Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee; Our Holy Father Gregory the Theologian, Archbishop of Constantinople.
2 Timothy 3:10-15; 1 Corinthians 12:7-11; Luke 18:10-14; John 10:9-16.
Read Luke 18:10-14
Travelling from one place to another offers us the opportunity to internally relocate as well. It can take us to another place inside ourselves, outside of our routine ways of being, whether that is going on vacation or coming to church.
The experience of those who “went up” to the Jerusalem Temple resonates profoundly in scripture. There is a purposefully ordered collection of psalms within the Psalms called the Songs of Ascents – Psalms 120 (119) to 134 (133). Jerusalem sits high in the Judean Mountains. Because of this, historical travel to the city was experienced as an “ascent”.
The tax collector’s experience of going up was filled with a desperate need for mercy: “To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens…Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, for we have had more than enough of…the contempt of the proud.” (Psalm 123) This is where the tax collector found himself, so much so that he “would not even lift up his eyes to heaven.”
The Pharisee was ironically the contemptuous proud. He did not live Psalm 131: “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high…I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted.”
The Pharisee “went up into the temple” but he didn’t relocate internally. He stayed as he was. The tax collector “went up” looking for something other than he was. His state as he “went down to his house justified” was due to the disposition he had toward what he brought within him as he “went up”.