Br. Lain Wilson

Luke 18:9-14

One thing I struggle with is getting out of my head when I’m trying to talk with God. I’m sure that may be familiar to some of you as well. I’ve found something helpful is checking in with my body – how I’m feeling, what my posture is. I find that it often mirrors what’s going on in my own heart and in my soul.

One thing that always strikes me when I hear this familiar parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is that we are given details, not only of what is on their lips and in their hearts, but what they are doing with their bodies.

The Pharisee stands upright. We can imagine him with his shoulders back, chest up, chin square; his chiropractor would be proud. And what is on his lips and in his heart is upright and proud – he’s doing pretty well, fasting and tithing. Both good things. His error is in couching them in terms of competition, lording his own actions over others. It is as though this man has forgotten what, or rather who, allows him to stand upright.

The tax collector, meanwhile, is afar off, looking down. We might imagine him hunched over, feeling on his shoulders the weight of his sin. He confesses and asks God for mercy. Both good things. And his very posture captures something true and fundamental of our relationship with God – that it is by God’s grace and mercy that we can come through all that weighs us down, all the burdens that cling to us or that we drag behind us; that it is God, and not our own actions or achievements, that makes us worthy to stand upright.

The image I come back to again and again in prayer with this passage is from chapter 19 of John’s gospel, of Jesus on the cross seeing his mother and the beloved disciple standing nearby. Those of you on retreat with us this weekend will have seen this image several times, as it’s depicted on the icon currently in the Holy Spirit Chapel. I can’t imagine what strength would’ve been necessary to stand while one’s son and beloved friend was dying on a cross. I can only imagine that this strength had to have come from God.

I come back to this image, because while the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector is about right relationship before God and neighbor, and it’s about humility, it’s also about more than that. It’s about what the true source of our strength is when everything is going wrong, in our world and in our hearts. Our Collect today puts it this way: “O God, you know us to be set in the midst of so many and great dangers, that by reason of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright.”[1]

How does your body feel today?

Do you feel tall and proud? Recognize how God’s grace is working in you, and ask how you might bear others up with that strength.

Or do you feel hunched over and withdrawn because of the weight of sin or the burden of anxiety? Hand it over to God, hand it all over to God, who will give you strength and courage and allow you to stand upright.

Amen.

[1] Weekday Eucharistic Propers 2015 (New York, 2017), 33.