Devotion 15 September 2026

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25: 40

READING: Luke 18: 9-14

Jesus paints a vivid picture of two men who went to the Temple Courts to pray, as commanded by the Jewish law -  the Pharisee and the tax collector.

The name Pharisee means “separated one”. The Jewish scribes and rabbis by that time had amplified the Jewish law until it included tens of thousands of regulations covering every moment and action of life. No one could maintain that level of observance while continuing with the everyday business of life. So Pharisees separated themselves, disdaining others, considering contact with them a defilement of their purity.

Pharisees were not bad men, just so focused on their own goodness that they put themselves above others.

We see the Pharisee making sure he could be seen to be praying; and praying in a way to himself, rather than to God; in self-congratulation, ostensibly thanking God for his own goodness while drawing attention to his own virtues.

The tax collector was a hated man. Rome had a strange way of collecting tax. They assessed an area at a certain sum, and then let out the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder. So long as he paid the correct sum to Rome, he could keep whatever extra he was able to collect. So tax collectors were often very corrupt; traditionally classed with robbers and murderers. In particular, they were also considered traitors to the Jewish people, working for the hated Roman oppressor.

This tax collector was aware of his unworthiness. He stood far off, would not raise his eyes, and beat his breast. And he prayed the sinner’s prayer, “God be merciful to me, a sinner”. In the original Greek of this Scripture, it is the sinner, as if he acknowledged himself as the sinner par excellence.

We notice that the Pharisee’s ‘goodness’ was a negative goodness. He was congratulating himself on all the things he did not do, or that he gave up.

Jesus’ ‘golden rule’ was do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In fact this rule existed in Judaism and other religions at that time in the negative form, “don’t do to others what you do not want them to do to you”. That is much easier than Jesus’ rule. In its positive form it means we have to proactively go out of our way to be as kind to others as we would have them be to us.

If one’s religion consists in avoiding things, we could, like the Pharisee, easily be pleased with ourselves, but one whose religion involves positive action will never feel that we have done enough. We always feel like failures compared to the example of Christ.

We are told that, at the end, we will be asked, what did you do? (Matthew 25:31-46). How will we answer our Lord?

Prayer

Have mercy on me Lord, a sinner. Help me to focus on what I can do for others, because I do it in Your name, as if to You. Amen