In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
I stand before others and before God and pray with myself, thanking Him for all my own righteousness. I thank Him that I am a member of the Church, the true Church, and not in one of those other communities. I remind Him that I fast, I pray, I give—but only the minimal amount—and, therefore, He is obliged to hear my prayer. And on the Last Day, when the Lord comes in His glory, I see myself judged first so that I may step forward and nod knowingly while judgement is exacted on others, standing beside Christ and ordering the punishments on His behalf. “God,” I pray,
I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.
Even so, God continues His generosity towards me. He tells me, here and now, that mine is not the path to Him. My worldly life is as the tax collector—unusually cruel towards my fellow human beings—but my spiritual life is as the pharisee. And I want to make an easy teaching, that we should reverse this and live as the pharisee but pray as the tax collector. For indeed, what the pharisees did in their lives was good, the problem was their hypocrisy and insisting that everyone else do as they command to purify the nation. I want to say that we should just reverse the positions of the pharisee and the tax collector but that misses the point.
The tax collector was not justified so that he may return to extorting his neighbour, a sort of get out of gaol free card, but that He should turn his life around. Our problem is not that we have a “worldly life” and a “spiritual life” which need to be brought into harmony, it is that we try to maintain two separate lives. I live at a distance from God during the week—rationalising my sloth, giving excuses for my disconnection—and then run back to Him on Sunday. And as He justifies the tax collector so He justifies me. But I am called to live the Resurrection life, not merely to participate in it once a week: my whole being needs God, not merely one seventh of it.
And so I must change, I must live the Life of the Resurrection all my life. And I may live this by offering glory and thanksgiving to God, and I may live this by offering glory and thanksgiving to my neighbour. And when my life goes well and all around me are joyful I may pray, “Glory to God!” And when things go badly and my plans do not work out I may pray, “Glory to God!” And when others go out of their way to ridicule me, to hurt me, to gossip against me, to harm me, I may pray “Glory to God!” And when suffering comes my way and I am full of despair I may pray, “Glory to God!”
Glory to God, Who hath created us out of non-existence into being!
Glory to God, Who hath offered unto us the means of our regeneration!
Glory to God, Who hath sent us blessings!
Glory to God, Who hath witnessed our patient sufferings as the means by which we may glorify Him!
Glory to God, Who standeth with us in our trials and honoureth our intent!
Glory to God, Who justifieth us and saveth us!
Glory to God, Who inviteth us to come after Him by taking up our crosses and following Him.
Glory to God, Who hath given us the Church that we may be joined to Him and be ministered!
May we ever, through blessings and curses, through joys and sorrows, through life and death, offer Glory to God!
That we may glorify and praise our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, together with His unoriginate Father and the All-holy, Good and Life-giving Spirit. Amen.
My son Timothy, you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, patience, persecutions, sufferings, what things befell me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra. What persecutions I endured! And out of them all the Lord delivered me. Indeed all who would live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But people who are wicked and deceivers will proceed from worse to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and how from infancy you have known the sacred temple writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
— Second Timothy 3:10–15
The Lord said this parable, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
— Luke 18:10–14