Today’s gospel, Luke 18:9–14, is a story about two particular people and two particular types: but “tax collector” and “Pharisee” aren’t the types, that’s just background information. All tax collectors aren’t represented by the character in the story Jesus tells; all Pharisees aren’t represented by the Pharisee character either.
But often when two people are contrasted in stories like this, they are types. Here we have two different personalities; two different worshippers; two different sinners. What are they?
They are different types both externally and internally, and not in ways that are necessarily correlated. It’s the internal state of each that is important to his justification:
Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
And
whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Okay, so one man in this story is, internally, a sinner and worshiper who belongs to the type that “exalts himself” —this is the type that Jesus is issuing the warning to, those who are “convinced of their own righteousness”—and the other is, internally, of the type who “humbles himself.”
This internal state is what is important to Jesus, and what really makes one man go away justified. Don’t model your worship on the self-exalting type; model it on the self-humbling type.
But in telling this story Jesus has also subverted the expectations of his listeners by assigning these internal states in an unexpected way to two opposing externally visible types.
No, not “Pharisee” and “tax collector.” That’s just background information: neither represents every single person who might have that descriptor, then or now. It perhaps invites us to imagine some details about how each of them might have come to have the attributes in the story.
No, these types are the worshipper in good standing, and the worshipper not im good standing.
This tax collector’s adopting a less-visible position “at a distance” where he won’t attract attention, as well as his profession, and as well as the fact that the other man recognizes him as guilty of serious, ongoing, public infractions—his infamy!—are all elements that identify him as not in good standing. It is externally evident to everyone that he belongs to a class of public sinners.
This Pharisee—let us take his word for it—commits no public sins, holds no disgraceful occupation, tithes and fasts correctly, and occupies a position that he owns or is assigned, it is “his.” He is a worshipper in good standing. He is also, in a nonpublic way, a sinner: his pride is invisible (though we hear about it thanks to our Omniscient Narrator), and anyway, just about everyone is a sinner including this guy, who should know better.
The subversive part is that Jesus swaps the visible and invisible parts of the type. We expect that a worshipper who is in good standing is more likely to be justified than a worshipper who is not in good standing. But Jesus makes clear that it isn’t so.
This concept of “good standing” is heavily suspect as a means of classifying people. Folks will give pastoral or canonical justifications why this or that person ought to be excluded from some role or another for reasons of “not being in good standing.” But we should interrogate these assertions. And we should never “despise” (Jesus’s word!) those without good standing, or count our own good standing, if we possess it, as points in our favor. It seems, according to this parable, that our reputation is entirely irrelevant to our justification, and our humility is extremely relevant. It also seems that “standing” may be, to certain interior types, a very dangerous thing to possess.
UPDATE: Here’s Pope Leo’s homily on this Gospel.
Brothers and sisters, this can also happen in the Christian community. It happens when the ego prevails over the collective, causing an individualism that prevents authentic and fraternal relationships. It also occurs when the claim to be better than others, as the Pharisee does with the tax collector, creates division and turns the community into a judgmental and exclusionary place; and when one leverages one’s role to exert power, rather than to serve.
…With the same humility that [the other] showed, we too must recognize within the Church that we are all in need of God and of one another, which leads us to practice reciprocal love, listen to each other and enjoy walking together. It is based on the knowledge that Christ belongs to those who are humble, not to those who elevate themselves above the flock.
…Dear friends, we must dream of and build a more humble Church; a Church that does not stand upright like the Pharisee, triumphant and inflated with pride, but bends down to wash the feet of humanity; a Church that does not judge as the Pharisee does the tax collector, but becomes a welcoming place for all; a Church that does not close in on itself, but remains attentive to God so that it can similarly listen to everyone.
bearing blog 