“Lord, Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner” [Adapted prayer of the publican (Luke 18:13)]
In time past, only the Orthodox Christian bishops and monastics wore the prayer ropes wound around their left wrists. In our time, one notices lay persons young and old doing the same, often shortened from the conventional length. Assuming they are used properly by those who have been trained to grow spiritually in the way of the hesychasts, we celebrate such intensity of devotion. Fortunately, our book stores and even parish libraries offer literature to aid and enhance that enterprise, such as the famous Way of a Pilgrim, and writings by those on the way to the Kingdom.
The point that our Lord Jesus Christ is making in the parable of the Publican and Pharisee that leads up towards the Great Lent is the attitude of the publican, or tax collector, as he is called in some translations. He was loathed by his fellow Jews, and for good reason. Like many unscrupulous persons in our culture today who will violate all principles of morality including self-respect for the sake of money [Bernard Madoff comes to mind], they too are made in the image of God. Somehow they try to adjust to the guilt, but it is not always possible. That’s why “the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner.’”
The sinner’s humility was the beginning of true prayer. The Pharisee stood in the center of a temple, yet “he stood and prayed with himself” [v. 11]. His words went nowhere. It wasn’t a prayer, but a personal testimonial. Pride is the primary barrier to prayer. Pride is an invisible shield enclosing the person within himself, shutting out the Spirit and communion with the Lord.
We have a problem peculiar to Americans, because we are a proud people. We are encouraged to attain and maintain a sense of pride by our culture. Consider how often the terms “pride” and “proud” are found: “Proud parent of …”, “The Few, The Proud,” “Take pride in….” There are two manifestations of the term, one of them not spiritually helpful. Pride as a healthy self-confidence should be taught to our young people and encouraged in confronting all challenges in a lifetime. How else to learn, unless they believe that they are capable of understanding whatever problems are set before them? Yet self confidence has to be accompanied by diligent study and honest hard work; otherwise, pride itself will become blind vanity.
Spiritual pride is more than vanity—arrogance is the attitude precluding growth and progress towards unity with the Father in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. Arrogance engenders blindness and cold-heartedness. The Pharisee was incapable of recognizing the image of God in the tax collector. Nothing but contempt came from his heart, nothing more than revulsion and judgment. No one who despises another can win the heart of God. How different was the attitude of our Lord. He was criticized for eating with tax collectors, yet we recognize the transformation of Zacchaeus when Christ called him down from the sycamore tree and invited Himself to supper with the man so hated by his neighbors. Recall St. Matthew who left his tax collection booth to follow our Lord Jesus. Imagine the great loss to Christianity without the first gospel of the New Testament written by the former tax collector.
Robert Burns’ wish was a prayer:
“O wad [would] some Power the giftie gie us [gifter give us] To see oursels [ourselves] as ithers [others] see us!”
The “giftie” is the Holy Spirit, and the gift of self-awareness comes to those who see themselves as made from the earth, without pretensions to greatness, but ever bearing in mind “earth we are, and to earth we return.” Earth, yet with souls capable of reaching out towards the Heavenly Father who loves us, and who sent us Jesus Christ to lead us to Himself, in the Holy Spirit.