Sunday of Publican and Pharisee

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, with this Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, we begin the season of services from the Lenten Triodion.

In today’s Gospel, our Lord tells us that two men went into the temple to pray – one was a Pharisee who was diligent in keeping the fasts and all the rules of the Jewish law and the other was a Publican, a lowly and despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood in the temple with great confidence and pride, thanking God that he was not like other men. The Publican stood in the back of the temple and could hardly raise his eyes to heaven, crying out “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Our Lord Jesus Christ makes the point that it was the prayer of the Publican that was pleasing in God’s sight – ‘for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’

Why is it that, as we begin to move into the Lenten services, the Church places before us this image of the Publican and the Pharisee? It is an important and instructive lesson which our holy mother Church desires to emphasize for us as we prepare ourselves for the season of the great and holy fast.

Let us ask… what comes to your mind as you think ahead to Great Lent? Do you think of the deprivation of certain kinds of foods? Do you think of the many services which will take place and how long some of them might be? Do you think of closing the curtains on the various distractions and entertainments that delight you throughout the year? While a part of you may look forward to the beauty of the Lenten season, does another part of you dread the coming austerity?

If these questions have hit a chord with you, then you need to ask yourself – what is God teaching me in today’s parable of the Publican and the Pharisee?

If our focus for Lent is on the deprivation of certain foods, of disciplining ourselves to attend the many services, of reducing the worldly distractions in our lives… while each of these things are certainly expected of us and beneficial for us during the time of the Great Fast – if these things are our sole focus, then perhaps we are running the risk of treating our Lenten journey more like the Pharisee than the Publican.

If we heed the message of today’s Gospel, then what should be the primary thing that comes to our mind as we think ahead to Great Lent? ‘O Lord, grant me to enter into this time of repentance with a contrite and broken heart.’ This is what the Church is calling us to… this is what should be our focus and our burning desire… that we may be blessed to spend the weeks of Great Lent in a spirit of humility, of reflection and repentance, and in prayer.

And if that brokenness of heart, that contrition and repentance within us is true, then guess what?... It will manifest itself in a consequential desire to keep the fast, to attend the many services, and to reduce the worldly distractions in our lives. These will be the outcomes of an inner disposition. The focus must be on that inner disposition… this is the message of our Lord in today’s parable.

This appropriate Lenten inner disposition of heart is so beautifully expressed in the Verses of Repentance heard for the first time last night during the Matins service. Listen to these words, which set us on the right tone and focus for the Fast…

Open unto me, O Giver of Life, the gates of repentance: for early in the morning my spirit seeks Thy holy temple, bearing a temple of the body all defiled. But in Thy compassion cleanse it by Thy loving-kindness and Thy great mercy.

Guide me in the paths of salvation, O Mother of God: for I have befouled my soul with shameful sins and have wasted all my life in slothfulness. By thine intercessions deliver me from all uncleanness.

As I ponder in my wretchedness the many evil things that I have done, I tremble for the fearful day of judgment. But trusting in Thy merciful compassion, like David do I cry unto Thee: Have mercy upon me, O God, in Thy great mercy.

This is the heart of the repentant Publican! This is the heart which is pleasing in God’s sight. This is the simplicity and the beauty to which we are being called as we prepare ourselves for Great Lent. It is a time for rejoicing, it is a time for weeping, it is a time to look forward to because it is a time in which we are called to draw closer to God.

I know you’ve heard me quote St Seraphim of Sarov many times in the past and I will conclude by quoting him again now: ‘Prayer, fasting, vigil and all other Christian practices, however good they may be in themselves, do not constitute the aim of our Christian life, although they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this end. The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. As for fasts, and vigils, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for Christ’s sake, they are only means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God.’

May this Lenten season be a time for each of us to have no other desire but to acquire the Holy Spirit of God… to stand like the Publican, in humility in the temple of our heart, simply and sincerely crying: ‘O Lord, be merciful to me a sinner!’