Gospel: Luke 18:10-14 (§89)
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Dear Father, brothers and sisters: n Spraznecom! Happy Feast!
So dear ones, we now come to the very start of the Lenten Triodion and begin a journey which will take us day by day and week by week through the Pre-lenten period of preparation, the 40 days of Great Lent and then unto the great and dread days of Holy Week to Pascha night itself. For these preparatory weeks of Great Lent, Mother Church helps us to understand once more what it really means to repent; what it means to pray; what it means to fast and to give alms. In today’s Gospel we hear one of the most profound and impactful parables of the whole Gospel – the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. Let us interpret this Gospel with the help of our holy father St Theophan the Recluse and then also consider how our Gospel reading connects with our second commemoration today of all the Holy New Martyrs & Confessors of Russia.
Our Gospel reading presents us with a sharp juxtaposition between the Publican and the Pharisee and thereby illustrates two different ways in which we can pray to God. In our reading, first we hear the Pharisee’s prayer. Now the Pharisees were very religious and very good people whose lives centered entirely around the exact fulfilment of the Jewish Law. The Pharisees were the kinds of people who you would regularly see going in and out of the Temple, they would be giving alms, praying and fasting.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
Note that the Pharisee’s first thoughts are ones of judgment, morally distancing himself from other people and simultaneously elevating himself above them. Initially, he distances himself from different classes of sinners, in abstract – “extortioners, unjust, adulterers” but then he directly judges and considers himself superior than the publican who is there praying in the Temple with him. After spending the first half of his prayer in judgment of different people, thanking and congratulating himself for being different and better from them, the Pharisee then goes on to enumerate the good things that he does –
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
The Pharisee tells all this to God, though, of course our omniscient God – Who knows all things – was hardly in need of such a News Bulletin. For God sees all that we do, and beholds the secret intentions of our hearts. Of course, what is immediately curious about the Pharisee’s prayer is that it actually has very little to do with God at all. Notice that in all the Pharisee says, he doesn’t actually ask God for His help, grace or assistance with anything. Neither does He glorify or praise God, rather he heaps praise upon himself and his own deeds. The Pharisee doesn’t really need God for anything as He already considers his life and conduct to be morally perfect. The Pharisee is very aware of his own virtues but seems to have no awareness no insight whatsoever into his own sins.
Let us now contrast this with the Publican. As we have mentioned before, everyone in 1st century Palestine knew what a corrupt class of people the Publicans, the Tax Collectors were almost entirely corrupt, extorting money from the local people. So when this corrupt person comes to pray we would all be rather sceptical about the level of piety that would be expressed. What good thing could come out of such a darkened mouth and heart?
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
Yet, as we so regularly see in the Holy Gospel, the Kingdom of God is a topsy-turvy world where the first are last and the last are first. Note that the Publican barely enters into the Temple, as he is so acutely aware that he is a sinner. Whilst the Pharisee with his robe and phylacteries is very visible and, I imagine, right in the front and centre, the humble Publican stands “afar off”. We then hear that he barely lifts his eyes up unto heaven and strikes upon his breast. Why does he do this? Again, because he considers himself entirely unworthy of God’s help and consideration. He knows all too painfully how badly he has acted towards his brothers and sisters. He himself knows how little he has given and sacrificed to God. And when he does pray what does he say? He says just seven short words: “God be merciful to me a sinner”. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less: “God be merciful to me a sinner”. In his prayer, he doesn’t talk about anyone else, he doesn’t compare himself to anyone else. He only focuses upon himself. And yet, what does he understand himself to be: a good man, a righteous man, a pious man. No, none of these only “a sinner”. Nor does he seek to highlight to God maybe one or two good things that he might have done at some point in his life as part justification. In short we can see that whilst the Pharisee was full of pride and bloated, egotistical self-absorption, the Publican was full of humility.
This reading should strike us each year like a thunderbolt from heaven, a slap in the face and great wake-up call. Our prayer to God should not sound like the Pharisees’ prayer, full of pride, self-justification, contempt and judgment. St Theophan the Recluse here is very helpful in probing this further –
Do not even allow the thought to come to your mind, “I did such and such – so give me such and such”. Consider what ever you mmight have done as your obligation. If you had not done it you have have been subject to punishment, and what you did deserves no rewards, you did not do anything special.
In our egotism, in our pride, how often we forget this. We feel the need to endlessly dwell and take pride in the little good things we do, and then remembering these things, look down on our brothers and sisters. We should rather remember those words of the Gospel –
So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
The Pharisees fault, was not that he did the things that he did – fasting, tithing and also refraining from other type of sin – but rather, as St Theophan says – the bad thing is that the presented it ass something special; whereas, having done it he should have thought no more of it.
Through this parable, as with many of our Lord’s parables we are given this privileged insight into the secret working of the heart. This is the perspective that none of us, except the saints and holy ones have. At least in our prayers in church, or at home, we would very rarely, if ever pray out loud in exactly the same brazen way as the Pharisee. Yet, as St Theophan underlines,
in the feelings of [our] hearts we are rarely unlike him. For why is it that people pray poorly? It is because they feel as though they are just fine in the sight of God, even without praying’.
How hard it is brothers and sisters for us to actually be humble. How hard it is for us not to constantly be deceived by our overinflated pride, self-concern and self-love. How hard it is not to think that we are better than other people, even though we are presented with so much evidence to the contrary.
All of us when we pray must remember this stance of the Publican, not daring to raise his eyes up to heaven, looking down at the earth and not seeking to justify or impress God with our affected piety or occasional good works. Our loving Lord, loves the humble, the poor in spirit, the broken-hearted. He loves the innocent purity and guilelessness of children. More than anything it is our pride, hypocrisy and conceit which are most distasteful, most abhorrent to the Lord. As it says in Proverbs 16:5: “Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD“.
This Lent let us seek to pray not as Pharisees, the way in which we might pray most of the time, but let us at least take one small step to pray after the manner of this humble Publican.
‘Do not assume that you have the right to be heard, but approach prayer as one unworthy of any attention, allowing yourself only the boldness needed to open your mouth and raise up your prayer to God, knowing the Lord’s boundless condescension towards us poor ones.’
Let us also learn from the example of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Land of Rus, those of whom the world is not worthy. So many of these holy ones through their paths of confession and martyrdom give us luminous examples of humility. Just yesterday I was reading a newly published book of two essays by the Holy New Martyr Hilarion (Troitsky) Archbishop of Verey. From the book you can see the brilliance of his mind and the depth of his learning. However, when he was arrested for his bold defence of the Faith by the Bolsheviks and sent to the feared camp at Solovki Monastery, this did not shake him nor bring him to despondency. He was always cheerful, even joyful and would never answer back when insulted by the guards. With his episcopal rank, other monastics, clergy and faithful would try to preserve him from the harder or more menial jobs. But St Hilarion did not expect any special treatment of favours and considered himself the last, and the servant of all. In these Bolshevik camps, the demonic intention of the guards was to entirely demoralise and dehumanise the clergy. They forced them not merely to do back breaking hard labour but even to do degrading labour, such as to clean out sewerage pits of human feces and waste without any tools or protection, but by hand, in the freezing cold, day after day, hour after hour. Many died of disease or from exposure to the cold. I will end my homily today with just two short examples of St Hilarion’s humility –
In the memoirs of one of Fr. Arseny’s spiritual children, Hieromonk Seraphim, we find the following episode: “Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky) set me on the right way. We met him in Solovki, he, too, was sent to clean the sewerage. “Vladyka!” I addressed him. What should I do, I clean the sewerage, I a hieromonk, I’m obliged day and night to pray, but how can I, filthy and foul? You can’t make the Sign of the Cross with such a hand. What should I do? Vain thoughts have started to overcome me.”
Vladyka Hilarion said, “It’s essential to pray, and to pray so that the world surrounding you withdraws and in your soul lives only prayer. Do not make the Sign of the Cross with a dirty hand, but mentally raise your eyes up, then down, right and left. You will make the Sign of the Cross, but in the barracks, when you have cleansed yourself from the filth, cross yourself with your hand. Praying during your work, withdrawing into prayer, you won’t see the filth and stench. That’s what I do, and it helps me endure all my burdens. The Lord deliver you from vain thoughts; remember what your guide and teacher, Fr. Agapit, taught you.”
Finally, there is this beautiful scene on the freezing banks of the White Sea beside those great medieval stone towers of Solovki monastery, an eye witness relates –
Archbishop Hilarion and I, along with two other bishops and a few priests (all prisoners), were now reduced to being net-makers and fishermen. Archbishop Hilarion loved to talk about this work of ours using a rearrangement of the words of the sticheron for Pentecost: ‘All things are given by the Holy Spirit: before, fishermen became theologians, and now it’s the opposite—the theologians have become fishermen.’” Thus did he humble himself before his new lot.
Those of whom the world is not worthy.
Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Land of Rus pray to God for us!
Amen.