There was in Jesus' day no greater human contrast than that between the Pharisees and the tax collectors. The Pharisee party consisted of consummate Jewish patriots—the champions of Moses' law, Israel's honor, and God's sovereignty.

Tax collectors, on the other hand, were the consummate Jewish traitors—the rabble who sold their souls to Rome to grow rich from their own people's misery. So intense was the prevailing contempt for tax collectors that the daily prayers of every pious Pharisee included praise to God that he was not, among other things, a tax collector.

It was that kind of sanctimoniousness Jesus critiqued in His story about a Pharisee and a tax collector praying at the temple (Lk. 18:9–14). The Pharisee stood aloof from the unworthy and prayed "about himself" (v. 11). Here we observe the Pharisee's root problem: pride.

The tax collector, however, was no innocent victim of self–righteous bullies. He was a bully himself, mercilessly squeezing the last pennies from feeble widows who would then go to bed hungry while he partied into the night with his barfly buddies. The tax collector earned the hatred of his culture with compounding interest.

The temple was no place for the likes of him, and he knew it. Jesus was alert to his discomfort, describing how he stood "at a distance" (v. 13), not daring to turn his gaze upward lest God condemn him for his insolence. But this taxman was tormented in his soul already. He prayed in an inconspicuous corner of the temple court, humbling himself and calling out to God to grant the only request he could make: "God, have mercy on me, a sinner" (v. 13).

It was a humble prayer. It was a wise prayer (Prov. 11:2). And it was a prayer that God has promised to answer, for "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Lk. 18:14). Prov. 3:34 reiterates that word to the wise: "He mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble."