The Prayer of the Sinner or the Prayer of the (self)-Righteous
Video: I’m Perfect (sermoncentral.com)
A logician saves the life of a space alien. The alien is very grateful and, since she has knowledge of the whole universe, offers the following reward: she offers to answer any question the logician might pose. Without too much thought (after all, he's a logician), he asks: "What is the best question to ask and what is the correct answer to that question?" The tiny alien pauses. Finally she replies, "The best question is the one you just asked; and the correct answer is the one I gave."
TOKYO —
When paramedics arrived at the scene of the accident on April 24, (2013) the 50-year-old man was determined not to be taken to hospital. After checking him over, police did not notice any serious wounds and so allowed the man to return home untreated, recording the incident as a traffic accident resulting in minor property damage.
As an act of courtesy, the driver . . . escorted the man home and urged him to go to the hospital for a medical examination just in case.
However, while the man claimed to be fine at the time, on June 5 at around 1 p.m., police received reports of an unpleasant smell coming from the 50-year-old’s apartment. Upon entering the premises, police discovered his decaying body. Autopsy results suggest that the man died of a functional disorder of the brain which was caused by a serious blow to the head, and was directly linked to the accident. It was also concluded that due to the severity of his injuries, the probability that the man had died within 24 hours of the accident was extremely high. www.Japantoday.com
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! 1 Corinthians 10:12
When you think you are alright, you can be in a very dangerous place.
18 9 Also He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ 13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
The Prayer that justifies
The Audience
The people who think they are righteous-people like us-people who go to church, who look good, who fast, and pray, and give faithfully and avoid sin.
The Characters
The Pharisee is the hero of the audience-the man who is most-likely-to-go-to-heaven in the eyes of most of the common observers. He had vast portions of the Bible memorized. He lived a life of comparative discipline and ascetic fervor-a priest of priests. He’s the super-saint, the spiritual super-hero.
The Tax Collector is the low-life-the corrupt government official, corrupt policeman, and corrupt lawyer all rolled into one. He is the man who uses his position of power to gain while those from whom he extorts his income are powerless.
The Prayers
The Super-saint prays “with himself”. He thanks God for all the bad things he doesn’t do and all the good things he does. It seems clear he does not know God as Father or Lord, and he does not know himself, except as the hero of his own story.
The low-life corrupt antagonist is ashamed, stands at a distance, beats his chest and says “God-Merciful Me-Sinner” Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. He recognizes who he is-a sinner. He also recognizes who God is-the Merciful One.
The Results
The bad man who humbled himself went away justified, while the good man who prayed proudly did not.
The Lesson
If you want results in prayer you have to humble yourself.
The Bible has plenty to say about pride. Just from one chapter in Proverbs we draw these gems:
5 The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.
18 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
19 Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud. Proverbs 16
Even the great Apostle Paul had issues with pride, but he describes his experience as follows:
6 Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, 7 or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 10:6-10
This is one of the great paradoxes of the spiritual life-strength comes from our recognition and embracing of our weaknesses before God, so that we can rely on His strength.
Illustration: Rosalynn Carter was the wife of US President Jimmy Carter. She was uncomfortable with the extreme attention paid to her and everything she said and did in public. She learned to live with the discomfort and became one of the most active First Lady’s in US history. She said
Once you accept the fact that you're not perfect, then you develop some confidence. Rosalynn Carter
James teaches concerning prayer:
James 4:6 . . . he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Humbling is not something God expects to have to do for us. We are expected to humble ourselves.
There was a song popular in the 1980’s
O Lord, it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way
Can’t wait to look in the mirror, cause I get better looking each day
We can see the contrast between the proud and powerful and the power of the weak in the story of Telemachus. His story takes us back to the time of the glatatorial games in Rome. The Gladitorial Games were cultural sports events, like the World Cup, or the Super Bowl, or the Olympics. They were religious events as well:
. . . attendants in the arena were dressed up as gods. Slaves who tested whether fallen gladiators were really dead or just pretending, by applying a red-hot cauterising iron, were dressed as the god Mercury. 'Those who dragged away the dead bodies were dressed as Pluto, the god of the underworld. During the persecutions of Christians, the victims were sometimes led around the arena in a procession dressed up as priests and priestesses of pagan cults, before being stripped naked and thrown to the wild beasts.
. . . . the Emperor Trajan . . . gave games in AD 108-9 lasting 123 days in which 9,138 gladiators fought and eleven thousand animals were slain. The Emperor Claudius in AD 52 presided in full military regalia over a battle on a lake near Rome between two naval squadrons, manned for the occasion by 19,000 forced combatants. The palace guard, stationed behind stout barricades, which also prevented the combatants from escaping, bombarded the ships with missiles from catapaults. . . After much bloodshed, those who survived were spared extermination'.
. . . In 169 BC, sixty-three African lions and leopards, forty bears and several elephants were hunted down in a single show. New species were gradually introduced to Roman spectators (tigers, crocodiles, giraffes, lynxes, rhinoceros, ostriches, hippopotami) and killed for their pleasure. . . [there were] single shows with one hundred, four hundred or six hundred lions, plus other animals,
http://www.historytoday.com/keith-hopkins/murderous-games-gladiatorial-contests-ancient-rome
" A certain man of the name of Telemachus had embraced the ascetic life. He had set out from the East and for this reason had repaired to Rome (to see the horrors of the gladiatorial games, and to cry out to God on behalf of the Romans). There, when the abominable spectacle was being exhibited, (he was so shocked by what he saw and moved to compassion for the victims of the spectacle) he went himself into the stadium, and stepping down into the arena, endeavored to stop the men who were wielding their weapons against one another. He cried out “In the name of Christ, Desist! In the name of Christ, Desist! According to one tradition, one of the gladiators, disgusted with the little monk, thrust a sword through his side. The spectators of the slaughter were indignant, and . . . stoned the peacemaker to death. Again, according to one tradition of the story, the crowd became silent after the death of the monk, and quietly left the stadium.
When the . . . emperor was informed of this he numbered Telemachus in the number of victorious martyrs, and put an end to the gladiatorial games from that time forward, from January 1, 404 AD."
Theodoret of Cyrus (Cyrrhus in Syria), The Ecclesiastical History Book V, Chapter XXVI: Of Honorius the Emperor and Telemachus the monk. & Wiki
This diminutive monk, who lacked the strength to fight with a single gladiator, through his humility and weakness brought to an end a horrific practice that had gone on in Rome for more than five hundred years. In his weakness and his humility he brought and end to violence and wanton, meaningless destruction of life.
It is in our humility, our forgiveness, our sacrifice, our weakness, that we most fully walk in the footsteps of Jesus, and allow His glory to shine through.
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen
Communion
