October 27, Ordinary 30C (Luke 18:9-14)
Jesus' characters aren't nuanced; they're all elbows and ankles.
My niece refused to offer a memorized table grace. She insisted that she be allowed to pray extemporaneously for that specific meal. With hands folded, head bowed, and one eye scanning the table, she prayed, “Thank you, God, that Mom mashed potatoes and made gravy. Thank you, God, that there are enough rolls for me to have two. I don’t thank you, God, for the beans. Amen.”
Her prayers were highly contextualized and painfully honest. She was, at the age of five, master of an ancient prayer form and interpreter of a tradition. She was a tiny Pharisee in pigtails.
Jesus has a bur under his saddle about the Pharisees. It’s a shame. They served a vital role in Jewish religious life because they believed the law to be a living, breathing thing. Pharisees held the received (written) law in one hand and the lived (oral) law in the other, interpreting texts in context. Pharisees prayed as did my niece—faithful both to ancient forms and to daily reality.
