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The Good (Man’s Prayer) Life
Here’s this fellow, let’s call him Simon. He’s a good egg. Ask anyone—his neighbors, his coworkers, his wife, his kids—they will tell you, “Simon? He’s a good egg.”
Simon is squared away. He has his life together. He makes a good living, lives in a nice house, loves his wife and kids, is community-minded, has a good temperament, and is generous to boot. He is uber-religious. If the sanctuary doors are open, he’s in attendance. He gives his tithe and then some. He even fasts on the regular.
Just the other day, Josephus, a coworker, asked Simon if he wanted to grab lunch down at Dave’s Deli.
“No, thanks. I appreciate the offer,” says Simon with a sacrificial look in his eye and a reverent tone in his voice. “I am spending the day in fasting and prayer.”
Sure enough, while enjoying his sandwich and wine on that fine fall afternoon, eating on a park bench under a fig tree, Joe (short for Josephus, of course) sees Simon ascending the steps of the temple, headed to prayer. And now Joe thinks the bagel sandwich with the sweet red wine to wash it down feels a little extravagant—and maybe even sinful.
Ol’ Simon. He’s hard to live up to, that guy.
The Low (Man’s Prayer) Life
From his park bench picnic perch, Joe spots Judas, not Iscariot. He immediately feels a pinch of anger in his gut. Judas is a household name in the neighborhood. He is a blight on the community, an enemy to his own people. Judas is a Publican. He works for the wicked and oppressive Roman government, and their infernal revenue service, collecting taxes from his own people, the Jews.
Even his parents have as little to do with Judas as possible. His wife, Abigail, has no friends to gossip with while doing the wash, no girlfriends to pick figs with or hang out with down in the shopping district – all thanks to Judas. Of course, also thanks to Judas and his penchant for over-collection, – rumor has it he gets to keep all overages on taxes collected – he and Abby and their growing brood live in the nicest house in the best cul de sac in the community.
Joe observes the scoundrel’s slumped shoulders and the way he slinks into the shadow of the temple, not daring to go inside.
“Serves him right,” Joe mumbles to himself. “What business has he worshiping with a man as fine as Simon?”
The Parabolic Prayer Meeting
Inside the temple, Simon struts to the altar to offer his thanks, while outside, Judas shivers in the shadows. Simon is there to be seen. Judas hopes not to be noticed.
Did you ever see a Thanksgiving social media prayer that looked like a brag montage? They are just so thankful that they are so wonderful and blessed with such skills, beauty, and excellence. It’s basically a (somewhat) subtler version of the NFL’s notorious Terrell Owens’ declaration, “I love me some me!”
It may actually be worse than Owens’ pathetic assertion because it adds, “…and, apparently, so does God because, you know, why wouldn’t he? Look at me.”
Thanksgiving prayers of this nature are nothing new. In one of his parables, Jesus talked about a guy who prayed this way.
[NOTE: Parables “were earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.” They Were anecdotal. They were not necessarily allegorical or made up. The story may or may not reference an actual person or event. But it can.]
To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the other men—swindlers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I acquire.’
But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.’
— LUKE 18: 9-14, BEREAN STUDY BIBLE
In Whose name we pray and with thanksgiving… Amen!
Society celebrates her Simons. Christ redeems and justifies the Judases.
By the way, I get the irony of the common and well-known names I assigned these fictional men. Do you get why I did it? There is no salvation in any name that is not Jesus. Nor is there eternal glory in another.
The worst Thanksgiving prayer is the prayer of self-righteousness and self-sufficiency.
… for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do so much more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
— EPHESIANS 3:14-21, BEREAN STUDY BIBLE
