In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

All right. Let’s try it again this Sunday. In what city does this story take place? [Jericho. Laughter] One more time? [Jerusalem! Laughter] Jerusalem. Two men went up to the temple to pray. Where was that, Salt Lake City? [Laughter] [Scornfully:] Jericho! [Laughter] Jerusalem! Two men went up to the temple to pray.

This morning I want to share three thoughts with you, but having only two examples in his story, Jesus did not give me much leeway for a three-point sermon. That’s what happens in the Gospel of Luke, where there’s so many contrasts: this one and that one. The Gospel of Luke is full of this. This morning let’s talk about the temple. The second point will be repeated prayer. And third, authenticity. I thought a lot about that third point, at least the title of it, because I don’t much like the word “authenticity.” It’s one of the most abused words in my lifetime, but I couldn’t find a good substitute for it this morning.

First, the temple. Now, what temple is this? This is the second temple, isn’t it? This is not Solomon’s temple; this is Ezra’s temple. It’s the second temple, built in the late sixth century. It is the temple of which the Prophets Haggai and Zachariah have so much to say. Haggai and Zachariah were present for the construction of the temple, and their prophecies are very much concerned with that construction in the late sixth century.

During the time that Jesus was telling this parable, the temple was still undergoing a major renovation started by Herod the Great. It took a very long time to adorn this temple. It was finished in time to be destroyed by the Romans in the year 70. So St. Luke, who is writing after the year 70, has had a little time to think about the significance of the temple and all the things that it meant, because the temple was over; the temple was gone. The temple has never again been rebuilt. I think if the present Israeli government has its way, it will never be rebuilt. Nobody in the Holy Land seems to be interested in offering bulls and sheeps any more. It won’t be rebuilt.

We Christians know that we’re living in the era of the third temple, of which the New Testament has a great deal to say, because we ourselves are the stones of the third temple. It’s clear in the gospels and the Book of Acts that Luke very much loves the temple. It’s gone, but notice Luke begins his Gospel in the temple, with the apparition of Gabriel to the priest Zachariah, when he’s been in there offering the sacrifice. It takes 30 minutes to do the incensing of the temple, and Zachariah had that. It’s how the Gospel of Luke begins. And the Gospel of Luke ends: the last verse is “And they were daily in the temple, praising and blessing God.” In our adult Sunday School class we just finished the long speech, sermon, of Stephen, chapter seven of the Book of Acts. We see the crisis of the temple already in Stephen’s speech, because Stephen was stoned to death for allegedly speaking against the temple. For the temple represented the situation at the time, which Jesus himself was unable to cleanse.

But what was the temple designed to be, the second temple? The prophets tell us. It was designed to be a house of prayer for all the nations, and that is what the third temple is: a house of prayer for all the nations. St. Luke and St. John, writing late in the first century, are very preoccupied with the temple. Remember Jesus’ discourse with the Samaritan woman about where you should worship? Remember that? It has to do with the conflict of the Samaritans and the Jews about where the temple should be.

What God wanted all along was a universal house of prayer, a house of worship for all the nations. In today’s gospel, even though the prayers in the story are personal and private, the house is not. So what, then, sweet people, does the temple mean? Temple comes from the Greek word temno, which means to divide. It’s a very, very rich verb; it means to divide. The word temple comes from that because it’s a divided space. Even the word time comes from temno, temper, division; comes from temno.

The temple, then, means the most intensely consecrated part of human existence. The most intensely consecrated part of human existence. You see, we are made to worship. That’s our final goal. The Bible is very insistent on that, that that’s the highest thing a human being can do, and it’s that for which a human being has been designed and will in fact be engaged for all eternity. Prayer, the worship of God, is the most important thing in any human life. A human life which is not largely dedicated to prayer is wasted. The whole purpose of life in this world is to prepare ourselves for the next one, isn’t it? We think we ought to know that. We’re told that. What are we going to be doing in eternity? Read the Book of Revelation—carefully, but read the Book of Revelation.

Although everything we do is service to God—everything we do is service to God—there must be a part of ourselves that is consecrated in a special and more articulate way. The Romans themselves understood that, because that’s where we get the word temple. It comes from the Romans, the Latin templum. A templum is a consecrated place. Cicero speaks of the head as the templum mentis. That word has perdured to the present day in English, where we still think of our temples. What I thought was interesting, and it didn’t strike me until this time—I should have thought about it; I should have thought about it many, many years ago—is Cicero said this a full century before Galen. I’ve got to think about that: a whole century before Galen, here’s Cicero talking about the temple of the mind, which is the head. That’s for another sermon, or a Sunday School class, or something.

The consecration of the mind and the heart is what the word templum means. The templum mentis, the temple of the mind, the temple of the heart, where the Fathers worshiped in spirit and truth.

Point two, let’s talk about repeated prayer. There’s a deep bias against repeated prayer. It’s almost a feature of our culture, this dislike at [contented] prayer. That’s why so many of the churches have a different rite every Sunday. Have you noticed that? The Roman Catholics ditched their ancient rite and came up with [four Star Wars sorts] of services since Vatican II, so you get a different [service] every [time]. I would find that very distracting.

The Church has always insisted that should be the same all the time. There should be the same structure so that you’re never surprised when you come to Church. You’re not taken on a new adventure. It’s supposed to be the same every Sunday. Now, there are some variations in the hymns, sure, but the central core of the worship is supposed to be the same all the time. There should not be different anaphora, different thanksgivings. It’s the same all the time. We use the same litany pretty much all the time, except on those very special occasions when we bless weddings, do funerals, have baptisms, and there are variations in the litany, but normally when you come to church on a Sunday it should be pretty much the same every Sunday, [with] somewhat different hymns. Prayer is supposed to be repeated, in other words.

Now why is there this bias against repeated prayer in our culture? It has to do with a very serious, and I would think even perhaps heretical mistranslation in the King James Version. In the King James Version—and only in the King James Version, out of all the Bibles in the world, only in the King James Version—are we warned against repeating prayers—certainly not in the Greek text, not a bit, not in the Greek text. We pray the same things all the time, because there’s only a limited number of ways in which you can say, “I love you.” I don’t know how many times I tell Denise I love her every way, but she’s never said, “You know, I’m tired of this repetition.” [Laughter] With a bit of imagination, you could think of some other way to say it.

How often should we pray? From Judaism, we inherited the tradition of prayer three times a day: morning, noon, evening. Time of the morning sacrifice in the temple, time of the evening sacrifice in the temple, and the time in the middle. You have that in the Book of Daniel, don’t you? You have that repeatedly in early Christian literature. You see it in the Acts of the Apostles. One of the first formal treatises on this is by a priest of Rome, Hippolytus, early third century, say roughly 210. This wonderful book by a priest of Rome named Hippolytus, Hippolytus of Rome: The Apostolic Tradition. He describes how Christians stop each day and pray three times a day.

You have treatises on prayer from the early Christian Church. You don’t have very many treatises on individual subjects from the early Christians, but prayer, yes. Yes, yes. Tertullian, at the end of the second century; Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage halfway through the third century; down in Egypt Origen wrote a treatise on prayer in the mid third century. Comments on prayer are ubiquitous in the early Christian literature. The early Christians are clearly preoccupied with prayer and wrote about it voluminously. The New Testament. The fourth bishop of Rome, Pope Clement I, wrote about prayer in his letter to the Corinthians. Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, 107, talks about prayer. Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, talks about prayer. There’s a description of Christian worship in the First Apology of Justin Martyr, written at Rome mid second century. Irenaeus of Lyons, the Asian mission in the south of Gaul, of Lyons in Gaul, writes about prayer.

You see, the Christian soul, beloved, is obsessed with prayer. It is the principle habit to be cultivated. We do everything—we arrange our lives so that we can pray. If we haven’t set time centrally in our lives for prayer, we have a disordered life, and should know that. This is the reason we read this story each year three weeks before the Lenten Fast. Looking at the calendar as recently as this morning, just shaking my head: I can’t believe we’re on it already. I can’t believe it: already at matins this morning we knelt down and prayed, “Open to me the gates of repentance…” right after the Gospel. “Open to me the gates,” but we’re already here. Today about prayer, next week about returning to the Father, and then finally the Last Judgment.

Today’s gospel is a scheduled annual reminder about prayer. This is the Church’s scheduled opportunity to assess our life of prayer, perhaps to rearrange our priorities. This is the time to do it, to make sure we are truly about what Jesus called “the one thing necessary.” Remember that in Luke 10? The one thing necessary. And don’t be afraid of repetition in prayer. There’s nothing against repeated prayer, unless you’re really addicted to the King James Bible. Except for that one verse, that’s not a bad addiction. You see, Christians do repeat themselves. Above all, prayer must be put on the daily and weekly schedule. One must not talk with God only or speak with God only, although we must do that.

We want to make sure that we do it with sufficient leisure that God can get a word in from time to time. That’s why prayer should not be rushed and must not be rushed. Certain things simply must not be rushed. For her birthday this past week, I obtained for Khouria Denise a set of recordings of Haydn. Now, you don’t rush listening to Haydn. Say you only have five minutes to listen to music. You don’t speed up the recorder to get it in. Are you allowed to speed up the recorders nowadays? I don’t know. You could do that back when we had three different speeds on the record players. I remember that. You could put on the 1812 Overture. It really doesn’t sound three times as good going three times as fast. In fact, you don’t really hear the 1812 Overture. You don’t hear Haydn if you speed it up. God doesn’t hear your prayer if you rush through it! [Laughter]

Last week I spoke about how to pray in brief spurts, the way John Cassian talks about it about Isaac in conferences nine and ten. “O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me.” You can say that one fast, but for heaven’s sake, don’t say the Jesus prayer fast. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” If you only have time to say it once, then just say it once. If you only have time to make the sign of the cross once, just do it once; don’t go rushing through this mindless gesticulation of the hands. One of the most dis-edifying things in the whole Orthodox Church is the way the Orthodox rush through their prayer. It’s really dis-edifying. Take time with prayer; take time with it.

You might have one minute. If you only have one minute to pray when you get up in the morning, that’s about how long it takes to say Psalm 3, which has always been the Church’s first psalm in the morning. If you only have time for one minute of prayer before you go to sleep, take Psalm 4: traditionally a compline psalm that takes one minute—but take the whole minute. Don’t rush through it: take the whole minute.

Point three, let’s talk about authenticity: authenticity of soul. I’ve already told you my hesitation about this word. The most obvious difference between the publican and the Pharisee this morning is authenticity, where you really mean what you say and are not trying to pull the wool over God’s eyes. Let me give you an example of what I have in mind. This past week I learned that there’s a new biography, maybe even an official biography, of Abba Eban. Asaf Siniver has a new biography of Abba Eban. I was fascinated with Abba Eban when I was a young man. I taught myself to read Hebrew back in 1961. Taught myself Hebrew and German both that year. Among things I took out of the library was a set of 45 records. Remember those 45 records? You don’t remember those 45 records. Some of you do. [Laughter] I could have took a set of these 45-rpm records made of Abba Eban reading the Bible in Hebrew, which is how I learned to pronounce the words. I had a grammar and a dictionary and a Bible, but I needed to know how are they pronounced. So in some ways I say Abba Eban was my first professor of Hebrew.

Anyway, I had to read this life of Abba Eban because I love Abba Eban. Abba Eban was one of the most skilled diplomats in the history of diplomacy. Hardly anybody has ever heard of him any more, but his name was on every[one’s] lips back in the early ‘60s. Late ‘40s through the ‘50s, Abba Eban was one of the towering figures in the world of diplomacy. He was certainly the greatest diplomat of his generation; others could not hold a candle to him. People like Dean Rusk could not hold a candle to Abba Eban. He was fluent in ten languages, including Arabic and Farsi—fluent in Hebrew, of course. But today I recall him for only one reason. I recall him today because descriptions of Harry Truman don’t really want to talk about Abba Eban; I really want to talk about Harry Truman.

See, this greatest diplomat, Abba Eban, had the highest respect for this American president who had not one ounce of diplomacy. Harry Truman was so undiplomatic he could not have sold a coffin to a widow. Abba Eban could have sold her a second pair of pants to dress her husband in. You didn’t find that as funny as I did. [Laughter] When Harry Truman spoke, there was nothing veiled, nothing mysterious. Everybody remembers the letter that he sent to the music critic of the New York Times, who had the audacity to criticize his daughter’s musical performance.

Eban, ever the diplomat, was completely mystified by Truman, and this is the point of my story. When we come to speak with God, leave diplomacy out of it. In fact, that I see as the contrast in this morning’s gospel. The one speaks to God as a diplomat, tells God all the things he thinks God wants to hear. The other just comes forward and he speaks his mind. We should never take the skills of diplomacy into that place in the soul where we commune with God. When we deal with other men and women, diplomacy should be at the top of our list. We should always speak diplomatically, always speak in such a way as to bring about the reasoned response—but when we speak to God, never speak that way. Let us not imagine that we can be diplomatic with God. God does not want to hear it, because, unlike other men and women, God reads our souls and our hearts.

Today’s gospel Pharisee imagines he can use diplomacy, and here God can read his heart. He comes before God, and he starts to give a list of his accomplishments. You’d have thought he was running for president: “I fast twice a week. I’m Orthodox.” Of course, he’s an Orthodox Jew, so he fasts on Mondays and Thursdays. But it can be just as bad for an Orthodox Christian. “I fast on Wednesdays and Fridays.” That’s the reason, by the way, that there’s no fasting this week. The Church eliminates all fast days on this week when we read this story, to make sure that nobody at the end of this week can say, “I fast twice a week.” No, you didn’t! [Laughter] In fact, the Church forbids you to fast this week. I won’t say it’s a sin to fast this week, but you won’t get my blessing. [Laughter]

You see, God will have no braggadocio in his presence. With God there must be no pretense, no put-on. The mainly reprimanded sinners in the New Testament are those who endeavor to justify themselves in the sight of God. When the Orthodox Study Bible was put out—how many years ago was it now? It’s been a long time, 20 years it may be—one of the Orthodox reviewers criticized the book because it had an article on justification, and he said, “The Orthodox are not concerned with justification.” That’s like saying, “The Orthodox are not Christians at all,” because the New Testament is permeated with the problems of justification. It’s all about justification. How is the human being justified in the sight of God? Does he do it himself or is he justified by God’s mercy, over to which he hands himself?

The Pharisee attempts to impress God. You see, whether we try to impress God or impress ourselves, that’s no reason for praying. We don’t come to church this morning to feel good about ourselves, brothers and sisters. We don’t come here to feel good about ourselves. We don’t come here to feel that we’re doing something for God. Only God can justify us, and he does, in the blood of his Son. The Pharisee attempts to impress God, like a diplomat. He tries to draw God’s attention away from the obvious facts, namely, that he’s a failure. You see, the smoke from our incense is supposed to rise to God as prayer. It’s not smoke that we put in generally to confuse things so it’s hard to see.

Remember what God says about incense in the Book of Isaiah? Remember that? It’s a great line: “Incense is an abomination to me.” That’s Almighty God speaking. “Incense is an abomination to me.” Obviously, it has something to do with the style of Isaiah. But the incense is not a smokescreen. It’s not a smokescreen. We’re supposed to see things clearly, because God can read our hearts.

Justification in the sight of God is the central Christian experience. The whole Gospel faith is around justification, because justification means our correct relationship to God, where he is the one who gives grace, he is the one who lifts us up, he is the one who transforms us, he is the one who deifies us.

So what does Jesus say finally about this man at the end of the parable? This man went back to his home—justified. Not even because of the prayer he makes where he beats his breast. No. He goes back justified because he relies entirely on the mercy of God. He went home justified because it is God who justifies him. Amen.