Two Men Went Up Into the Temple to Pray…
In this story, Jesus compares the prayers of two Jewish men, a Pharisee and a tax collector. When Jesus’ first century Jewish audience heard, “Pharisee,” they would have pictured a religious man who was passionate about obeying God and keeping God’s commandments. They would have assumed the Pharisee was going to be the good guy in the story. The tax collector, by contrast, would have been an obvious bad guy, a reprobate and a traitor. However, when the parable ended with the tax collector justified and exalted, it would have been a shocking and even scandalous conclusion to the story. In order to discover the discomfort of this story we have to ask, who do we vilify and look down upon in order to feel better about ourselves? (Scripture: Luke 18:9-14)