It is tempting to make the two people in the Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector into characters in a kind of 19th century pantomime. The Pharisee is the bad character and we should boo him when he comes on stage, but have the opposite reaction to the poor, misunderstood, tax collector. But that’s to miss the point. The Pharisee’s explanation of himself before God is literally true. People in the time of Jesus would have recognised this. And that is why this parable would have had such an effect on the listener. Most of the early listeners would have been confused by his parable. How can the Pharisee not come back from his prayer justified? If he was lying, okay, he should be condemned like the tax collector should be condemned. However, if the Pharisee is faithfully following the Mosaic Law absolutely punctiliously, then why wouldn’t he be justified? (That means acquitted, not condemned by God.)
On the lips of Jesus hypocrisy doesn’t always mean what it means today. For us it means someone is a fake; that there is a mismatch between outward display and the heart. We could say that the Pharisee in today’s parable is a hypocrite, but he isn’t a fake. His heart and outward action match. But the Pharisee in this parable has matched his heart and his behaviour to an absolute pinnacle of obedience to outward law, but a heart that is not in love with God. For Jesus it is about outward obedience, but not only outward obedience. It must also be about the heart. The tax collector lacked outward obedience, but he knew what kind of a person he was. He knew he could make no demand of God. So, he humbly and directly prayed for mercy. That is all he had. Nothing but God’s mercy. And that humble petition is enough for God to do something with in our heart, even when our outward behaviour is still way off the mark.
On the other hand, the Pharisee had a consistency between behaviour and heart; but legalism doesn’t make the kind of heart we need before God. Knowing our need for God’s love, and seeking God’s grace in humility and with as much self-insight as we can muster, is what God requires of us. And even though the word ‘faith’ isn’t mentioned in this parable, that sounds like we are definitely in the ball park, if not on the pitch.
But here is the problem. Try to obey the commands of Jesus and not let your heart be infected with a scrap of pride. It’s not possible. Jesus preaches that our goal is a correspondence between head and heart: a heart full of love and obedience displayed in our lives. We are to pursue (with a heart full of love) the righteousness of the Pharisees! I have not been able to do that. But the pursuit of this inner and outer righteousness of love, and my failure to attain it, has led me to see that God must supply that righteousness – inner and outer – if I am to attain a righteousness acceptable to God. Jesus is that righteousness. Specifically, his life of obedience and his death on the cross and rising from the dead.
And that is another way of saying what the Old Testament reading today is saying. How do we get the written law, written on stone tablets, into the tablet of the human heart? God must do it. And when God does it, we will know and do what is required by heart. This is the New Covenant.
But whose heart is the prophet talking about? Yes, our hearts, but first, the heart of Jesus. Jesus is the fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy. It is Jesus first before us. He is obedient by heart. And we receive his heart as the Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts, writing the law on our hearts. This is part of what we mean by the New Covenant mentioned today in the prophecy from Jeremiah, and the New Covenant remembered at the Eucharist today. (“This is my blood of the New Covenant …) In him the New Covenant is fulfilled, and in him we enter into that New Covenant.
