Luke names the audience before Jesus says a word: 9"some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt." The two travel together. Confidence in one's own righteousness and contempt for someone else's arrive as a package.
Two men go up to the same temple to pray, and their prayers could not be more different. The Pharisee stands by himself, and his prayer never asks God for anything. 11"God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector." It begins as thanksgiving and ends as comparison, with the tax collector standing nearby as a convenient low point on the scale. He adds 12"I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get." Both claims are probably true, and both go beyond what the law required. He mistakes his religious performance for the thing that matters.
The tax collector's posture speaks before he does. He stands far off, will not even lift up his eyes to heaven, and beats his breast (verse 13), a gesture of grief. His prayer is seven words long: 13"God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" It is the plainest form a prayer can take. The verb behind be merciful is stronger than ordinary pity. It is the word of atonement, the same verb Hebrews uses of Christ making propitiation for the sins of the people (Hebrews 2:17). The Greek also names him with the article, the sinner, as though in that moment he can see no one's guilt but his own. There is no comparison and no résumé, only an honest admission and a plea for mercy he cannot earn.
Jesus' verdict overturns every expectation his listeners carried into the story: 14"this man went down to his house justified." Justified, declared right with God, is the tax collector, a man whose profession was a byword for greed and collaboration with Rome, ahead of the Pharisee, whose devotion was impressive by every outward measure. The difference was never the fasting or the profession. One man walked in sure that he had earned God's approval, and the other walked in with nothing to offer but his need.
Jesus closes with a principle: 14"everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." He has said it before (Luke 14:11), and he says it here because it cuts across every religious performance a person might build a defense from. The Pharisee's prayer, accurate in its content, never reached God because it was never addressed to him. It was addressed to an audience that needed convincing. The tax collector's seven words reached God because they are the only kind of prayer that does: an honest cry for mercy from someone who knows he needs it.
Pray the seven words today, and add nothing to them. If a list of your own accomplishments starts to form in your mind while you pray, set it down and say the seven words again.
Prayer
Father, we have too often prayed like the Pharisee, cataloguing our own performance and measuring it against someone else's failures. Teach us the tax collector's honesty, standing far off, unable to lift our eyes, with nothing to offer but the plain truth about ourselves. Be merciful to us, sinners, and let that be prayer enough. In Jesus' name, amen.