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Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
People such as this believed that they were right with God and properly aligned with his will but they missed the mark in several ways. There was no doubt some small part of them that was concerned with the will of God. But their pride was still in control. It was this pride that made them boast in the superiority over others and to think highly of themselves because of their fine-grained acts of devotion.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself
The Pharisee had a spot which he thought belonged to him. He was like the person in the parable of the chief seats where he chose what was highest for himself rather than choosing the lowest. Since he took the highest place he would have to give it up for someone else. Had he taken the lowest place he may have heard, "Friend, move up higher" (see Luke 14:7-12). His prayers, like all his superficially righteous deeds, were done to order to enlarge his own ego, and not for God. He ultimately said his prayer to himself. Which may have been for the best, in a way, since what was God to make of it?
‘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.’
The tax collector, by contrast, did not choose the highest place for himself. His attitude indicated that he knew himself to be undeserving, to have done nothing to merit coming into the presence of God. When someone was stripped of pride and arrogance they might well resemble this tax collector, whose grip on reality was much more realistic. He assumed nothing. He was therefore ready at any moment to be surprised by the ways in which God would bless him and show him love. When it was the host who called him to a higher place he would gradually come to understand that it didn't matter how undeserving he was. That didn't matter to God in the last. He would therefore grow in a relationship of trust with the Lord, something superficially similar to, but utterly different from the presumption of the Pharisee. The tax collector might one day feel as though he did have a seat reserved at the table of the Father. But not because he earned it. The Pharisee all but believed that he himself had built the house and brought in all the chairs and that he was therefore entitled to his pick of the lot.
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
We may think that this prayer was a result of low self-image. But it was actually a result of accurate self-image, unobscured by pride. It was the self-knowledge of one who realized that he was only able to stand by of the grace of God that made him able. The degree to which he resisted temptation, the degree to which he sought the Lord, was not on the basis of heroic strength but rather on the mercy of God. Acknowledging that fact is not rehearsing a narrative of depression. It was rather of focusing oneself on one's utter dependence on the Lord.
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former
The tax collector was ultimately invited to take the higher place. He, and not the one who had done everything with superficially correct form, was the one who went home justified, right with God, forgiven, with grace to begin anew.
In this parable Jesus presented the Pharisee with comic exaggeration. But he did this so that we wouldn't be too upset to see ourselves in him. Do we not go to into a church and 'take up our position', as though it was something we earned? Do we not at times say 'prayers to ourselves', for the sake of self-image rather than any real motivation to communicate with the Lord of heaven and earth? When people display genuine humility as did the tax collector don't we find ourselves judging them just as the Pharisee judged him? We'd hate to be the Pharisee because it would look bad. But neither can we bring ourselves to desire the attitude of the tax collector. But again, it was he who went home justified.
He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
to live in his presence.
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