THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

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A good Sunday to all.

Let us remember that in last week’s gospel we heard Jesus’ fervent exhortation who told us: “You must pray always.” It is not a matter of reciting many formulas but to always keep thoughts and feelings in tune with those of God. And to know how to discern, at each moment, which options to take, what decisions to make; and this especially when things in life are not going well; when one must confront with injustice. And if you do not pray, you risk making mistakes and choices that are not in tune with the gospel.

But it is not enough to pray always; it is necessary to pray well. To pray in the right way because the wrong prayer is not enough. What does it do? It prevents our thoughts and decisions from aligning with God’s thoughts and decisions. The wrong prayer has the opposite effect; it serves to convince us more and more that what we do is right and that God thinks the same as we do. And then, it doesn’t even cross our minds that God might thinkdifferently than we do. And beware if someone wants to insinuate any doubt about our convictions and to refute our certainties.

It is to warn us about this danger that Jesus narrates today another parable that the Christian communities of today need it much more than we think. The parable is one of the best known: The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And it is not a simple parableas it seems at first sight.

First, let us listen to whom it is addressed and for whom Jesus narrates it. It is important to understand to whom he wants to teach a lesson.

Let’s listen to the parable:

“At that time, Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.”

It is very important to remember to whom the parable we have heard is addressed. It is not for atheists, unbelievers or sinners; they are not the ones Jesus wants to convert. He is addressing the righteous, to the practicing believers, the devout disciples, those who always go to church, and those who pray a lot. It addresses those who think they deserve only compliments and praise, not corrections. How does Jesus characterize these righteous? Let us pay attention to see if we recognize ourselves in these characteristics.

The first one: they are people who are proud of their moral integrity, they hold their heads high, they know that all people must respect them, that they are upright. They are the ones who are convinced that they deserve blessings and favors of God because they are faithful to all the Lord’s commands, they observe scrupulously all the precepts of the law.

A second characteristic that these people have, which derives from this complacency of oneself for one’s moral beauty: they despise others. The Greek verb used is very effective,’ἐξουθενοῦντας’ – ‘exouthenountas,’ meaning they regard others as nothingness. In the parable, these righteous will be incarnated in the figure of the Pharisee, and this is the problem because we think that we have nothing to do with the Pharisee; the Pharisee is antipathetic to us; he is a hypocrite full of pride and of presumption. He is presented as an arrogant and contemptuous person in all the paintings. Observe what posture he presents himself in the temple.

This is the danger of the parable; we feel a certain sympathy for the tax collector; it is not that we identify with him, but the poor man is now repentant, he has done wrong, but he is humble and that’s why he deserves our understanding. So, we do not identify with the tax collector, but we don’t put up with the Pharisee. When we leave the church, we are calm; this Sunday, we have been spared because the lesson does not concern us. But when we hear the parable, we will realize that Jesus wants to make us sympathize with the Pharisee and get us to sympathize with the righteous person, with those who feel right with God, and then we will realize that Jesus told the parable precisely for us, today’s Christians, and it will disturb us very much.

Let us listen to the parable:

“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’”

Let’s visualize the parable told by Jesus. In the background, I put the reconstruction of the esplanade of the temple. Observe the south side of this esplanade, where the portico Regio is located. It had a length of 280 meters in front of Siloé; if you follow the path I now indicate, after 250 meters, you will arrive at the pool of Siloé. In this southern part, there were two monumental entrances, and two stairways, one to the east that was 15 meters wideand led to a triple entrance door; and another to the west, 60 meters wide, leading to a double entrance door. Now I will show you better these two steps: the one on the east was reserved for the priests and Levites.

Jesus never entered through that triple gate because he was a layman; he was not a priest or a Levite; he could enter through the double gate and the entrance was on the right, to go up to the esplanade; and the exit, those who were going down, was on the left, with one exception, some did not go out through the door on the left but crossed to the pilgrims going out by the right gate, and these pilgrims understood that ‘our brother of faith is saying to usthat there is something essential, and he wants those of us who are now going to pray to the Lord to remember him.’ This is a beautiful way to ask for a prayer for the problems and difficulties one faces.

Now I will show you what these two staircases look like today; the one that leads to the triple door is rebuilt, and the triple gate has been walled up, but certainly Annas and Caiaphas or Zechariah have passed through those gates because they were priests of the temple. Now I will show you the steps and they are not reconstructed; archeologists have unearthed them; It is the original one where Jesus entered barefoot. When we look at this 60-meter-wide flight of stairs, we can imagine the two men in the parable going to the temple to pray.

What were the people going to do in the temple? To offer sacrifices, and promises, give thanks to the Lord and ask forgiveness for their sins. These two have the same purpose, they both go to pray. The psalmists use a beautiful expression to say they are going to the temple,they said that they were going to see the face of the Lord. The psalmist of Psalm 42, who was exiled in the northern part of Israel, prays saying, “when shall I see the face of God again.”Indeed, he who goes to pray goes to behold the face of his God. Let us be attentive; we recognize people by their faces and by the prayers that we make we also recognize who is our interlocutor, and what is the face of our God.

Let us always ask ourselves whether the face of God to whom I am going to pray is the face of the God of Jesus of Nazareth or is it the face preached by the scribes and Pharisees,the face they taught in their catechesis perhaps does not correspond to the true God. Let us be careful, let us verify who our interlocutor is in prayer because it could be a God that does not exist. When we address a God who has a magic wand in his hand, and we convince him that he must resolve our problems with miracles… this is the face of a god that does not exist. Let us be attentive when we pray; let us ask ourselves, what is the face of my God? Is it the face of the God of Jesus of Nazareth, or is it different?

We will see how these two people that now go up to the temple to pray are praying to a different God from each other; they have two different faces. Who are these two? The first is a Pharisee. Jesus juxtaposes here two characters who are at the antipodes of Israel’s religious society. The Pharisee is the holy, the righteous, the observant of the commandments; and the tax collector is the dregs of Jewish society, the worst of sinners.

Let us first see who the Pharisee is. We have a wrong conception of the Phariseesbecause the gospel phrase “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” has remained in our ears. In Jesus’ time, ‘Pharisee’ did not mean as it resonates with us today, as a false person, one who says and does not practice what he says. No, the Pharisee was a loyal, faithful, practicing person of the law of the Lord. Nicodemus was the leader of the Pharisees and Jesus not only did not rebuke him but showed that he esteemed him. Paul, who also harshly attacks the theology of the Pharisees, as Jesus did, boasts of having been a Pharisee, and in the Letter to the Romans, he says that they are people who have zeal for God.

Let us see in detail how Jesus presents the Pharisee: “The Pharisee took up his position.”As we dislike the Pharisee, we immediately think that he is standing to show off of his religious practice and, therefore, in a hypocritical way, he presents himself before God. None of this; prayed standing because this is the normal attitude of the pious Jew when he prays. He does it standing up, and the same will be said of the tax collector, he prays standing. So no hypocrisy; in fact, we should also learn from them to pray standing; one does not kneel before God; before our father we do not kneel, and before Jesus, we do not kneel eitherbecause he presented himself as our friend. We sit down when we hear his word, and we stand up when he is our interlocutor.

Praying on our knees does not educate us to cultivate that confidential relationship with the heavenly Father who wants us to feel at ease with him. Kneeling is a legacy of a spirituality that must be overcome. Let us close the parenthesis.

So, this Pharisee is praying well. But there was a problem; he was praying for himself.Let us pay attention to the translation of the Greek text: ‘πρὸς ἑαυτὸν’ – ‘pros heauton’ does not mean that he prayed quietly, but that he prayed to himself, folded in on himself. This is the point that reveals that his prayer is wrongly made; not out of wrongdoing, but that this prayer is wrongly made. He is convinced that he is addressing God, but actually he is talking to himself; he is talking to the God he has in mind and is not addressing the face of the true God. His interlocutor is the God he learned in the catechesis of the rabbis, a God he has always liked too because he reasons exactly like him, thinks like him, a God who rewards the one who obeys and punishes the one who transgresses his law; a God who wants nothing to do with sinners.

It is to this God that he addresses himself, but he does not dialogue with him, he is dialoguing with himself; this God he has invented and likes. He’s convinced he’s praying, but he’s not talking to the real God. God is an excuse for self-contemplation because he is in total agreement with this God; and in fact, this is his prayer: “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. Let us say at once that he is sincere. We think all Pharisees are false; no, he is honest. He is convinced that he speaks before God; therefore, he cannot lie; he speaks the truth, what he feels inside. And Jesus will not say that he tells lies, no, he is like that, he thanks God that he is not a thief, adulterer as unfortunately other people are. This, naturally, bothers us because he compares himself with others and says that they are all unjust, adulterers and thieves. And then, above all, we are disturbed by the allusion to the tax collector.

But, without prejudice, let’s admit that we are in front of a fair, upright, honest person; let’s recognize it. And the list of his virtues is not finished: “I fast twice a week.” In Israel there was only one obligatory fast day, Yom Kippur, then four other fasts were added, in remembrance of four tragedies that had befallen the people of Israel, but this Pharisee fasts twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays; on Monday in remembrance of Moses’ ascension to Sinai and on Thursday his descent.

He also pays tithes on all that he owns. The law provided that at the time of harvest, the farmer should immediately deliver the tithes of the principal products, the wheat, wine, oil,the firstlings of the flock. These were offerings destined for the poor and also to support the temple’s expenses and the young rabbis’ training. This Pharisee knew very well that the peasants were shrewd and did not deliver the full tithes; they had a large family and tried to cheat a little; they gave something, but not exactly the tithe.

What was this Pharisee doing when he bought products from them, knowing they had not paid VAT? They paid for it. So no matter how much we look for some faults in this man, we don’t discover anything objectionable; he is proud of his righteousness; it bothers us a little when he compares himself with others, but let’s be honest, it’s clear that these are not serious faults and that he has good reasons to feel better than others. We say that if there were so honest, upright, and blameless people, they would be model citizens and we would gladly forgive them even a little pride. None of the listeners of Jesus’ day would have been astonished at the prayer of this Pharisee, and all would have said, ‘This is how every man should be; this is how one should stand before God.’

I think we now begin to sympathize with this Pharisee and this is where Jesus wants to take us and make us exclaim, ‘Maybe everybody should be like this Pharisee; how beautiful the world would be if everyone were like him.’ It is here that Jesus wanted to lead us, that is, to show us that we are the ones who reason like this Pharisee in prayer and moral behavior.Jesus has nothing to say; this Pharisee is a good person.

Let us now hear how the tax collector prays:

“But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heavenbut beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’”

We have heard the Pharisee enumerate all his good works, hoping for the deserved reward. What can the tax collector present to God now? Nothing. He falls far short, he does not approach the Pharisee because he is ashamed; he keeps his eyes down to the ground; he does not lift them up to heaven; and he beats his breast; he asks the pardon of the Lord. When we observe him well, it makes us want to go and embrace him and pat him on the back and give him courage. Psalm 103 says that ‘the Lord is good and merciful. He forgives everything.’

Let’s watch out because that attitude deceives us; he’s not that kind and the gentle guy he seems at first glance. He is a criminal. He is the worst of Israel’s moral misery. In his profession, he oversees the payment of taxes and he has obtained this profession with a contract. The Romans put him a sum that he had to deliver to the state and everything else that he imposed remained in his pocket. The law allowed him to increase the fee and charge more.

In short, he is an authorized thief; upon taking office, he had to offer worship to the gods for the emperor’s health, so he disavowed the faith and betrayed his people for money, thus a person who exploited even the poor. The Jews hate him; he cannot set foot in the house of a pious Jew; but if he enters the house, even by mistake, even the walls must be purified together with all the objects in the house. He is deprived of his religious rights; he cannot give testimony in court because he is false, and his words are unreliable; no one accepts loans from him because he is a usurer, an unreliable person. The Talmud says that these people cannot be saved because they would have to pay back everything they stole, plus 20%.Therefore, they can’t be saved.

Now that we have clarified who these two characters are, let’s try to ask ourselves with whom we would feel comfortable walking down the street: With a tax collector? Will we be able to sustain the looks and jokes of those who see us walking with that tax collector? Or would we prefer to walk with a Pharisee? On the street, we will not discuss theology because we have in our mind a different face of God; the face of the Pharisee is not the face of the God of Jesus of Nazareth, but we do not discuss theology. When we walk down the street, we can be proud to be next to a loyal, honest, upright person; and Jesus does not pronounce a moral judgment on the life of the two of them because Jesus would agree with us The Pharisee is honest, and the tax collector is a criminal.

The judgment of Jesus is about the face of God that the two will pray to. They pray to a different God, and that’s what Jesus wants us to understand very well, which is the God that we address in prayer.

Let us listen now to the judgment of Jesus not on the moral life of the two, but their prayer to the God who is their interlocutor:

“I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Why does Jesus pronounce this judgment on the Pharisee and say that he did not return home justified? It is the Pharisee who is so good, who has done many good works… Just examine the prayer that he made. What is the face of his interlocutor? What is the face of his God? It is the face of a Pharisee, a God administrator who takes note of good works that the Pharisee does, and who also suggested to him not to forget to write down there the faults of the tax collector who was in the background.

What did God do for the Pharisee? Nothing; the Pharisee declared himself righteous. He began his prayer by saying, ‘I thank you Lord’; but what does he thank him for? He did it all by himself. If he had addressed the true God, his thanksgiving would have been formulated in a completely different way; I will try to formulate it myself; I would have said: ‘Lord, I have long wanted to come to the temple to see your face; I came to tell you that I am a happy person, and I don’t know how to thank you because I owe it only to you; I was lucky enough to hear your word in the synagogue and I also heard it at home, from the mouth of my grandparents, of my parents; it was this word that guided my steps. I have also formed a happy family because I heard your word; to be honest, you know, Lord, that I too was in danger of going astray, of becoming an adulterer and a thief, but it was your light that guided my steps and your strength that kept me on the right path. It is all thanks to you. I can only thank you for the luck I have had to trust you. And then there’s the one at the back; I know him; he’s full of money and women, but he’s a poor wretch; unfortunately, he wasn’t as lucky as me. He’s been lost since he was a child because he lost his head for money. Lord, let me understand how I can help him to find the way of joy because I want him to be happy as I am.’ This would have been his prayer if he had had the true God’s face in mind.

You can see that the Pharisee is not evil, he is naïve; he has not understood that it is not good works that make one righteous. Good works are the sign that the Lord has made you righteous; they are the fruit that reveals that the tree is full of life, but they are not the fruitsthat gives life to the tree. The Pharisee must not give up his blameless life, but he must reject the false image of God in his mind.

How did he return home? As before, with all his undeniable good works, he has not become evil, but he has not allowed himself to become involved in the right relationship with the true God. And from this distorted image of God, come all the problems. First is the need to create dividing lines between the righteous and the sinners, whom he considers human nullities.

Let us now take a closer look at the relationship of the tax collector. How is it that he finds himself in a position to be made righteous by the Lord? Suffice it to recall what the parable says about him. First, it says that he stands at a distance; he recognizes that he is far from God. The Lord was able to make him understand, perhaps through one of his angels, that he was far from God, and being far from God, he was far from life. He came to the temple because the Lord made him understand.

Then, he is far from the Pharisee because he is aware of the significant difference between his way of life and that of a man faithful to the commandments, and he admits it from a distance. ‘The Pharisee is much better than I am; I did everything wrong in life.’ “And would not even raise his eyes to heaven,” i.e., heaven is the place that represents God, and he is not in a position to boast of anything before God.

Then he beats his breast; why does he beat his breast? Because in the chest is the heart;the heart is the seat of all choices, all decisions. The seat of his heart is sin. That’s the reason why he beats his chest, and this is very strange because men never beat their chest; it was women who beat their chest, who cried, who pulled their hair, but that a man would beat his chest was inconceivable. With this gesture, he recognizes that he is weak and fragile, just like women, and feels the need to be strengthened by the spirit of the Lord.

I do not know if this tax collector knew Psalm 51, but I believe that with his gesture, he echoes the psalm verse that says, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, a new heart. Cast out the heart that drives me to sin and put in your spirit that leads me to life.”

Then, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner,’ he makes a brief prayer. We would expect that, just as the Pharisee has listed all his merits, he would list all his sins. It is not necessary. If he heard what the Pharisee said that he was not like the one at the back, he might have said, ‘Lord, I am just the opposite to what the Pharisee said, I did none of his good works.’ He does not beg not to be punished when he says, ‘have mercy.’ He is not afraid of God’s punishments because he now understands God is love. He wants to thank God because God has made him understand that he must leave the evil way, and he asks that, with his mercy, that is to say, with his love, continue to accompany him on the difficult path he now undertakes.

The tax collector is justified because he has the proper disposition that allows God to make him righteous. At this point, the introductory verse of today’s passage is important because that clarifies to whom the parable is addressed. The addressees are some who presume to be righteous and despise others. These are not the Pharisees of Jesus’ time, who are already dead, they are the Pharisees present in our Christian communities today because the leaven of the Pharisees is still present, and this leaven is the one that makes us pray to the God who is a Pharisee, that is, who takes note of the good works, of the bad works, and does nothing else; and then rewards and punishes; and thus, has also entered into the Christian community the spirituality of merits which is the negation of the gratuitousness of love.

I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.