­ful lax­ity of the Phar­i­saic in­ter­pre­ta­tions of these Mo­saic di­vorce statutes. The Phar­isee judged him­self by the low­est stan­dard; the pub­li­can squared him­self by the high­est ideal. De­vo­tion, to the Phar­isee, was a means of in­duc­ing self-righ­teous in­ac­tiv­ity and the as­sur­ance of false spir­i­tual se­cu­rity; de­vo­tion, to the pub­li­can, was a means of stir­ring up his soul to the re­al­iza­tion of the need for re­pen­tance, con­fes­sion, and the ac­cep­tance, by faith, of mer­ci­ful for­give­ness. The Phar­isee sought jus­tice; the pub­li­can sought mercy. The law of the uni­verse is: Ask and you shall re­ceive; seek and you shall find.