Profound Parables on Prayer
Introduction: I love the parables of Jesus. He was an incredible storyteller and the characters really come alive. But I don’t like His parables on prayer—they are so very convicting. Please follow with me as we read two back-to-back parables from Luke 18:1-14:
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!'”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“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.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
There are several interesting similarities and differences between these two parables. They are similar in that the subject matter of both is prayer and each has two main characters—one good and one bad. But they are different in their purpose. By the way, these are the only parables in which Jesus states his purpose before He tells the story.
His purpose in the first parable, according to verse 1, is to teach His disciples that they should always pray and not give up. And the purpose of the second, according to verse 9, is to rebuke those who are confident of their own righteousness and look down on everybody else. Now I suspect we have at least a few people here this morning to whom one or both of these parables are specifically directed—perhaps all of us!
The parable of the persistent widow: prayer that produces results
The purpose of the parable. Jesus states His purpose clearly: “to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” Shortly after the Duke of Wellington led his troops to victory in the decisive battle against Napoleon and the French at Waterloo, he was asked to compare the courage of the two armies. “My soldiers were not braver than the enemy!” He observed. “But they were brave five minutes longer.”
In almost every area of life, staying power is indispensable for success. Look at the success of a Jerry Rice or a Tony Guinn in sports. Are they more physically gifted than other players? No, perhaps less than many. Are they more intelligent? Probably not. Their success has been crafted on the anvil of persistent, grueling, repetitious practice. They get to practice earlier than most players and they stay longer afterwards.
In the game of life it is critical that we learn to persist and persevere. We live in a hostile world. In view of the persecution that Jesus’ followers will inevitably experience as the time of his second coming draws near (which was addressed in the previous chapter), it is easy to become discouraged and even give up. We must not. Instead. we are encouraged always to pray.
Such a concept troubles many people. They ask, “Is it even possible to always be in prayer, or to ‘pray without ceasing,’ as Paul puts it in 1 Thessalonians 5?” Only if we understand that prayer is more than words spoken with head bowed. Prayer is an attitude of heart. Prayer is a spirit of dependence upon God which is sometimes expressed in words but probably more often in thought and attitude. One writer asked, “Does Jesus mean our time must be spent on nothing but prayer? No, but He does mean that we must do nothing without prayer.” Prayerful dependence upon God is the lifeblood of the healthy Christian.
Probably the biggest change I have noted in my own spiritual life over the last three or four years is in regard to prayer. I don’t go to more prayer meetings, but now when I wake up at night the first thing I think of is to pray. When I am driving in the car, prayer is natural. I still have a lot to learn about concentrated times of prevailing prayer, such as Jesus tried to teach the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, but I feel that I am learning something about what it means to pray without ceasing.
The reason Jesus urges us in this direction is that continual prayer is God’s antidote to giving up. How do you keep going when you feel like bailing out? Some try the power of positive thinking. Others just determine to gut it out. But Jesus says the solution to despair and quitting is not determination but dependence upon God, not positive thinking but prayer. Now let’s consider …
The content of the parable. There are two characters in the story: a judge and a widow. They are at opposite ends of the power structure. The judge is a man of authority, probably a magistrate appointed and paid by Rome or by Herod. Without a good system of checks and balances in the legal system, he has virtually absolute control over the cases that come before him. Unfortunately, he neither fears God nor cares about men. He is unreachable on the grounds of either conscience or compassion. At least he’s consistent.
The widow represents the depth of helplessness and vulnerability. In a society which is patriarchal and extremely chauvinistic, she is without rights and without influence. The death of her husband has left her without a protector, and some unscrupulous individual has evidently exploited her. In making a request for legal protection, she’s asking for justice, not vengeance, and she’s persistent. It says she “kept coming to him” with her plea. But the judge denies her request. Perhaps the reason he refuses is that being a poor widow, she has no money with which to pay a bribe, and therefore she has no leverage with him. Her only weapon is her own persistence, but what she has, she continues to use!
Ultimately, the judge relents. He makes it clear that no change of heart is involved, nor has he changed his theology. It’s just a matter of expediency. “Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!” There’s an old saying to the effect that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” and apparently he saw some evidence of its validity.
The story is a rather startling one. One of our first reactions is to ask questions like, “How can the Lord tell such a story about prayer? Is prayer nagging God? Are we to think that just as an unjust pagan judge who is on the take can be wearied into giving a widow woman justice, so God will give us what we ask for if we are sufficiently persistent?” What does the Lord mean? In verses 6-8 Jesus Himself tells us …
The meaning of the parable. This judge is not to be compared with God, except in the one fact that he is in charge. In every other way he is actually opposite to God. The judge’s motives are opposite, his concern is opposite, his attitude is opposite. In other words, this parable teaches us by contrast, not by comparison. It is an argument from the lesser to the greater: “If, in the end, an unjust pagan judge who is on the take can be wearied into giving a widow woman justice, how much more will God, who is a loving and concerned Father, give His children what they need?”
There is also a contrast between the widow and us. In a sense she represents us because she is helpless and so are we, but the significant difference is that she has no relationship with the judge, while we are called God’s “chosen ones, the elect.” We don’t need to understand or even discuss all the ins and outs of the doctrine of election to appreciate the fact that being chosen by God gives us a position of confidence and security. Here then is the point of the parable from the standpoint of the widow: “If a helpless widow who has no weapon but her own persistence, can get her way with a hardhearted unjust judge, how much more will God’s people receive what they need from a gracious Father who sovereignly chose them and adopted them!”
Do you remember the parable of Luke 11? I preached that one under the title, “God Doesn’t Read Third Class Mail,” and only found out afterwards how many of our people make their living in the direct mail business. Bill Jerome threatened to put me on every mailing list he could find, but thankfully he hasn’t done it yet (actually, he probably couldn’t find any I wasn’t already on!). But in that message we noted that sometimes God holds back until we become bold, until we pray with passion, until all the yawns are gone, until the sleepy, half-hearted hopes and dreams become burning desires. The point was, “we dare not play at prayer; we dare not send it third class.”
This parable has some of the same flavor. In verse 7 we see that those who can expect justice from God are his chosen ones “who cry out to him day and night.” The point is not that we should use vain repetition or that we should think we will be heard for our much speaking. Prayer is not a type of spiritual filibuster. Even less is it a refusal to accept “no” as His answer. But it is the earnest and persistent heart cry of a child to his or her Father.
And when God’s children cry to their Father, Jesus asks rhetorically, “Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.” That statement bothers any thinking person, because we all know of times when we have asked God for justice and it didn’t come quickly. The question is, whose clock is measuring the time? Whose calendar is being used? Clearly ours is different from God’s. I think the point must be this: the Lord never delays His response beyond the proper time.
There is one more issue in this first parable, and I have referred to it as …
The question it leaves us to ponder. Here’s how the story concludes: “However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Last week we looked at Jesus’ teaching on the second coming as found in chapter 17. I think Jesus is asking here, “Will men’s faith stand the long delays before the Son of Man should come?” This is perhaps more a challenge than it is a question—a challenge to endurance. Before our Lord’s first coming, only a small remnant was looking for Him. Nearly all of His chosen people had become weary in their expectation of the Messiah and were occupied with their own affairs, seeking satisfaction in the things of the world.
We need to guard against the same thing happening at his second coming. After all, God’s delay in vindicating the elect is for a reason, according to 2 Peter 3—to give more men the opportunity to repent. Prayer is the great resource of Christ’s church in the days before His Second Coming. Friends, let us pray and not give up.
So far we have seen a parable concerning prayer that produces results. The second parable, the one about the Pharisee and the Publican (or the tax collector) concerns prayer that produces a right standing with God. That’s the key spiritual issue in life, isn’t it? How can I know that God and I are alright?
The parable of the Pharisee and the publican: prayer that produces a right standing with God
The purpose of the parable. In the introduction to this second parable we are only told to whom it is addressed, but implicit in that is its purpose. It says in verse 9 that He spoke “to some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else.” Well, what was His purpose in speaking to those people? Obviously, to get them to stop trusting in their own righteousness. He wants them to recognize that a right standing with God comes from an entirely different direction. Look, then, at …
The content of the parable. Once again we have a story with two characters at opposite ends of the moral scale. One is a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. “Pharisee” is a derogatory term in our culture; it’s virtually synonymous with “religious hypocrite.” But that was hardly its meaning in Jesus’ day. To the man on the street the Pharisees were deeply religious, the recognized keepers of family and religious values, and highly respected. For Jesus to portray a Pharisee as the villain and a tax collector as the hero in His story would have been shocking and rather dangerous to His own safety. But that is exactly what He does.
Even in Jesus’ story the Pharisee is not all bad. He is a religious man. He is a praying man. He is a regular worshiper. He is orthodox in his doctrine. He comes to the accepted place to pray, he assumes the normal posture, and he addresses God aloud, which also was normal. If you went to the Western Wall in Jerusalem today you would see many doing exactly what this man did, and you would marvel at their piety.
But then in one simple telltale phrase the Lord reveals how much of this man’s prayer was mere religious performance. In the original language it says literally, “The Pharisee stood up and prayed to himself.” Most of our modern versions have saved him some embarrassment by translating it “he prayed about himself.” But that’s not what the text actually says, and the irony of the way Luke puts it is poignant—he prayed to himself. William Barclay tells of a certain observer who cynically described a preacher’s prayer as “the most eloquent prayer ever offered to a Boston audience.”[i]
While the publican addresses God once, the prayer is clearly not God-centered, as prayer should be, but self-centered. There is no expression of praise, no thanksgiving, no worship, and no concern for who God is or what He has done. There is no sense of being in the awesome presence of a holy God. Ultimately, the Pharisee has not really come to pray; his goal is to inform God how good he is. One can’t help but think of the old nursery rhyme which contains the words, “What a good boy am I!”
His prayer is made up of two parts: some vile vices from which he abstains, and some pious practices in which he engages. More than likely his prayer is honest—what would be the point of lying to God? But so what? Who cares? Not God. Now I don’t mean to imply that the fact this man is neither a felon nor a pagan nor a philanderer is without consequence. Certainly he is probably a better husband and a better father and a better neighbor because of the things from which he abstains. But he is no closer to God. Men simply do not gain a right standing with God by refraining from gross sins.
Nor is it of any great significance to God that the Pharisee has gone above and beyond the call of duty with his religious observances. I don’t mean to demean his works—they are noteworthy. His piety touches his stomach—he fasts, and he does so more than the Law required; his piety touches his pocketbook—he tithes, and he tithes more than the Law required. But works of supererogation are worthless, even despicable, to God when a man’s heart is not right. Listen to Amos 5:21-24, where God speaks to very religious people about their lousy treatment of the poor and disadvantaged:
“I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
How many people would make the effort to come to church or give an offering or sing worship songs if they knew God actually despised their attendance, rejected their offerings, and refused to listen to their music? But that’s how it is for those whose hearts are not right with Him, for those who divorce religion from a life of obedience and justice.
But this Pharisee stands tall, convinced he is head and shoulders above the tax gatherer. His is a holiness by comparison. This is a very common way of trying to gain a right standing with God. And it’s a pretty easy game to play, for there is not one of us who cannot claim holiness by comparison over some one (and there is probably not one of us who has not tried). I don’t care how bad any of us might be, we’re not a Jeffrey Dahmer, we’re not a Ted Kacynski, and we’re not a Saddam Hussein. So we look at each other, get out our rulers or our scales, we measure our stature or weigh our righteous deeds, and we conclude that we have passed the test. But friends, even if we compared favorably to Mother Teresa, and I suspect few of us do, we could still be lost, because a right standing with God is not achieved by comparison with anyone, nor is it obtained by the vile vices from which we abstain or the pious practices in which we engage.
Think about the utter foolishness of holiness by comparison. When we stand up to sing, it’s not too difficult to notice the Dan Drissells, the Bud Blossfields, the Bob Ports, or the Steve Stipanovichs in our audience. They tower over the rest of us. But if you were in a hot-air balloon looking down on the same congregation, the difference between someone even 7′ tall and someone 5′ tall would be absolutely negligible. God measures us by a perfect standard of absolute holiness, and none of us measures up. We have all sinned; we have all fallen short. Sure, there’s a difference in the number and severity of sins we each have committed, but we are far closer to each other than any of us are to God when it comes to holiness. The Pharisee’s efforts to achieve a right standing with God by comparing himself to others is doomed to failure.
The second major character in this parable is a publican, a tax collector. His reputation is the polar opposite of the Pharisee’s. A tax gatherer was considered a turncoat, a collaborator, because he essentially worked for Rome to extort money from the Jewish citizenry. Whether this particular man has deserved the reputation of his professional group we do not know, but he clearly comes to God as one who now believes he is profoundly unworthy. He stays on the fringes of the temple area. His body language speaks of guilt and conviction of sin. Everything about him speaks of humility, brokenness, and repentance.
His prayer is short–only six words in Greek. Whereas the Pharisee uses the first personal pronoun five times in the original, this man uses it only once—and even then he uses it as an object rather than as subject. He identifies himself as a sinner, but in the original it really says, “the sinner.” Like the Pharisee he considers himself to be in a class by himself, but how different a class! He is a sinner par excellence, not very different from Paul who wrote in 1 Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.”
Because he sees nothing in himself but sin, he seeks nothing from God but mercy. The word for mercy is the same as the word for the lid on the Ark of the Covenant. If you remember, the Ark lay in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. No one was allowed to touch it or even see it except the high priest on the day of atonement. He would go behind the great veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, and he would sprinkle blood on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. When God saw the blood, He granted atonement or a covering for the sins of the people. That lid became known as the mercy seat, and it was the precursor of the Cross, where sin would finally be forgiven by the blood of the Son of God. When the tax collector cries out, “God, have mercy on me,” he is recognizing his need for atonement, for forgiveness. He is asking that God’s wrath toward his sin be turned aside.
By the way, I don’t think this parable is designed to teach us the tax collector’s prayer—a formula of words to use in order to be saved. The Lord is far more concerned that we have the tax collector’s heart, a heart sensitive to sin and totally dependent on God’s grace. Thirdly, consider …
The divine analysis of the parable. We don’t have to search for the meaning of this little story because Jesus analyzes it for us. Look again at verse 14: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.” “Justified” is one of the great words of the believer’s vocabulary. It means to be declared “not guilty,” to be acquitted. It is the publican, the spiritual pauper, who is justified. The Pharisee who justified himself remained unjustified in God’s sight. The principle behind it all is that he who exalts himself will be humbled. No man has anything of which he can boast before God. By contrast, he who humbles himself will be exalted. The penitent sinner who humbly looks for God’s mercy will find it in the Cross of Jesus.
Now before leaving these two men, I want us to take …
A second glance at the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
I want us to consider the question, “Could it be that one of the marks of our time is that the Pharisee and the tax collector have changed places?” The modern equivalent of the tax collector is sometimes heard thanking God that he is not like the Pharisee. I have heard testimonies that sounded something like this: “I thank thee, God, that I am not so proud as the Pharisee. I am a thoroughly human person; I commit fornication twice a week; I get drunk with the boys now and then; I’m not too pious to cuss on occasion or laugh at a dirty joke. But at least I admit it. At least I’m not a hypocrite. I’m honest.”
I saw a clip on 20/20 Friday night about a radical new therapy being used which demands total honesty at all times. You tell everyone exactly what you think about them. You reveal all your sins in their goriest detail. And this catharsis gives you freedom from your past and allows you to live like an open book. Of course, everyone else has to pay a price for your honesty. But what struck me was the kind of reverse pride involved. “At least I admit I’m a sinner.”
There is a basic truth we must understand: Whether one is accepted or rejected by God does not depend upon whether one is a Pharisee or a Publican—either can be saved and either can be damned. It depends entirely upon whether we are willing to cast ourselves on the mercy of God. You know, the Publican didn’t pray, “God, be merciful to me an honest sinner;” instead, it was “the sinner.”
Conclusion: Friends, all of us are either like this Pharisee or like this tax collector. What was the sin of the Pharisee? He justified himself. Is that something I have ever done? Is it something I often do? Then by nature I have the heart of a Pharisee. The Pharisee condemned others. Is it easier for me to see the faults in others than to observe my own? Then I have the heart of a Pharisee.
Turning to the other side, let us each ask, have I ever taken the place of the tax collector who saw himself as a lost sinner, deserving only God’s condemnation and having hope only in His mercy? Have I called myself even “a sinner,” much less “the sinner?” If not, then I have not yet found a right standing with God. The reason many are not sure of their salvation is that they have never been sure of their condemnation. To know the joy of being saved, I must know that I was once lost.
Tags:
Prayer
Persistence
Pharisee
[i] William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, 232.