Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee
2 Tim 3:10-15:
Often, we forget how lucky we are. As Byzantine Catholics, we have a number of rich liturgical cycles to enrich our year. There is the Weekly Cycle, where we are called to remember different aspects of God’s grace and activity on each of the seven days of the week. There’s the Sanctoral Cycle, based on fixed dates, where we celebrate various acts of God working in Salvation History, acts centering on the Life of Christ, His Mother, or the Saints. Beginning on September 1, the first major feast of that cycle is the Birth of the Theotokos on September 8, and the last major feast is the Dormition of the Theotokos, on August 15. The most important feast in the cycle, though, is certainly Christmas.
And then there’s the cycle that centers on Pascha and Pentecost. And that cycle starts today, on the first of the Pre-Lenten Sundays, the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee. It contrasts the first of the capital sins, pride, with its corresponding virtue, humility.
What is a publican?
He’s a tax collector. In Roman times, tax collectors weren’t just low level government functionaries, like they are today. They were more like contractors. If they were tasked to collect taxes on one hundred people, they had to pay Rome the taxes on those one hundred people, even if they didn’t collect it. They would overcharge, sometimes exorbitantly. And the extra amount they collected? It was theirs. So, Publicans became rich while being despised by the people.
In contrast, the Pharisee was a member of the leading religious party of the time - like the faithful church goer today. He took pride in his righteousness, in following the rules to the letter of the law. The prayer of the Pharisee is one of pride: “Thank you, Lord, that you’ve made me so righteous” is his prayer.
What is pride? Webster’s dictionary defines this type of pride as exaggerated self-esteem. St. Augustine observes that pride is the source of all evil.
It was pride that started this entire cycle of evil. Lucifer was the most beautiful of angels. He was so beautiful that he thought that HE should be God. And as a result, there was war in heaven. He rallied as many as a third of all angels to join him. And he fell. The name Lucifer means “light bearer”, but no longer is the bearer of God’s light. He is The Adversary. He is Satan.
And it was pride that Satan used to get inside Eve’s defenses. You remember the story? He asked her what God had said, and she said that they were not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, saying that eating it would result in death. He replied that what God said wasn’t true. “You certainly will not die! God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.”
Not only did Satan aspire to be God, he also appealed to Eve’s desire to be like God.
Exaggerated self-esteem.
How can this apply to us today?
When we look at somebody and, rather than feeling compassion, we think how much better we are than they are – that’s pride.
When we’re impressed with our own righteousness – that’s pride.
When we see the faults of others but ignore ours - that’s pride.
When we exalt our own understanding over the Church’s defined teaching – that’s pride.
Exaggerated self-esteem.
On the other hand, the prayer of the Tax Collector is one of humility. “Have mercy on me, a sinner”.
The best example of humility that we have is our Lord. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name”.
Saint John Chrysostom teaches: He who places humility as the foundation of his character can safely construct a building of any height. Humility is the strongest fence against evil, an immovable wall, an impenetrable fortress; it supports the entire edifice and does not allow it to fall… it makes it inaccessible to all attacks…and through it God, the lover of mankind, pours out on us his plentiful gifts.
Every year, the Church gives us this cycle of 10 weeks - 4 Sundays before Lent, 5 Sundays before Palm Sunday, and then Holy Week – to prepare to enter into our Lord’s Passion and Death, and then to celebrate His triumph over Death. And the first step in that journey is to look at ourselves and discover where we are controlled by pride, to discover exaggerated self-esteem in our souls. When we know that, we see the truth and, with the Publican, we can pray, “Have mercy on me, a sinner”.
We can pray this hymn from our Mattins office: “Let us flee from the boasting of the Pharisee and learn the humility of the Tax Collector that we may be exalted and cry aloud with him to God: Have mercy on your servants, O Christ our Savior, born of a Virgin, Who endured the Cross and raised up the world with you by Your divine power”.
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