Lk 18:9-14
9[Jesus] addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. 10“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. 11The 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. 12I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ 13But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ 14I 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.”
TWO KINDS OF PRAYER: Prayer states one’s relationship with God. The way we pray reveals that relationship. The Pharisee prays as a character who “prays to himself” or “with reference to himself.” What he spells out is quite true: his observance of the Law goes beyond the legal requirements. But his prayer has been transformed into boasting. He has become full of himself that he seems not to need God anymore. Moreover, he assumes the role of judge and despises others. He reminds God of the deficiency of the tax collector, in case God has not noticed.
In contrast to the prayer of the puffed-up Pharisee, that of the tax collector is of utter simplicity and truth. Indeed he is a sinner. Indeed he needs God’s gift of righteousness because he has none of his own. In praying to God to have mercy on him, he asks God to give him what God “owes” him: mercy and forgiveness.
At the end of the story, the tax collector is the one justified by God, that is, God has placed him in right relationship with God. The Pharisee needed nothing and asked for nothing; he received nothing. The tax collector, by contrast, recognized he needed God’s gift of righteousness, and so he received it.