Just a word before we go...Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time...October 25, 2025

The Pharisees get a bad rap in the scriptures.  They have been viewed with suspicion, thought to be hypocrites, pretending to be who they were not.  Actually, much of their history evokes respect; their lifeblood was the Law of Moses.  Their theology reflected their belief that a Jew was saved and a nation made holy only by knowing the Law and following it exactly.  And the Law was trying to teach good things—love, loyalty and compassion. 

The tax collector was also a Jew, but one whose job was to collect taxes from fellow Jews for the Romans; he was not a traitor, but was employed by the hated occupier.   It was not a respectable profession.

So they both offer a prayer, the Pharisee from his position of honor, and the tax collector from the rear of the temple.  The Pharisee starts off well enough, offering thanks to God...but thanks for what?  Not for his life or his many gifts, but that he is not like the rest of us. His arrogance is revealed, as he lists all the ways in which he obeyed the Law, thinking that his own virtuous activity is what makes him pleasing to God. 

The tax collector, in his humility, offers a prayer for mercy, describing himself as a sinner. Jesus opines that it is the tax collector’s prayer that has been pleasing to God.

Humility and gratitude seem to be the appropriate stances before God; not denying one’s strengths, but acknowledging one’s weaknesses.  The Lord may not play favorites, but the Lord is attentive to the cry of the poor, in whatever way they are poor.  And aren’t we all poor?

So, perhaps we can convert the Pharisee’s prayer into one that might be pleasing to God:

O, God, I thank you that I am like the rest of humanity.  Thank you that I, like everyone else, am shaped in your image. Thank you for judging me, like everyone else, not by my brains, beauty, color, clothes or any other distinction, but by the love that is your gift to me, by the way I try to make a difference in the lives of others, by the way I share in the passion of your Christ.  I thank you that, despite my particular differences, I am so remarkably like the rest of humanity.  Amen.