Fr. Michael Williams

In his novel David Copperfield, Charles Dickens creates the character of Uriah Heep. Uriah Heep famously states, ‘I am well aware that I am the ‘umblest person going’. His constant claims to being ‘umble’ attempt to hide a nature, which is driven by a conniving and greedy spirit. Uriah Heep makes his claim that he is humble, but this does not make him humble. It’s not words and gestures that make a person humble, it’s the person’s attitude and actions that make them humble.

In today’s gospel Jesus is making a similar point. Jesus tells the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector to show that our relationship with God must go deeper than just using words and gestures; we must draw near to God with the correct attitude. The book of Ecclesiasticus tells us, ‘The humble man’s prayer pierces the clouds’; the prophet Isaiah says something similar when he states, ‘The Lord says…my eyes are drawn to the man of humbled and contrite spirit, who trembles at my word’. This attitude of mind is manifested in the simple prayer of the tax collector in today’s gospel: ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner’. Not surprisingly, St Luke’s gospel also tells us of two real life tax collectors- Levi and Zacchaeus. These men, driven by greed, would eventually acknowledge their sinfulness; receive God’s mercy; amend their lives; and become His followers. The road to sainthood must always begin with the prayer, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner’. Once we have done this, God can work on us, and He can begin His work of transforming us. It’s also important to note that the tax collector doesn’t think of saving himself on his own merits, but rather he is saved through the mercy of God.

Contrast this with the Pharisee. The Pharisee believes he is the author of his own salvation. According to St. Luke’s gospel, he does not pray to God, he only utters a ‘prayer to himself’. He then goes on to praise himself by saying, ‘I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind…I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get’. ‘In his conscience the Pharisee does not have any sins, only “merits”’. Like Uriah Heep, the Pharisee is an almost comical figure. Yet by telling us about the self-righteous Pharisee, Jesus is warning us of the dangers of self-righteousness and reliance upon ourselves. Like the tax collector in the parable we need to know our reliance upon God and His mercy, ‘since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’.

Gregory Palams, a fourteenth century bishop of Thessalonika, interprets today’s parable well when he says, ‘Why does humility raise us to the heights, and self conceit plunge us into sin? It is because when we have a high regard for ourselves in the presence of God, He quite reasonably abandons us, since we think we have no need of His assistance. But when we regard ourselves as nothing and therefore look to heaven for mercy we obtain God’s help, compassion and grace. For as Scripture says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’.

Let’s pray that we will imitate the humility of repentant the tax collector and be able to say to the Lord, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner’.