Pray: With Humility - Luke 18:9-14


 

Have you ever had one of those times?  For me it was the awards assemblies in high school.  We would gather and they would start presenting the awards.  They would get to a particular subject area where I thought I had truly excelled.  I had aced the tests, I had gotten amazing grades on projects.  I had done extra credit.  I had behaved (at least as far as the teacher could tell) in class.  I had striven to be the teacher’s pet.  I would be at the top of the teacher’s list.  They would start calling out names of those that the teacher felt worthy of recognition, and I would wait to hear my name called.  It wasn’t first, well it would come soon.  I just knew it would be the next name called.  Then there it was, the end of the names, and I…had not been named.

Maybe it’s happened to one of us in the workplace.  We’ve worked hard.  We’ve done everything our supervisors asked.  We’ve given up vacation time.  We’ve worked sick.  We’ve skipped out on our children’s ballgames, dance recitals, and even birthday parties.  They’ve posted for a job vacancy that we believe would be a well-deserved promotion.  If anyone deserves it, it has to be us.  We confidently apply.  They call a staff meeting where they are going to announce and introduce who they have selected.  They begin by listing all the qualities that you just know you have.  You prepare to step forward, and then you hear…someone else’s name called.

It’s been going on for a long time.  Jesus tells his disciples a story as he is talking about prayer.  Now while Jesus’ parables are stories, they resonated and connected with the disciples and others who heard them because they connected to real life experiences of the people.  Jesus says, “Two men went to the Temple to pray—a Pharisee and a Tax Collector.”  To help us out with that, we need to understand that the Pharisees were religious leaders who held to a strict adherence to the traditions of the Law as interpreted by the Scribes.  Tax collectors, on the other hand, were among the worst of the worst.  It wasn’t just like how we view a tax collector today.  The tax collectors of Jesus’ day were seen as traitors.  They were fellow Jews who worked for Rome, the oppressive government ruling over the Hebrew nation.  Not only were they employed by the enemy, their income was based on adding an additional amount to the money due Rome.   So Jesus says these two guys go into the Temple to pray.  The first, the Pharisee, walks right up to the front, if he were in our sanctuary, we could picture him coming right up in front of the table.  The tax collector, on the other hand, barely makes his way in through the doors, and he stands almost as far away from the altar as possible…picture him coming in the doors, and sliding in against the back wall of our sanctuary.  The Pharisee, his pride shining through as he raises his head, smiling, prays, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’  The tax collector, on the other hand, Jesus says, prays with his head bowed, he beats his breast, aware that he deserves punishment, and with a voice that was probably hardly audible cries out, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 

Now, had Jesus asked, “which one of you do you think God granted favor to,” folks listening might have said, “well, the Pharisee, of course.  He lives right.  God’s going to hear him before He hears anyone else.  God isn’t going to want anything to do that that filthy tax collector.  How dare he even come into the temple?”  Jesus, though, doesn’t give opportunity for that response, though—He didn’t want any question about who was in the right.  Imagine the shock, and maybe outrage, if it weren’t just a story and the Pharisee were standing there and heard Jesus say, “I tell you, this man, this tax collector, went home justified, went home forgiven…and the Pharisee didn’t—for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  It would be like working real hard, being the best at what we do, and then seeing someone else get the recognition.

So what elevates the tax collector and disqualifies the Pharisee?  Their attitudes.  The Pharisee comes before God in arrogance, seeing himself as better than everyone else, feeling like he deserves, or is owed God’s favor.  The tax collector, on the other hand, recognizes that he is a sinner, and comes forward with an attitude of humility, seeking mercy, not expecting reward.  In language that we could understand today, and assigned in such a way that may shock some of us, the Pharisee was coming before God acting out of a sense of entitlement, while the tax collector came before God broken, eyes open to his own and accountable to his own failings.  The Pharisee felt that God owed him reward…the tax collector knew that God owed him nothing but punishment, death, and eternal separation.

Pride versus humility—God’s Word makes it abundantly clear that pride has no place in our lives before God and with one another.

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but wisdom is with the humble.”[i]

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”[ii]

“I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant, and lay low the insolence of tyrants.”[iii]

And in the words of Jesus, Himself, “For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”[iv]

God’s Word also makes it abundantly clear that rather than operating out of a sense of entitlement, God’s people are to come before humbly before His throne.

“The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”[v]

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”[vi]

“Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”[vii]

Why is all of this?  Paul puts it this way:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”[viii]

True prayer as we’ve come to understand it is an act of humility. To pray without ceasing, allowing a constant awareness of God’s presence with us shape our attitude and actions, keeps before us that left to our own decisions, most often we would only act in our own self-interest and with the attitude that we know better than anyone else. To pray in Jesus’ Name, asking that not our will, but God’s will be done, is an act of humility of surrendering pure wants and desires to God, acknowledging that God knows far better than we what we truly need and what the best outcome is in a given situation. To pray with the Spirit, allowing God himself to supply the words of our prayer, allows us in our speechlessness over the horrors of this world, to seek not our own solutions but to let God sync our hearts with His. 

Even The Lord’s Prayer moves us to a place of humility as we pray not for our will to be done, but God’s; and as we not only confess that we are sinners in need of God’s forgiveness, but actually, in humility, drop our right to desire vengeance, our right to have grievances, our right to trice back, and instead take the position of offering the same forgiveness to others that we are asking from God Himself.

In prayer we come before God not saying, “but for the grace of God go I,” which was the attitude of the Pharisee, but realizing that before God we are no better than the tax collector, the thieves, rogues, and adulterers that the Pharisee lifted himself above; we are no better than the homosexual, the drug dealer, the illegal alien, the welfare abuser, the bigot, or the atheist. We come before the throne of God, all equally in need of the grace of God, all in need of His mercy just to be in the presence of the holy—all realizing that what we deserve is death and to be cast forever from His presence.

It is when we come before God in this humility, that we will find His grace, His mercy, His love.  It is when we come with pure heads humbly bowed that we can feel His Spirit, lifting our chin and our eyes toward Heaven and hear His voice say, my beloved daughter, my precious son, I love you, I gave my life for you, I forgive you, receive my grace, and live, truly live, and know that I am with you.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen!



[i] Proverbs 11:2
[ii] Proverbs 16:19
[iii] Isaiah 13:11
[iv] Mark 7:21-23
[v] Psalm 51:17
[vi] Micah 6:8
[vii] 1st Peter 3:8
[viii] Ephesians 2:8-9

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