God, Be Merciful to Me, a Sinner

[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” 

(Luke 18:9-14, New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition)

You may have heard we shouldn’t call people “Pharisees” anymore.

If you’re referring to the community of Jews who strove to preserve their religious and cultural identity in the face of Roman imperialism, go ahead and call them Pharisees. But if you’re extrapolating from what the gospels tell us about their strained relationship with Jesus to slap a label on somebody in this day and age whom you perceive as self-righteous and hypocritical, “Pharisee” perpetuates antisemitic tropes we’d do well to leave behind.

So, in recent years, when I read the gospel stories about the Pharisees, I mentally substitute “weighty Friends” for every mention of their name.

I don’t mean to slam every weighty Friend, of course—you just can’t hear the irony dripping off the “weighty” in my head. Over the last quarter-century, I’ve had the good fortune to encounter a robust community of compassionate people who’ve made a sincere commitment to seek out the guidance of Spirit (or God, or whatever you like to call it) and then follow through on the leadings they’ve received.

But I’ve also encountered a few individuals who seem to take significant pride in Quaker identity but show little interest in living out Quaker testimony. They like to associate themselves with Friends’ legacy of social justice and freedom of conscience, but when it comes to actually caring for their neighbors, they can all too easily fall into the patterns of polite white supremacy. (Thank you, Vanessa Julye, for introducing me to Yawo Brown’s naming and framing of that pernicious ideology!) Other Friends across the United States have told me about similar encounters, so I know I haven’t just been imagining this.

Lord knows, I don’t intend to set myself up as a hero.

I may try not to exalt myself, but I still make quick judgments, hold grudges, and stubbornly cling to opinions. As I suggested above, I have an ironic, sarcastic streak, and though I’d like to imagine myself as consistently clever, “the failure mode of clever,” as the science fiction author John Scalzi has written, “is asshole.”

As much as I strive to identify, acknowledge, and work on my faults, though, I don’t know if I can claim the humility of the tax collector. I mean, I still take as much comfort in identifying as a Quaker as the next Friend. I don’t brag about it, but I bask internally in other people’s approval when it comes up in conversation. And when I post about these messages to Facebook, I keep looking back to see how many reactions they get, congratulating myself if one appears to “go viral.” (In fairness, I do that with everything I post on behalf of Friends Journal, but I get a more personal thrill when it involves my own writing.)

But perhaps I should show myself more kindness, and accept the role of the tax collector more gracefully, and more gratefully.

For it strikes me the tax collector’s example embodies the original Quaker faith.

“Now the Lord God hath opened to me by his invisible power how that every man was enlightened by the divine light of Christ,” George Fox wrote, “and I saw it shine through all, and that they that believed in it came out of condemnation and came to the light of life and became the children of it.” Another early Friend, Thomas Ellwood, spoke of how he came to realize that “the spirit of the world had hitherto ruled in me and led me into pride, flattery, vanity and superfluity, all which was naught.”

“There were many plants growing in me which were not of the Heavenly Father’s planting,” Ellwood continued. “All these, of whatever sort or kind they were or how specious soever they might appear, must be plucked up.” That pruning, however, required ongoing help—hence the tax collector’s plea for God’s intervening mercy.

Long before the emergence of the Religious Society of Friends, though, a slightly expanded version of that plea became a cornerstone of the Orthodox Christian faith in the form of the Jesus Prayer. The short sentence (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”) serves as a focus for one’s spiritual attention, a way to stir oneself to a conscious recognition of living in relationship to God. But then one realizes everything else exists in relationship to God, too, a revelation that shapes one’s relationship to all the rest of creation.

Including the weighty Quakers, or whoever else gets under your skin. And that, I assure you, can come as a truly humbling discovery.