NOTES for Luk 18:9-14

The tax collector and the Pharisee are two sides of a person that coexist peacefully within us. The Pharisee living within us may be a very worthy person: fasting, prayer, and a tithe of everything one possesses are already no small matter. Even the Lord says that “this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” That is, the Pharisee received his justification, but not to the same extent as the tax collector. This happened because the Pharisee demanded fair treatment, whereas the tax collector hoped for mercy. In the end, what we need is not justice, whose triumph the Pharisee within us so often desires, but mercy, for which the tax collector quietly pleads. For in justice we are entitled to very little, if anything at all, while by mercy we have been promised the Kingdom.