The Triodion, the three weeks before Great Lent, begins with the Sunday of the Parable of the Publican and Pharisee. This is the special time of preparation God affords us to get our spiritual house ready to make the most of the holy season we’re about to enter with Christ. We start thinking now about our fasting, our praying, our priorities, our spiritual goals for this Lent. We hear the words of God admonishing us, saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”
But because of our busy lives, we can often find ourselves running about during Lent just as preoccupied as we were before–If we don’t set it aside now. In which case, our following of the ‘rules’ of Great Lent, i.e., fasting, increased praying and worshiping, more giving of offerings, can quickly become dry, wrote, and fail to aid us spiritually. In other words, we start to think of all the things we’re doing right and ‘checking them off our list’ instead of focusing on the Goal and Purpose of our Lenten struggles—that is, to become more of the man or woman of God we’re created and called to be, communing with Him who is Life itself—God the Holy Trinity.
This outward following of the ‘rules’ and the propensity that such an attitude leads to, namely, self-righteousness, is precisely the problem Christ addresses to us today—before we even begin the Fast. The Pharisee in today’s Gospel parable enumerates all his accomplishments, the things he’s doing ‘right’—all good in and of themselves: fasting, praying, giving a tithe (a tenth) of his income, not breaking the Commandments—but all empty because his heart is not right toward God, where a spirit of pride, self-reliance over God-reliance, reigns.
So, let’s acknowledge how easy it is to be like this Pharisee! We’re focused on the ‘doing’ of the Faith, our book knowledge, or our ethnic heritage in the Church, our checking of the ‘rules’ of Lent off our list, to the exclusion of its inner meaning and application: our communion (koinonia) and relationship with God, our hungering and thirsting after Christ, which can only progress through a genuine spirit of repentance, a recognition that we’ve neglected our calling in Christ, neglected making Christ “the One thing needful,” our life and breath.
Now, let’s be clear: the Pharisee isn’t condemned because he fasts twice a week or because he gives tithes of his income: all faithful Orthodox Christians are admonished to do so as the fruit of their love for Christ and His Church. No, rather, it’s his spirit of boastfulness, the lauding of these actions, thinking that these things somehow justify his self-glorification and judgmental spirit, that they merit favor with God. These are among the sins of the Pharisee.
We can also commit the sin of the Pharisee if, in our confession, we seek to mitigate or justify ourselves before God for the sins we’ve committed—shifting the blame or, at least, watering it down, lessoning our responsibility for our sins. The repentant heart is quick to be self-accusatory, recognizing that only in the fullness of one’s confession and acknowledgment before Christ and contriteness of heart, he’ll also receive the release and freedom from his sins, as does the Publican. The penitent humbles himself before God, prostrating himself before Him in soul if not also in body. He’s lifted up and restored by God (not by himself), as we hear today: “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled… he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The final sin of the Pharisee is his condemnation of the Publican next to him. The Pharisee cannot see into the Publican’s heart, but judges him based on what he knows of his occupation or past sins with no reference to the repentance and forgiveness that God offers us all—He who alone can see into our hearts and knows our intentions. This too is a warning to us.
The publican, on the other hand, recognizes himself as a sinner—so much so, that he’s on his face before God, not even daring to lift his face toward heaven. He’s utterly prostrate—in body and in soul, confessing his sins openly. Like the harlot who anoints Christ’s feet, weeping bitterly for her sins, the publican too finds favor with God.
This is the spirit of the publican that you and I cultivate if we wish to see growth in the knowledge and love of God, if we desire to deepen our relationship and communion with God and make the most of our Lenten struggle. To aid us in discovering more of ourselves, more of where lie the ‘raw’ areas of our soul, the wounded sin-sick parts of us that are still in need of God’s healing, we fast, we pray, we worship, we give of ourselves, but we do so keeping Christ before us, judging ourselves, repenting, and confessing now, that at the dread Judgment Seat, we enter into the joy of our Master, our Maker, our Savior Jesus Christ.
You and I can make full use of Great Lent only if we follow the prescription God provides us through His holy Church: the recitation of the Prayer of St. Ephraim, applying it to our own lives, the weekend services of Great Vespers and the Divine Liturgy—each of which has a particular theme and lesson for us to learn and interiorize, and, of course, the Presanctified Liturgies on Wednesdays, which feed us spiritually so that we may go the distance in our spiritual renewal and the hard ‘spade’ work of our repentance. These services communicate to us the message of the truth of God you and I need to hear if we’re to become less like the Pharisee and more like the Publican. They’re not ‘extras’ but an integral part of Christ’s sustenance for us during the Fast, in our journey with Him to win the victory in us over the devil.
To think that we can ‘do Lent on your own’ without the guidance of the Church and our participation in the life of the Church is, well, again, the sin of the Pharisee. Christ God desires more for us; He desires to grow us in the Truth that He is through increased communion with Him. But in order to grow, we avail ourselves of the formula for growth that’s held true for sinners turned Saints throughout the generations of the Church.
Because of his humility through his confession and prostration, the Publican’s prayers are received as pleasing by God. The publican leaves the Temple restored, freed, while the Pharisee in his pridefulness and self-righteousness is condemned. If the heart isn’t engaged, if we’re not centered on Christ God in our fasting, prayer, and worship, our time, our labors, our will, we cannot expect to grow in our faith or arrive at Pascha furthered in the Kingdom of God.
Every time we pray or prostrate ourselves in humility and contrition of heart, every time we plead with God, “I desire more, forgive me, have mercy on me, heal me,” God hears us, works in us, and deepens our communion with Him—because He loves us. Our growth in faith may be almost imperceptible; like growing up as a child: we don’t really see it until a few years pass; only then is the difference obvious. So it is with us and our growth in faith and life in Christ.
Rest assured, God honors our striving and our struggle to grow, to heal, to deepen our faith. It can begin with a desire or even a desire to desire if we’re willing to prioritize the life that is only in Him, if we’re willing to look inside ourselves and present ourselves to God, humbly, confessing as did the Publican, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner!” May this be our prayer as we prepare ourselves in body and soul for the holy season before us.
Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee
Epistle: Romans 6:3-11; II Timothy 3:10-15
Gospel: Matt. 28:16-20; Luke 18:10-14
