Hamburgers on Wednesday. It’s that time again — we’re on the big countdown to Lent, but this week is fast-free. So why the week of exemption? Orthodixie had and interesting thought on that:

…this is a fast free week, so that when we eat our ice cream on Wednesday and pizza on Friday we will remember that we sin like the Publican more than we fast like the Pharisee, so we should be humble like the first — AND fast like the second.

Oh dear. That means the lessons of Lent have begun already, which I suppose is the point of the pre-Lenten Sundays. Well, perhaps I can start by taking a closer look at the icon of the Pharisee and the Publican. I forgot to notice it this Sunday, but usually I take time to read that one. (For those less familiar with icons: owing to the amount of narrative detail, we say that iconographers “write” icons, rather than paint them — and that we “read” them, rather than look at them.) But the week’s not over yet — let me do it now.


On the face of it, this icon seems just to illustrate the parable. It uses the device of split action to show movement and progression, and so the figures cross in an X-shape. At the top, both figures pray before the Temple, whose curtain appears to be drawn aside. The figure with the upraised arms we know must be the Pharisee caught in the moment of his self-justifying prayer “God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” The other figure who doesn’t look toward the Temple must be the Publican who can only say “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

At bottom, the figures leave, and we know from the parable that the Pharisee who exalted himself before God — and who doesn’t even look back as he goes — went away still in his sins. The Publican who couldn’t even raise his eyes to heaven in his humility looks back to the Temple as he leaves and has his hands in a gesture of supplication — and he is the one who was justified.

And there’s something else in this icon. When I was using it to teach a catechumen’s class in icons, I became curious about the placement of the figures. In the language of icons, the placement of right and left is often used to signify piety and impiety respectively, in which case the Pharisee should be on the left when he leaves and the Publican on the right. And yet they’re not — and enough emphasis is put on the point to cross them over from one side to the other. But then I realized that that was a matter of perspective. From the viewer’s perspective — which is what I would have if I were in the Temple observing these two men — the Pharisee leaves on the right. If I were someone in the Temple, I would look at the two and think what a holy man that Pharisee was and what a sinner that Publican must be. But if I were looking out from behind the curtain of the Holy of Holies — from God’s perspective — the positions are reversed. “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

We don’t see ourselves or each other as God sees us, unless He deigns to grant us vision by His grace. Occasionally, if I am poor in spirit (as opposed to being fainthearted), I might know a little of the truth concerning myself — as far as I’m able to bear it. But as rare as that is, what should make me think that I could look at others and presume to know what they’re up against and how they’re faring?