Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee. Octoechos Tone 1. Our Venerable Father Maximus the Confessor (662). Holy Martyr Neophytus (284-305). Holy Martyrs Eugene, Candidus, Valerian, and Aquilas.
2 Timothy 3:10-15. Luke 18:10-14.
Read Luke 18:10-14
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
The Pharisee was right. It is good to not be an extortioner, or unjust, or an adulterer. It is good to fast and give tithes. So, why did he not go down from the temple to his house justified?
The error of the Pharisee was in believing that, “I am not like other men.”
The Publican is under no such illusion. His frame of reference is an accurate appraisal of himself before God. He knows he is a sinner. He knows that his standing before God is at God’s mercy, not his own presumptuous self-assertion. He refers to no one other than himself in his penitential prayer.
The Pharisee’s attitude that he is not like other men inevitably manifests in judgement toward others, as he does in referring to the Publican in his prayer. Having built his sense of security before God on the ill-founded foundation that he is “not like other men,” he is now invested in maintaining that illusion by continually making it true to himself in his judgement of others.
How unbound is the Publican! He is not invested in the need to preserve any idea about himself in relation to others, having truthfully presented himself before God’s mercy. It is God alone who gives him standing before Him. Of him and such like him Psalm 3 says,
But thou, O Lord, art a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
I cry aloud to the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy hill.