New Thoughts (04/14/10-04/20/10)
The two characters that Jesus selects for this parable epitomized the two moral extremes in the minds of His contemporaries. The Pharisee, as popular opinion had it, was as near to righteous as a man was likely to get. The taxman, on the other hand, was the worst of sinners, worse even than the murderer so far as most were concerned. Honestly, I’m not sure our perception of the taxman has changed very much. The Pharisees, on the other hand, have a much different connotation to us.
I should note that the Pharisees continue to this day. The more conservative branches of Judaism still proudly note their connection to this sect. In spite of our perceptions of them as wholly off course, the truth is that the movement of Pharisaism had much to recommend it. Paul, whom we might well consider the chief apostle, as he was the apostle to the Gentiles, was a Pharisee, and the training he had by that sect echoes through the training he gives to the Church. It is not that he tried to overlay what Jesus taught with what Gamaliel taught. It is simply that he rightly recognized that Jesus did not condemn the beliefs of the Pharisees, only their practice. In this, I’m not sure the Church would fair much better today.
It is true that Jesus reserved a particularly vitriol for His rebukes of the Pharisees. But, it is also true that these rebukes were ever and always against their hypocrisy. He was not offended by the idea of seeking to avoid any near infraction of the Law. How could He be, Who upheld the Law in perfection? No. What He was upset at was two-fold. First and foremost, there was the issue of coldness in how the Pharisees sought to impose the Law and the tradition. No compassion informed their decisions. No mercy was applied. No consideration was made for the capacity of the follower to follow. It was strictly by the letter, case closed.
When one looks at the requirements of the Law as they are laid out in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, however, one can’t help but notice that with every injunction of the Law there is laid out the appropriate propitiatory sacrifice by which the crime of breaking that Law might be repaid. It is also very noteworthy that these sacrifices were generally scaled to the means of the one who must sacrifice. The bar would not be set so high as to break the penitent. Neither would it be reduced so low as to have no impact. There is a fairness in the system. But, I have to say, were there no hope of mercy, there would be no system. Were God as devoid of compassion as the Pharisaic practice suggested He was, there would be no means of propitiation. There would be the full penalty of the Law, and that’s that. Of course, in very short order, there would be none to pay that penalty, for all have sinned and fallen foul of the Law.
This was, as I say, the fundamental issue Jesus had with this sect. For all that they sought to maintain the righteousness of God, they failed to manifest His true character in their actions and in their teaching. Recall that Jesus did not teach us to avoid the righteousness practiced by the Pharisees, but to exceed it (Mt 5:20). Recall that Jesus, in rebuking the Pharisees, did not tell them to cease from the practices they had established, but to go beyond them (Lk 11:42). The problem isn’t your scrupulousness in regards to tithing. Your problem is that you have no sense of justice, and demonstrate nothing of God’s love. “These are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.” Add to it.
Jesus did not call for an end to the Pharisees. He called for an improvement. He is, in this regard, the very model of the reformer. This is the same spirit that moved many of those who brought about the Protestant Reformation. It should be the spirit that motivates us in every age to consider the ways of God and the ways of the Church and to do as best we can to conform the latter to the former where they have strayed. In these activities, we would do well to focus somewhat less on doctrine and focus more on those things Jesus complained of: a lack of compassion, and a lack of true justice in our behavior towards others.
If there is a lesson we can take from the Pharisees, this is it. It is not that doctrine doesn’t matter. Far from it! However, the soundest doctrine will avail us nothing if we do not manifest the whole of God’s character in our own. If all we have is a systematic theology that is not demonstrated in our life, we are as dead as the buildings in which we worship. Now, let me quickly balance that out and say, if all we have is love, and we will not suffer ourselves to look at the less positive aspects of God’s character, then we are not promoting true faith. We are promoting idolatry. God is love. No doubt about it. God is also wrath, and leaves no room for doubt about that, either. God loves, but God hates. He hates sin. Were it not so, there would be no Law, no sacrifice, no redemption and no Redeemer. But, God is all that He is in perfect balance. We ought to do our utmost to acknowledge this in Him, and to be as thankful for the one side as the other.
The complaint, as Fausset puts it is that, “in many respects their doctrine was right […] but not their practice.” Let us, therefore, examine ourselves. Let us first be determined to conform practice to belief. That in itself is probably sufficient to keep us busy for a lifetime! Let us second be determined to inspect our doctrine to rid ourselves of that which is wrong and to cling to that which is right. But, always, always, let us demonstrate more than the stark Truth of God. Let us demonstrate that His Truth is filled with His mercy and compassion as well as His justice and wrath.
Turning to the other end of the spectrum, we have somebody who, by their choice of profession, has defiled not only himself, but his family. That’s how sinful the taxman was thought to be. Of course, this had no basis in God’s truth, but it’s how things were seen. Fausset notes that it was considered acceptable to break a promise made to the taxman. They could not offer alms or temple contributions, although they were not completely barred from the premises. Most interestingly to me, their testimony was not acceptable in court.
This brings me to an intriguing facet of Jesus’ ministry. His birth was announced most immediately to a bunch of shepherds. Yet, the testimony of a shepherd had no legal value. Many of His strongest supporters were women. Yet, the testimony of a woman had no legal value. The majority of His top disciples were from Galilee, a region seen as not much better than the Samaritans, given the Gentile influence in the area. Add to this that one of His chief disciples was a taxman, that He would later forego dinner with the Pharisees in favor of dining with a taxman! At every turn, He chose the least valued and the most despised.
This is, of course, wholly in keeping with the conclusion He draws from this parable. Those who are humbled, He exalts. Now, in the parable, He is addressing self-assessment. But, the truth is that the same can be said of societal assessments. For one thing, those who are most rejected by society at large are those most likely to reach a humble assessment of themselves. For another, the values of society at large are askew. This is particularly true in places that have largely rejected Christianity, of course. But, it has also been true historically of those places where religion – even Christianity – run strong.
The issue is that our fallen nature tends to corrupt the best impulses of religion. It happened to the Pharisees, and not only to them, but to the nation around them. We are inclined to judge by what we see, and we are inclined to judge what we see by our own opinion of how things ought to be. It is very difficult for us to see things as God sees them. We are too wrapped up in our own emotions, our own interests. Quite frankly, we’re not all that inclined to think about how God sees things. But, this is what we need to fix.
Jesus faced a society that judged righteousness solely by what the eyes could measure, and the eyes are easily lied to. It is the things we do in private, the things we think to ourselves, that really measure our righteousness, and these, the eyes of man cannot perceive. This is the big issue Jesus addresses here. You are convinced the Pharisee is the obviously justified one and the taxman is beyond hope of redemption. You are convinced of this because the Pharisee has done much to make sure you see all his religious affectations. Yet, the reality is that he is full of himself and has no real use for God. He’s putting on a show and nothing more. He no longer has any real interest in righteousness, only in his public standing. The taxman, on the other hand, already knows his public standing and he knows there’s nothing he can do about that, anyway. More importantly, he knows his true condition before God, and therefore comes not with pride, but with honest humility.
Honest humility: that’s a term that needs to be focused on. We know, after all, that we’re supposed to be humble. Unfortunately, that can tend to lead us into making a show of our humility. Our attempts at humility become nothing but thinly veiled pride. Honest humility, I suspect, cannot afford to think of itself. It is an unconscious behavior. The moment our humility becomes conscious effort, it is no longer humility. It is wholly fleshly and dishonest. But, let me come back to that later.
The fundamental issue Jesus is addressing, as Luke informs us, is that these folks He is talking to thought that they were righteous. Well, now, let’s consider a sound definition of that term. Start with the most basic, as we have it from Thayer’s. “One who is as he ought to be.” Fair enough. I know from my own experience how quickly one can convince himself that he has met this condition. It’s the old, “I’m a good man” syndrome. It’s a lie, of course. But, if this is the whole of our measure, then we can convince ourselves we’re doing well.
But, take it a step farther. How about this characteristic: Just in judging others. This starts to get to the cusp of the problem with the Pharisees. Not only were they off course in their self assessment, but because they were so off in their self assessment they were also inclined to be very contemptuous of anybody not of their sect. These accursed people who don’t know the Law! The great unwashed mass of society. And again we find pride underlying it all. Just look at them! Why, I’m far superior to that lot! I mean really, God! Just look at them and then look at me. The difference in quality is obvious.
Of course, even when we add in this issue of being just in our judgments, we will quickly convince ourselves that we’re still on the mark. Sure, and we’re just in looking down on these other folks. I mean, look at them! Do you see them being so scrupulous with the tithe? Why, half of ‘em don’t tithe at all! Do you see them showing up for all the prayer meetings like I do? Never in life. I doubt they even pray at home. And then consider the music they listen to! My music collection has nothing but praise & worship in it. Clearly, they are unclean. They could do far worse than to pursue my example.
But, now, consider the chief, really the only definition of righteousness. Real righteousness is defined as fully meeting God’s expectations, measuring up to His standards. There can be very few ways that we might convince ourselves we have managed that requirement. Either we lie to ourselves about what God’s standards truly are, or we gloss over the greater part of our daily activity. The only viable claim we can hope to make to righteousness is to lay ourselves upon the Christ Who has purchased our righteousness at the cost of His own blood. This is our real condition. This is the Truth. There is none righteous, not even one. Nobody truly follows the requirements of God’s Law. We are all of us inclined to reduce it to something we think we can manage, and reduce it farther still when we discover we can’t.
There is, then, precisely one way to behave in a fashion that fully meets God’s expectations, and that is to lay oneself upon the mercy of His court, and plead the blood of Christ paid out for our debt. There is only the path of confessing our sins and seeking His forgiveness. And, there is only that one avenue to forgiveness, the Lamb of God, sacrificed for us. To plead any other reason for clemency is to seal one’s guilt, and even increase it.
This lies at the base of the whole sacrificial system of which the death of the Christ was the culmination and terminus. His death was required as a final propitiation, an offering sufficient to satisfy the demands of the Law, for God must remain Just. The Law, as we are reminded, prescribes but one penalty for its breach, and that is death. The death of sheep and oxen could not satisfy the Law, for the breach of sin is an eternal breach and the death of an animal has no eternal value. But, the eternal Son of God; His death is as eternal as our sin, and His Life has surmounted death. Therefore we are alive in Him, truly alive! Therefore, we are able to cry out for mercy, for God to accept the propitiation of His life laid down for us, and know with certainty that He will be faithful to forgive. Therefore, we are not without hope, and only therefore.
Prior to Jesus, this was the purpose behind every offering. “God, be merciful. Be propitious.” In this case, I really like the way the HCSB has translated the taxman’s cry. “God, turn Your wrath from me.” I don’t know but what this is an attitude we need to recover. I think we have come to take God’s wrath against sin far too lightly. We are so comfortable in our forgiven state that we fail to really take the measure of our sins. We’re afraid we might become “sin conscious” whatever that’s supposed to mean. Honestly, I don’t know where that bit of Christianese came from, but it strikes me as errant nonsense. Of course we ought to be sin conscious. God is. Oh, you shall say, but then you are not walking in the power and freedom of the Spirit. And I shall be forced to wonder just what spirit it is that powers you, that you think you can continue in sin without repercussion.
Look, I’m not denying that I, too, continue to sin with shocking regularity. I will not deny that there are those particular sins that seem to cling, and I shall not deny that I am inclined, when faced by those things, to just lay claim to, “It is no longer I, but sin in me,” and just let it happen. I’m inclined to just say that I’m powerless to stop it, which may be entirely true. Yet, if I make that an excuse to not even try, I cannot imagine that my God is pleased with me. That’s not leaning on Him. That’s just hoping to get away with it. That’s not faith, that’s spiritual laziness.
Note that it is the taxman who is recommended to our attention rather than the Pharisee. What is it that distinguishes the attitudes on display in these two? The Pharisee, as we see him, is full of himself. He comes before God as one presenting himself for an appointment. See my qualifications? I should make a fine addition to your company. The taxman, on the other hand, rightly recognizes that he stands before the Judge, that he is come to the courtroom of heaven, and that his guilt is beyond question.
His humility is not a matter of downplaying his achievements. It’s not even a careful assigning of his achievements to God, as some are wont to do. His humility is a recognition that he has no achievements to speak of. It lies in his clear recognition of his guilt before God. Sin conscious? You bet! And also very conscious of his incapacity for making things right. The only avenue he has is that which God has provided. Repent, confess, sacrifice. Death must be paid against the crime. In His mercy, God had allowed the substitute death of sheep, of steer, of pigeon, according to the ability of the sinner. But, there could be no doubt: breach of His law was punishable by death.
So, this taxman comes in accord with the due process of this court. He comes in repentance. He comes confessing his sins, not his achievements. He comes sacrifice in hand, we must assume. And his prayer is simple: Oh, Judge, accept this offering and be propitious towards me. In this much, at least, I have followed the rule of Law. You have no reason to accept it apart from that very Law You have laid out, but may it please the court to accept it such as it is, and have mercy upon me.
The Pharisee had come seeking justice for his supposed righteousness. The taxman had come seeking mercy, for he knew what justice served would look like. Oh! How we could learn from this man! Let us never come before God complaining that His treatment of us is unfair. Unfair? We had best hope He remains so unfair towards us. For, justice, apart from the incredible grace of mercy, must surely result in our destruction.
But, Jesus gives us a marvelous outcome for this taxman. He departs as one justified by the court. Does that mean the court has ruled that what he did was right after all? No. In simple, legal terms it indicates that he has been acquitted of the charges against him. This is not necessarily to say that he is declared innocent of those charges, only that he is acquitted. It could equate to time served, or fine paid. It is, however, worthwhile to recognize that God, like our own judicial system, does not allow for double jeopardy. The issue has been resolved and it shall not be taken up again.
Another aspect of this business of justification is to demonstrate one’s righteousness. This is, in effect, what the Pharisee attempts to do. I do this. I do that. I obey this rule and that rule. See? I am righteous. Of course, the Pharisee is padding his resume rather severely and glossing over the myriad infractions that are also there in the record. But, that is nevertheless his goal: to demonstrate his righteousness, to justify himself.
The greatest good news of justification, however, lies in a third meaning. For, where it would be impossible to provide evidence of some pre-existing righteousness on our part, the court of heaven has a power far beyond any earthly court. They can actually make righteous what is not righteous in itself. This, to my thinking, goes way beyond simply acquitting me of legitimate charges. That is wonderful enough, given the nature of the case. But, this is beyond declaring penalty paid. This is actually making righteous. This is the power of the Christ in me! It is not that God simply says I’m righteous in spite of what I know to be the case. That would be dishonest, and therefore could have not place in the essence of God. But, He alone has the power to actually make it so. He does so by the impartation of His own righteousness, embodied in His Son. He does so by taking up residence within me, abiding in me, making of this admittedly poor building material a temple for Himself.
Where is the house you would build for Me? He has no need of housing, for He has made of you a temple for Himself, and finds no better place wherein He might reside. Here is the temple, made of living stone. It is made clean by His presence (though we often feel it to be otherwise). By His indwelling presence, we are made righteous, and by His indwelling presence, the temple is made holy.
Can I just explore that for a moment, for this is something I need to allow to sink in. I have often wondered at the fact that this Holy Spirit, who cannot so much as abide sin, is able to dwell in such as I am. Yet, this is a key understanding: The temple is not made clean so that the purity of God can dwell there. The temple is made clean because the purity of God does dwell there. There was nothing intrinsically holy about the Tabernacle in the desert, nor Solomon’s temple, nor Nehemiah’s reconstruction of it. The temple in Jerusalem began to be holy in that moment when the presence of God filled the place, and ceased being holy in the moment that He departed. It was His presence that made it clean, not its cleanliness that made it His home.
So it is with us. Just as we have nothing in ourselves which would recommend us to His favorable opinion, so His decision to take up His dwelling place in us is not dependent upon our cleaning skills. As I once put it to a dear brother of mine, God is the only one who can clean the fish before he has caught it. That continues to be our case, I fear, after we are well caught. He is able to clean the temple that He has established in us. As I have already said here, it’s not for us to stop even bothering with our attempts to obey and be righteous. It’s just that we are given this marvelous confidence in the face of our failures: that He is not going to leave or forsake us because of our weakness. No! But, He will pick us up, wash us off yet again, and restore the righteousness of this house He has chosen. It’s His choice! Oh! How very much depends from that realization! How very powerful to know that He has chosen, and He shall not repent.
Let this not give us cause to repeat the error of Israel and suppose that His unrepentant choice of this temple means we can do whatever we want and get away with it. No! Too many temples have been destroyed by Him in the past for just such reasons of misplaced trust. It is not the place which is holy, but He who fills the place. If, then, we have come into the presence of the Holy, surely we must be on our best behavior! In the temple, or in the church, we somehow remember this for a time. But, the reality is that we are always in the presence of the Holy, for we carry Him with us. We have the very best of reasons to be on our best behavior at all times, for within us rests the Holy of Holies, and the Holy One is seated therein.
The biggest battle we have in coming at this model for life is our pride. Perhaps there are those for whom it is not an issue, but for the majority, pride clouds our perceptions in one way or another. It is pride, for instance, that leads us to respond with anger when we are confronted with our sins. It is pride that blocks our ears when others would speak a corrective word to us. It is pride, as well, that leads us into displays of such false humility has I have described, putting on a show of our lowliness. Pride has no place in the Christian.
Let me be clear on this. I am not discussing that sort of pride we think of when we say that somebody takes pride in their workmanship. This is hardly to be seen as an issue, unless it has taken on the aspect of an obsession for the workman. No, it is highly commendable. Indeed, I should think that every Christian should be seen as taking pride in their workmanship, whatever it is they work at. We are called, after all, to do whatever we do as if we were doing it for God Himself. Surely, that is deserving of our best work!
But, the sort of pride that must be rooted out and destroyed in us is that sort which is always putting forth self. It’s the “look at me” attitude, however it may display itself. It may, as with the Pharisee in this parable, come out in a tendency to be forever putting forth one’s resume in conversation. It may come out in those displays of humility that are not humility at all, but an attempt to draw attention to one’s holiness.
Pride of this sort is masterful in its use of disguise. If we think we have eliminated it in one form, we are soon to discover that it has risen up in another guise. Pride, it has been said, lies at the root of all sin. I find that absolutely believable. Sin is, after all, a usurping of God’s right of rule. It’s an issue of lifting ourselves up as a higher authority, more right than God. If that isn’t prideful, I don’t know what we would count as such. So, as I said, pride has no place in the Christian, because it has no place before God.
Therefore we find it written that God has so orchestrated things that even our faith is nothing we can take credit for. It is not something we have worked up. It is not something we have caused to increase by our habit of exercising it. Pride is a gift, given to us very much in spite of our thoughts towards God giving Him absolutely no cause to present us with gifts of any sort. Yet, He has given us this faith. He has given us this faith while we were yet His enemies! He has, through His free and generous thoughts towards us, granted that we might believe Him, believe the reality of the propitiation made in our name by His Son, by Himself. He has granted us this faith that we might recognize that there is nothing in us to which we can point and say, “See? This is why God invited me to heaven.” Nothing! We who have been granted this faith must clearly see that it is not for our good deeds that we have been rewarded, but in spite of our total lack thereof. Boasting? No. No place for that at all. Only for an endless expression of gratitude for the mercy shown to us. In all things with a spirit of thanksgiving (Php 4:6). This gift of faith is all the reason we shall ever need to have that spirit in us. It is only the sin of pride that causes us to approach God with any other spirit.
As I come around onto another men’s meeting tonight, it is good to be seated still at this passage. There is a tendency among men to become competitive even in discussion. We want to not only be right, but to be dominant. We want a place for pride, even as we decry pride for the evil it is. As such, it is well to consider the point Jesus is making here, and for that purpose, I’m going to look at Wuest’s translation this morning. “Everyone who exalts himself shall be brought down to the place where he recognizes his moral littleness and guilt.” As one who teaches on occasion, how I need to remember this myself! It’s no good to go teaching everybody what Scripture is all about if I’m not taking to heart in my own right. It’s no good pointing out the Pharisaic tendencies in the other experts at the table if I’m busily displaying my own.
We can all do with the reminder that we are the taxmen. I am not saying that as a commendation, though we will hopefully be, as he was, the ones that are justified in God’s sight. But, we are the taxmen in that we are those with the least reason to expect that God should look favorably upon us. How often I have commented on the fact that true revivals have ever made much of this fact. We are all sinners. We are all facing a certain death penalty when we come before the Judge of the heavens and the earth. We have no appeal that we might make, no hope of refuting the evidence laid out against us. Every one of us is on Death Row. This is, at some level, a necessary understanding to have if we are to truly recognize what God has done for us.
It’s easy to lose sight of that. It’s easy to suppose that God didn’t have all that much for which He needed to forgive us. It’s easy to return to that, “I’m not that bad,” attitude, which is really the very same attitude as this Pharisee’s, “at least I’m not like them.” After all, the only way we can convince ourselves that we aren’t that bad is by comparing ourselves to those who are worse. Wrong standard. The reality remains that we are as wholly reprobate as ever that taxman was assumed to be. We are worse than taxmen, for what is merely supposed about them is wholly accurate about us.
We, like this man, ought to come to the place of prayer with the recognition that we have no defense to offer up, only the sacrifice of propitiation. We have no reason in ourselves to expect a favorable response. What is there in me that I would point God to and say, “see? I am worthy of Your forgiveness!” There is nothing. The only thing I can offer up to Him is the mark of His Son upon me. See? He has paid my sins in full. No, I cannot deny what I have done, nor can I seek to put things in a better light, offering excuses for my deeds. You have me dead to rights, and I can only lay myself upon the mercy of Your court. This I do, knowing that the Son of God shed His blood to satisfy the Justice this court demands. Your righteousness is upheld, and Your mercy may be shown in holiness. I don’t demand. How could I dare to do so? No, but I come with confidence; confidence You have Yourself established in me, for I find within myself the surety of Your presence, the abode of the Holy Spirit of God, marking me out as one adopted into the family of God.
Seeing this contrast in the ways of approach to God, it is well to take a moment or two to return to the subject of prayer which I took up in studying Luke 18:1-8. Two verses regarding prayer caught my attention as I was preparing for this passage. The first comes from Mark’s Gospel.
“Whenever you pray, forgive whatever you may have against another. Then your Father in heaven may forgive you as well” (Mk 11:25). Perhaps it is only my own personal failing, but it strikes me that this is a condition that we are apt to forget, particularly in times of corporate prayer. This hit me particularly hard last week, for there are those in my list of acquaintances in God’s family who distinctly rub me the wrong way. Do I have ought to forgive them? Probably not, in all truth. It’s not that they sin against me. It’s simply that they annoy me. I need not go into details, but the distinction between the two is minimal when it comes to a proper foundation for prayer.
When you pray, forgive. And, if you need motivation, consider that God would hardly be just in forgiving you if you can’t bring yourself to reflect His ways in doing the same. Forgive even the aggravations. Indeed, pray for those who so annoy you. Pray the harder for them. You know, somehow I have understood that when it comes to issues of the direction the church is going in, when it comes to issues with certain teachings that may come from the pulpit, prayer is the proper first avenue. After all, in such cases, I am at least equally likely to be in the wrong. In such times of prayer, I dare not say, “Father correct them.” For, what if I am wrong? Far better to simply pray, “Father, correct this situation. Whichever of us is off course, bring us back.” But, what seems to have eluded me is this: The same applies when there are disagreements between brothers. If there is a conflict in attitude, how is it different because nobody in leadership happens to be party to it? There is none. So, the prayer of forgiveness. To my thinking, that prayer, and the prayer that God fix the course of all involved are closely united.
I don’t suppose I shall ever find public prayers beginning with times of loud confession of those things we feel we need to forgive, and I’m not certain it would be healthy to encourage such a thing, anyway. Too often, the things we think we need to forgive in others are things they don’t even know about. We only move our hurt from our shoulders onto theirs by spouting off about the thing. Forgiveness doesn’t really require such an admission from the offending party. It’s our own emotional baggage that needs it. We can forgive without it. If we have forgiven, truly forgiven, then really, that’s the end of it, whatever may or may not come. Even if there’s no change, we are called to let that forgiveness of the past offense be our final word on the matter. This, I dare say, is particularly true as to what we speak to ourselves! If we never utter another word about the thing, but continue to dwell on it in our internal cogitations, then we really haven’t forgiven. We’ve put on a show.
The other verse that catches my eye comes from the passage in which Jesus is teaching His followers not to practice their righteousness to be seen. Those who do so He labels hypocrites, actors who put on a great show of it, but have nothing of the reality. In the course of this lesson, Jesus comes to the topic of prayer. He instructs us not to pray like these actors, these poseurs. “They love to stand and pray out in public, making certain they are seen in the act” (Mt 6:5). The problem is not that they are seen. The problem is that this is their only goal. They pray to be seen, and they have been seen. They have the reward they seek from prayer, and it is the only reward they shall have from it. He continues by instructing us to pray privately and be assured that the Father, our Father, will answer as privately as we have prayed. Further, He says, don’t suppose that empty repetition of any sort will make the prayer more effective. That’s a pagan way. Don’t be like them. Realize that your Father already knows of your need even before you have asked. (Mt 6:6-8).
And with that He sets forth the correct model for prayer that we call the Lord’s Prayer. Sadly, we have allowed that prayer to become just the sort of hollow and meaningless tradition that Jesus was decrying. Words we speak from rote memory without even giving it a thought can no longer be considered prayer as Jesus desires. Prayers that are concerned with getting the phrases right lest the prayer be rendered void are no longer prayer as Jesus desires. Indeed, these sorts of prayers border on incantation, if they do not cross the line entirely!
When Jesus encourages us to private prayer over public, I don’t suppose Him to be declaring that public prayer has no place among believers. Far from it. But, He is pushing for a better motivation. Pray because you mean it. Pray honestly. Pray like David prayed. My, what a model we have in him! David was not ashamed to pray in public, nor was he averse to praying in private. Whichever the case, David came to God with simple honesty. If he was angry, he didn’t try to gloss over it. If he was worried, he confessed it. If he was vengeful, he didn’t pretend otherwise. He came to God in openness of spirit, laying it out as it was with him, and thus he allowed God to minister to him in prayer.
Listen! David got it. God isn’t fooled by our attempts to sound more correct before Him. He sees the heart. He’s not all that stuck on form. We’re family, after all. Yes, He rightly requires an earnest reverence for His holiness. But, He welcomes us as His children. He has no cause to tolerate presumption in us, any more than we well tolerate it in others. But, He will hear us. He will measure our requests, and the more open and honest we are in coming to Him, the more reason we might have to expect an answer. But, let us not suppose that we can direct Him as to how He will answer us. He will answer us as His wisdom dictates, and this should be our great comfort. For, were He to answer only in accord with our request, giving us just exactly what we have requested for better or for worse, what a miserable mess we should be in.
But, the key message Jesus is delivering is simply this: Be honest with God and with yourself when you pray. It’s not a show. You don’t have to repeat after me. Indeed, you are far better served not to. Far better to pray simply but with earnestness than to present a face of unity that you discover too late you don’t really support.
One of the most powerful messages I have read in regard to prayer concerned itself with the Lord’s Prayer and, though I find I don’t often agree with the author of that message, in this case he was spot on. If we would but pay attention to what we are saying rather than simply reciting the long familiar formula, we should likely shock ourselves to realize what we have asked of God. Let your name be held in proper reverence. We have enough difficulty doing that ourselves. Your kingdom be established and Your will done with the same alacrity with which it is pursued in heaven. Let me be the first to stop questioning Your will. Let me be the first to stop procrastinating when You have set course. Give us sufficient for the day. I don’t need vast stores of wealth to feel secure in You. Just as You did in the desert, Lord, suffice it to see my needs met for this day. I trust You.
Forgive us as we forgive others! It loops us right back to that other verse, doesn’t it? What a scary request to make of God. I would far prefer to ask that He would teach me to forgive others as He has forgiven me, for if He forgives me by my measure of forgiveness, I am in for a very difficult time of it.
Lead us. How many are really willing that He do so? We’re too busy asking Him to bless whatever endeavors we have thought to pursue. Your will be done? Well, Lord, tell You what: could You see fit to will this thing I’m already doing? That’d be great, thanks. But, what if His will says, “No!” What if we hear, as David heard, that the task that so fills our heart, though it glorify God, is not ours to do? What if our part in the task is simply that of preparation that another might do the greater work? Are we still willing?
Oh! Don’t pray to be heard. Don’t pray to be seen. Don’t go through the motions. Pray in earnest. If that requires you to go into your private place, do so. If it doesn’t, fine. Just be honest about it. God is not embarrassed by your emotions. He is not put off by your excesses. He is able, though, to correct, and as we see it in David, those times of correction are most often found right there in the times of prayer that express the excess.
What safer place can we hope for to pour out our innermost feelings without fear? There is an intimacy available in the secret place of prayer that is not even available in the best of marriages. There is a security in talking to my Father that we can never expect to know in talking to any other. He is willing to hear us out, even when we err in our views, even when emotions are raw. Nor will He despise us for being so off course. He will gently turn our perspective back to His own. In love, He will remind us of how He sees things, what He would see done in the matter, and just Who He Is. Then we can find our own rest in His perspective, and know that whatever answer may come, it is good.
