God, Be Merciful to Me!

“Jesus told them another joke, and He told this one to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. ‘Did you hear the one about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector who came to the Temple at the same time to pray?’ (Luke 18:9-10)

It’s a classic setup: two natural antagonists in close proximity.

Did you hear the one about Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin stepping into an elevator together? The cable snaps; they plummet and crash. Who survives?

Answer: The rest of the world.

‘A Pharisee and a tax collector turn up at the temple at the same time to pray,’ says Jesus, and you can see his audience beginning to smirk. There’s no sarcastic exchange at the Temple door, but the Pharisee can’t resist a backhanded swipe:

“I thank you, God, that I’m not like other people—thieves, rogues, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all I get.” In other words, “I’m one of the good guys!”

And he was. That’s the twist. To understand the joke, you need to understand the characters, and the Pharisees were exceptional human beings. Yes, moralistic and a bit stuffy, but they were the moral backbone of the community. We get a skewed image from the New Testament where they’re always arguing with Jesus—but they were the only religious leaders who showed up, and that’s significant.

To grasp the significance of the Pharisee in first-century Jewish society, we must understand the Roman occupation and how it impacted every aspect of life.

It began in 63 BCE when Pompey “brought peace” to Jerusalem. By the time Jesus was of school age, Judea was a Roman province, and Jesus’ contemporaries had never known freedom—only Roman soldiers, Roman law, Roman gods, and Roman taxes. Faced with occupation, Jews had three options:

Fight back—the Zealots chose this path. Like the resistance fighters in Gaza today, they weren’t fringe extremists. They were desperate people who believed they had no other choice but to fight and die, if necessary, for the sake of a better future for their families and their people.
Compromise—the Sadducees, wealthy priestly elites who aligned themselves with Rome to preserve their status and their Temple.
Withdraw—the Essenes fled to the desert, forming monastic communities like Qumran (which we know about through the Dead Sea Scrolls). John the Baptist may have emerged from this tradition.

But none of these paths helped ordinary families trying to raise children in faith. The Zealots were planning attacks, the Sadducees were locked in luxury, and the Essenes were in hiding. Who was left to teach, guide, and model godliness in a hedonistic world?

The Pharisee!

The Pharisee was the guy who stuck it out in the community but was not of it. He stood for purity and faithfulness. He hated Roman Occupation as much as everybody else but didn’t flee or compromise. The Pharisees stayed with the people. They were in it for the long haul.

Search for stories of Pharisaic heroism, and you’ll find acts of nonviolent resistance—refusing to stop teaching Torah, bearing their necks to Roman swords, dying while reciting the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

So yes, the Pharisee prays, “I thank thee God that I am not like other men”—and he’s right. He was not like other men, and he was most especially not like that greedy, traitorous, money-grabbing tax collector! He knew it. And he said it.

Meanwhile, we’re told, the tax collector prays the only prayer he has: “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” (Luke 18:13)

Biblical scholar Joachim Jeremias suggests that the key to getting Jesus’ joke here is to recognise that, by this stage of the story, most of Jesus’ audience have guessed the punchline. They know Jesus had a soft spot for the sort of people don’t like and they know what’s coming: ‘I tell you, not only the Pharisee had his prayers heard that day, but also the tax-collector!’ Not only the Pharisee, but also the tax collector.’

Jesus had room for tax-collectors and sex-workers and all sorts of unsavoury people, so, yes – ‘not only the Pharisee, but also the tax collector.’ and yet there’s a sting in the tail of this joke. The punchline is not the one that they expected. Instead, Jesus concludes by saying that ‘the tax collector went to his home justified and not the Pharisee!’ The tax collector and NOT the Pharisee!

The tax collector went home ‘justified’, and it’s worth noting here that this is the only time in the Gospels that the Greek ‘dikiosuner’ (justified) is ever used. We know this word from St Paul’s writings. He speaks of being justified by faith, justified before God, etc. and it’s a word that speaks of God’s grace towards the undeserving – ‘just as if I’d never sinned’. That word is used only once in the gospels, – right here.

The tax collector went home justified, whereas the Pharisee goes home still carrying the same problems he came in with. Like some email that gets caught in the Divine Spam filter, his prayer does not get through!

I heard of a preacher who ended his sermon on this parable with a prayer that began, “I thank thee, God, that we are not like the Pharisee in this parable.”

If only! There is a Pharisee in all of us, and the only hope for all of us Pharisees is to recognise that the prayer of the tax collector is the only prayer we have too – ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner.’

Our Sunday Eucharist

Our last Sunday Eucharist was full of surprises – not the least of which was that i started the broadcast without my two scheduled panellists!

Both Eric Fistler and John Jegasothy did eventually join me, but not until I was well into the Gospel reading. This meant that my only real-time discussion partner for most of the Bible Banter was our recently created virtual character, AI Saint Paul!

I was very pleased with how the discussion flowed with AI Saint Paul, though some of you said you found him a little freaky. If you missed his debut, he’s featured in the first of the shorts that I’ve pasted in below.

As usual, you can see all the shorts from last Sunday on our Sunday Eucharist Instagram page and watch all our broadcasts in their entirety on YouTube.

This Sunday I’m looking forward to having two old friends back with me – Dr Andrew Madry and Wing Commander Scott Minchin. AI Saint Paul should also be back with us. Join us for some rousing discussion.

We start on Sunday at midday, Sydney time. Please invite your friends by referring them to the Facebook Event Page or the Streamyard event page and join us via TheSundayEucharist.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia or Streamyard.

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What’s On?

Saturday, October 25 – Boxing at Legends Gym in Kensington from 3 pm.
Sunday, October 26 – Our Eucharist from noon @thesundayeucharist.com, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Faithia or Streamyard
Tuesday, October 28 – Boxing at the Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm
Thursday, October 30 – Online Bible study group meeting from noon @ www.thesundayeucharist.com/bible
Thursday, October 30 – Boxing at the Mundine Gym in Redfern from 7 pm

This last week has been another tough round for me and for the world. I know some think my penchant for boxing unduly influences my perspective – causing me to always see life as a fight. I think it’s the other way around. It’s the ongoing battle that I see around me that keeps dragging me back to the ring. Boxing is my pantomime of resistance. The world keeps spinning. The rounds tick over. I keep fighting.

I fought to get more political support for my brother in chains, Dr Hassoun, this week. I won’t mention the name of the senator who eventually told me he couldn’t help, but Amnesty International has raised questions as to whether Dr Hassoun signed off on the execution of numerous prisoners in Syria between 2011 and 2015. This apparently makes his torture too politically sensitive an issue to touch!

I’ve searched in vain to find evidence backing up this accusation. I can’t take Amnesty’s word for it. I remember all too well how they failed to support my friend, Mordechai Vanunu (the ‘nuclear whistle-blower’), when he was kidnapped by the Mossad in 1986 and put on secret trial. I remember, too, dialoguing with Professor Francis Boyle, who had resigned from the board of Amnesty International USA in the 1990s, saying that it was being overly influenced by US government policy.

It is painful to have to call into question the human rights organisations that we had thought were the standard by which others are judged. We just had a similarly disillusioning experience with the committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize. What possessed them to award the prize to someone with close ties to Israel’s Likud Party who is calling for U.S. sanctions and military interventions in Venezuela, and a person who would dedicate her award to Donald Trump!

Having said all that, the light continues to shine in the darkness, and I was reminded of that today when I received a call from my friend, Anne Aly MP, who is not backing down from seeking justice for Dr Hassoun. Thank you, Anne. Thank you, Mimi (Syrian Girl), and thanks to all who have continued to pray for our dear brother.

We remain humble. We remain prayerful. We keep fighting.