No it wasn’t a crick in the neck.
The preface to this parable makes it abundantly clear that the problem was not physical (I hope you were suitably impressed with the 4 P alliteration!). In this instance, Jesus’s intention was to lay bare the heart of two men radically different in their appraisal of themselves viz-a-viz God.
You will remember that the great prophet Samuel – for all his sagacity – very nearly garlanded Eliab and anointed him as the next king of Israel, before God intervened. The metrics that Samuel used to measure suitability were much the same we would use. God sees things differently; He sees the heart man.
So let’s go to the parable found in Luke 18.
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector (“publican” in KJV). 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
I’d say the rendition of this Bible verse in Tamil, is exquisite: அவனல்ல, இவனே; the order is reversed. But the choice is puzzling and seems to run against the principle of natural justice. Why? It is clear that the other man was a good man. He said so himself. And this man was a bad man; he admitted that! The other man was correct in keeping the precepts. This man didn’t seem to be. The other man was confident in his righteousness. This man dare not look up to heaven. The other man was comparatively far superior. This man was absolutely miserable.
And Jesus had no hesitation in declaring which of the two was justified before God.
Humility is the key!
Don’t make much of your appearance, your accomplishments and the accolades you have received.
If you are coming to your God, come just as you are!
And dare not look up. For as Stuart Garrard / Reginald Heber / John B Dykes / Chris Leidhecker teamed up to say, all that you can confess in God’s presence is:
Holy, holy, holy!Though the darkness hide theeThough the eye of sinful manThy glory may not seeOnly Thou art holyThere is none beside TheePerfect in power, in love and purity
Perhaps the idea comes from the Psalmist who put it this was in Psalm 95:
Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker (v6)
Really, you ought to be daft if you think you can look up to God as you would to a man. See what Matthew Bridges (1851) has to say in his evocative hymn:
Crown him the Lord of love;
behold his hands and side,
rich wounds, yet visible above,
in beauty glorified;
no angels in the sky
can fully bear that sight,
but downward bends their burning eye
at mysteries so bright.
If that’s the state of angels, where do you rank? Psalm 8:5 gives the answer:
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels”
The best lambasting of the pompous legality of the Pharisees comes from Jesus Himself in Matthew 23:
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
The Anglican church fathers got it right when they wrote the Prayer of Humble Access:
We do not presume to come to this your table, O merciful Lord,
trusting in our own righteousness,
but in your abundant and great mercies.
We are not worthy so much as to gather up
the crumbs under your table;
but you are the same Lord
whose character is always to have mercy.
Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord,
so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ,
and to drink his blood,
that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body,
and our souls washed through his most precious blood,
and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.
Do you want to follow Jesus?
(seriously, the question is not “do you want to become a Christian, do you want to change your religion or do you want to be a convert”)
No easy business this. See what He says Himself in Matthew 16:24:
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
If that isn’t explanatory enough, let us consult the Message version of Philippians 2:6-8
“He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to
cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set
aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become
human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special
privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless obedient death—
and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”
Now tell me, who would you rather be?
அவனா இவனா
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