Taking it Home: At first glance. we might ask ourselves, "what's wroing with the prayer of teh Pahrisee in this weekend's gospel?" After all didn't he thank God for giving him the gift of righteousness; for helping him to meet his temple responsibilities of fasting and almsgiving? Isn't this what we should be doing? So why did Jesus imply that the prayer of the Pharisee was insufficient; that it was not justified? What is really the lesson that Jesus wants us to get from this parable? Well I would say there are two things that we should get.
  First, although the Pharisee originally directs the prayer to God, the prayer really has nothing to do with God. The focus of the prayer is on the Phairsee alone and is really a means to boost his ego and his image of himself. The pronoun "I" is repeated four times. So the prayer is really about the Pharisee, his selfimage and the need to justify himself in the face of others. The prayer is really a self-righteous prayer and not a prayer of reliance on God. Only one type of prayer results in justification, the proper positioning of the self in relationship to God and neighbor. 
  And so it is this self-righteous attitude of the Pharisee that not only causes his prayer to lack justification, but it also leads to the second thing that is wrong with his style of prayer. In order to juistify himself, and to make himself look good in his own eyes, the Phairsee must have someone else to look bad. In this case it is the tax collector who gets the ire of the Pharisee. The Pharisee, you see, thinks of himself as perfect and in order to show his perfection, he must point to someone else's imperfection, the tax collector's. From the Pharisee's point of view, the tax collector is a much less perfect person and therefore not nearly as good as he is.
  Okay, so now we might be able to see the hypocritical nature of the Pharisee's prayer. But before we condemn the Pharisee, we must take a look at our own actions. Don't we sometimes do exactly what the Pharisee did? Aren't we constantly trying to compare ourselves with others in order to make ourselves look good and to prove to ourselves how much better we are? Even in the negative, we often try to show how much worse off we are than the next person. There is a Catholic rendition of this gospel parable and it goes like this" "A priest and deacon are standing at the altar praying together. The priest prays, Lord, have mercy on me a sinner. The Deacon prays, Lord have mercy on me a sinner. Then from the back of the church they hear a voice saying, Lord have mercy on me a sinner." It is the janitor praying with head bowed. The priest then turns to the Deacon and remarks, "look who thinks he's a sinner." And so yes, we all want to show our own uniqueness and to claim that we are truly superior even if it's in our weakness. So what is the point? The point is that however unique we are, we are still connected to a common humanity that is at once good, but flawed. The Pharisee's problem is that he does not see himself as connected in any way to the tax collector when, in fact, he has a much of the tax collector in him as the tax collector has in the Pharisee. To be human is to recognize our common humanity and to see ourselves as sister and brother to all. God chose to become human in Jesus, therefore basic humanity can be valued more than the dream of separateness.
  Part of being human is that we are of the earth, meaning we have a connection to each and every person who is also part of a human who is also of this earth and that together, as sisters and brothers, we are part of a human condition that is once good, but flawed. We are all created in goodness and God intends the good that is part of our human condition, but we are not always on our own capable of doing that good. This is the part of us that is flawed and which puts all of us in need of God's mercy and grace. If we were perfect; if we achieved the height of holiness, where is the need for God? Where is the need for salvation and God's grace? And so the self-righteous prayer of the Pharisee has no place before a God on whom we are totally reliant.        
 

                                                                                                               Deacon John