On this Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, the Church sets before us two rather different people and invites us to choose which person to respect and admire. Each of these people has come to The Temple in first-century Palestine to pray. They are standing before God and speaking to the Lord from their hearts. The first person, a Pharisee, is a devout Jew who fasts twice a week and gives 10 per cent of his income to the synagogue. He is very confident about his lifestyle and very confident that God has been blessing him and will continue to bless him. The second person is a tax collector who is living a comfortable life, collecting taxes from the Jews to give to the Roman authorities. The tax collector knows that God is not pleased with him, because he is probably keeping some of the taxes for himself and is living a comfortable life, but not a life of seeking to draw closer to God. Both the Pharisee and the tax collector want to be blessed by the Lord.

In this Gospel reading from St Luke, chapter 18, Jesus Christ explains who will be blessed and why. Christ’s answer is not what his listeners expect. It is the tax collector, not the Pharisee who will be blessed. Why? What is the tax collector doing that makes him a model for Christians for centuries to come? Well, the tax collector stands “a good distance off” from The Temple, does not “lift his eyes to heaven.” He is a humble person; and in his humility he prays “God, grant mercy to me, a sinner.” It is that prayer which has become the basis for the Jesus Prayer, “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Twelve words with the power to change our lives: “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Father Lev Gillet, known as “A Monk of the Eastern Church” has written that, and I quote, “The name of Jesus, once it has become the centre of our life, brings everything together” [The Jesus Prayer, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, p. 5].  Father Lev continues: “The name of Jesus is a filter [that is, a way to remove impurities] through which should pass only thoughts, words and acts [in keeping] with the divine and living reality [of Christ] which this name symbolizes. The growth of the name [of Jesus within us],” concludes Father Lev, “implies a corresponding [reduction] of our separated self, a daily death to the self-centredness from which all sin is derived” (p. 96).

In other words, as we say the Jesus Prayer, either silently or out loud, we seek to keep in our minds only the “thoughts, words and acts” of Jesus Christ. Each of us do have in our minds already those “thoughts, words and acts” of Jesus Christ. As the concluding sentence of today’s Epistle reading from St Paul to St Timothy makes clear, “As for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed . . . and [continue to remember] how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” [end of quote]. However, the reality that we all face is that we have other things in our minds besides the “thoughts, words and acts of Jesus Christ.” As St John Chrysostom has written of this epistle from the Letter to Second Timothy, chapter 3, verse 15, “God dispenses all things [that is, God gives out all things]… He provides for all, [but] we are free agents [and] some things [God] works and some things He permits. Indeed,” continues St John, “God wills nothing evil to be done, for all things are done by His will but some [things are done] by ours also. All evil things are done by our [wills] alone, [but] all good things [are done] by our will [jointly] with His influence. Thus,” continues St John, “nothing is without His knowledge. Therefore, He works all things. You then, knowing [how God works in your lives] can [decide] what things are good, what are evil and what are indifferent.”

St John Chrysostom and many other saints in many countries and in many centuries have indeed been able to filter out any “thoughts, words and acts” that are not of Jesus Christ. My experience is that filtering out anything that is not from Jesus Christ is hard to do. We have a lot of thoughts, words and actions going through our minds all the time.  However, Father Lev has explained to us how we can do it. Learn to die every day, Father Lev urges us, “to the self-centredness from which all sin is derived.” It is important then to examine our lives honestly—in prayer, in thoughts, in conversations—and to seek to see ourselves as Christ sees us. If we can learn to see ourselves as Christ sees us, then we can indeed filter out of our minds any thoughts, words and actions that are not of Christ.

In the book, The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves (Vintage Books, 2014), the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz points out how important it is to pay attention to each other—to pay attention to each other’s hopes and needs. Dr Grosz admits that “being present, whether with children, with friends, [and especially] with oneself, is always hard work. But,” he urges that “this attentiveness—the feeling that someone is trying to think about us—[is] something we want [and need] far more than [we need any] praise” [p. 22]. Dr. Grosz is perhaps not aware of it, but the person who is always thinking about us, encouraging us and guiding us is Jesus Christ Himself.

In Charles Dickens’ novel, A Christmas Carol, the selfish and nasty Ebenezer Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning “thinking in a new way; he can change his present.” Dr Grosz reflects about A Christmas Carol that “change can only take place in the here and now. This is important,” concludes Dr Grosz, “because trying to change the past can leave us feeling helpless, depressed” [p. 114]. Now, whatever we have done in the past, it is certainly right to ask forgiveness of our past sins—to ask forgiveness from Christ Himself, and if appropriate, from those against whom we have sinned. But once we have admitted our sins, then we are free to live in the present, to be attentive to those around us and to grow in our relationship to Jesus Christ. We can indeed live now and in the future, committed solely to the thoughts, words and actions of Jesus Christ.

Let us today remember the humility and wisdom of the tax collector, as we say together the Jesus Prayer: “Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”