Two Prayers Offered

but Only One is Acceptable

.

Luke 18:9-14

by Rev. Norman Prenger

.

STATEMENT FOR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

If there was a gospel parable which should cause the typical church goer to tremble, it is this little snippet of kingdom topsy-turvy. It is unfair. It is unbalanced. It is theologically unsound and unfinished. It is a wonder this teaching occurs in the canon.

It would have sounded just this way in the ears of Jesus’ contemporaries: people who went to worship services every Sabbath Day, perhaps even twice; people who had a reputation for being devout and upstanding citizens in the community; people who gave significant amounts of time and money to charity; people who took the time to develop a spiritual life and were disciplined enough carry it through day by day. Most of all, these are grateful people, for they see their lives as filled with blessings.

It is shocking that God doesn’t heed them. According to Jesus, their lips may move but God doesn’t hear what they are saying.

I wonder if the picture ever occurs to folks like these as they utter prayers in thousands of houses of worship across America. That their sanctuaries are being censored, sealed and soundproofed against the ears of heaven. It’s an awful thought. However, if we believe these are our Lord’s words, His lesson on acceptable morality, it is crucial that we at least imagine the possibility and ponder it carefully.

Jesus holds up two lives which He deems are of questionable morality. One identifies himself as a Pharisee – religiously devout, charitable, law-abiding, disciplined, facing heaven with open hands, and so thankful for innumerable blessings he experienced in his life. Yet his prayer goes unheard and unheeded. God finds the prayer and the man who offered it unjustified. Unforgivable. An offence to holiness.

The other identifies himself as a publican, a Jew who works for Rome to collect taxes from his own people. He must take a share for himself too because that’s how he supports his family. Someone has to do the job but it is generally believed it is a disgusting way to live. People spit on him regularly. He is often threatened with physical violence for his loathsome lifestyle. He dare not approach the altar’s steps but prays with his head down and his hand thumping his chest some distance away. Yet his prayer is heard by heaven. Jesus says this man is justified and proven acceptable even before he gets back to his home from worship.

Now how can this be? This story is wildly out of balance. It is a slap in the face of so many godly, salt of the earth kinds of men and women. Certainly, many of Jesus’ original hearers would have been outraged. The gospel is following his ministry and his triumphal entry into Jerusalem was approaching soon but already people were plotting his demise.

Fortunately the Master doesn’t leave us in the dark about why one prayer is heard and the other not. The clue lies not in the identities of these men, nor where they are standing in the temple, nor in the posture of their bodies or the direction of their gazes. It is found in the content of their prayers. Jesus is allowing us to eavesdrop on these and hear what even God doesn’t want to hear.

What we hear is that the Pharisee has no compassion for another man attending prayers in the Temple with him, a man whom the Pharisee knows to be a tax collector, someone worthy of being lumped together with the morally unsalvageable, awaiting God’s judgement. Even as the tax collector is relegated to the bottom of the moral barrel, the Pharisee also elevates himself to the cream of the crop, righteous in another order of magnitude compared to hoi polloi sinners and lowlifes like this publican.

“For everyone who exalts (extols, acclaims, praises, venerates, etc.) himself will be humbled (humiliated, demeaned, belittled, debased, etc.) and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

This is what makes one prayer heard while the other is ignored. The tax-collector knows full well that he has no standing before God except by divine mercy. Even his body language shows it. And it is the Pharisee who sees a tax collector’s humility and uses it to scorn the man before God. Compare the way Pharisee regards the humiliated publican to the way the merciful king regarded the bowed and helpless slave, the way a father saw his starving and foul-smelling son approaching from afar, or the way a travelling Samaritan sees a battered and bleeding Jew, his life draining into the dirt. With eyes of compassion.

Without compassion, the Pharisee is playing the part of a Satan. But we know the Accuser, who sought to remind God of the moral imperfections of His children, was cast down by the Compassionate One who now stands before the throne as our Advocate. One is silenced. The Other is forever heard. God might be deaf sometimes but He always listens to heart felt compassion.

This parable is a terrible indictment on all Christians who cast judgement on the morally inferior among the children of God. Tucked between the lesson of the long-suffering widow seeking justice and the episode of hindered children who were only seeking for Jesus’ blessing, the moral message couldn’t be more clear. Compassion is the essential moral value in all our prayers and relationships. When it is absent, the attention of heaven is cut off, no matter how many times our prayers end with “in Jesus name, amen” (Matt. 7:21-23; 25:31-46).

As we have seen in the other three parables, compassion releases forgiveness, kindness, fellowship, practical assistance, reconciliation, and moral improvement based on one’s experience of mercy and extravagant grace. Compassion can’t be wielded from a position of superiority. It is always stooping in empathy and readiness to help.

So why are so many of my brothers and sisters who condemn same sex marriage so confident that their prayers are heard by God? I have no idea. Besides our Lord’s warning, I don’t have the privilege of hearing their conversations with God. All I can do is ensure all of my own prayers, pleas, attitudes and actions have God’s compassion for me in Christ as the foundation. Always.

.

RESPONSE

The response given below is the same as that given for the paper on The Servant Who Was Shown Compassion.

The church must certainly show compassion toward those who deal with same-sex attraction. The Christian message is one of patience, mercy, caring, and long-suffering. This has long been manifested e.g., by a number of hospitals that have been founded by churches. There are accounts of parents kicking their teenage son out of the home because he is same-sex attracted. How can that be a good thing to do? The current report to the CRC Synod of 2021 has a good number of references to the compassion Christians must show. In keeping a balance, the church must also know what God’s will is with respect to acts that people commit.

The purpose of these webpages, and this paper as well, is to determine if same-sex erotic acts are in some cases pleasing to God. In striving to determine whether an act is moral or immoral, how can it be beneficial to turn to peoples’ reactions to that act? I dare say it is true that some in the church respond to those attracted to members of the same sex the wrong way. Some respond in a very wrong way. But what light does that shed on same-sex erotic acts? It is not possible for the matter of compassion to ultimately shed light on the question of whether or not the Bible prohibits all same-sex erotic acts.

Return to The Parables And Compassion