Most Christians see the Pharisee in the Sunday’s gospel as a stock hypocrite. Amy Jill Levine, a Jewish New Testament scholar, sees both the Pharisee and the publican as extreme figures. In her book Short Stories by Jesus, she explores parables like Sunday’s gospel, looking for how the parable might have prodded and provoked original Jewish hearers. She helps us see with Jewish eyes rather than Christian assumptions.
Among the religious groups of Jesus’ time, Pharisees are closest in outlook and values to Jesus. Often Pharisees serve as the foils in the stories about Jesus, but like him they are teachers. Their place is in schools, teaching in the villages, not the temple where priests serve, or the synagogues, which have their own leaders.
For Levine the Pharisee and the tax collector are caricatures. The Pharisee is over the top sincere and pious. A tax collector praying and asking for mercy would strain belief in Jesus’ time. Those who collect for the Romans show no mercy to others and gain wealth at their expense.
Viewing the Pharisee as an ideal Jew makes Jesus’ parable more provocative for Christians today. If the Pharisee was a practicing, contemporary Catholic, he might be an usher at the 10:30 Mass, a member of the parish council, someone who practices sacrificial giving, plays guitar at two Masses a month, sells the quota of raffle tickets, does an honest day’s work on the job, sends the kids to Catholic school, teaches in the parish school of religion, and volunteers at the soup kitchen. He could be a man or woman, president of the Altar and Rosary or the Holy Name Society. The Pharisee is not one of them, but one of us.
Pharisees practiced their religion. Their strict observance of the law distinguished them as a group. They kept the commandments, paid a tenth of their income for the support of the temple, and fasted twice a week. They were good, religious people, the school and religion teachers of their time, and progressive in applying the Law of Moses to cases that came to them.
- How does seeing the Pharisee as a positive, respected person change the impact of Jesus’ parable on you?
The Pharisee stands front and center to pray in the temple. His pious and righteous, law-keeping life is the main content of his prayer, not God’s goodness. Nonetheless he is doing what God expects. He is sincere and responsible, Levine points out, but boastful.
His prayer peaks in its first four words, “I thank you, God.” From then on, it’s all about him. In his prayer this Pharisee divides the human race into two groups—himself and other people. He keeps the law; others covet their neighbor’s goods and spouses. He tithes; others forget their temple pledges.
His religious practices do not function to express his faith and commitment to God but to separate him from sinners and sin. His rosaries and attendance at daily Mass insulate him from people like the tax collector. His religion is exclusionary.
The tax collector is a stock outsider among gospel characters. The tax collector works for the occupying Romans. His regular contact with foreigners makes him ritually unclean, so he can’t keep the Mosaic law. His work puts him outside the boundaries of the holy.
Some tax collectors like Zacchaeus in Luke 19.1-10 have reputations for overcharging. The stereotypical tax collector is traitorous, greedy, unholy.
The Pharisee supposes that the very prayer that distances him from the tax collector brings him near God. The tax collector, on the other hand, supposes he is unworthy to be anything but distant from God.
- Finish the Pharisee’s prayer, “I thank you, God, that I am not like…” in your own words.
- Finish the tax collector’s prayer, “God, be merciful to me…” in your own words.
Jesus tells this parable to the men and women disciples who are following him to Jerusalem. The parable creates room for them and for us to assess where we fit between these two contrasting examples of prayer. Outward signs of piety do not make the Pharisee an insider with God, nor does sinful self-interest place the tax collector beyond God’s mercy. Perhaps among Jesus’ disciples some are making negative judgments about others.
The parable invites them to see themselves in its mirror.
The parable seems to come down on the side of the tax collector. “This man rather than the first went down to his house worthy in God’s sight” (18.14). Luke attaches a saying that affirms the humility of the tax collector and puts the Pharisee in a negative light.
Professor Levine, however, explores the meanings of the “pesky Greek preposition para,” translated as rather than in the parable. It is the prefix in words such a parallel, paradox, paraclete. Besides rather than, it can mean because of or alongside.
The conclusion becomes—“This man went down to his home justified alongside the other or because of the other.” The parable then asks us to recognize how we affect one another. It has the spirit of the prayer at Mass leading into the Sign of Peace: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, look not on our sins but on the faith of your Church.” I find comfort in other people having faith when I don’t.
Neither character is faultless. The pious one is boastful; the exploitive one is humble. Both raise questions to ask ourselves. Who do we praise in our prayer, God or ourselves? Does the mercy we seek from God really lead us to change, to stop exploiting people who are poor, to seek reconciliation with those we hurt?
The Protestant Reformation began more than 500 years ago with Martin Luther’s insight that God is gracious, rather than judging. God freely bestows love and life upon all of us, not because we deserve it or have earned God’s blessings, but because God is God. God is love.
In the end, perhaps the parable is really about God and the abundant mercy God has for all of us.
- In what prayer practice do you persist? How has this practice changed you?
- How does your prayer insulate you from others? How does your prayer connect you with others?