Let's examine the tax collector's prayer. It seems at first that he does it all wrong. He stands at a distance. He doesn't even lift up his eyes - he fails to assume the proper position of prayer. But how totally unimportant are those external issues. Here is a poem by Sam Walter Foss, The Prayer of Cyrus Brown says it so well:

The proper way for a man to pray,

Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,

And the only proper attitude

Is down upon his knees.

No, I should say the way to pray,

Said Reverend Doctor Wise,

Is standing straight with outstretched arms

And rapt and upturned eyes.

Oh, no, no, no, said Elder Slow,

Such posture is too proud.

A man should pray with eyes fast-closed

And head contritely bowed.

It seems to me his hands should be

Austerely clasped in front

With both thumbs pointing toward the ground,@

Said Reverend Doctor Blunt.

Lasts year I fell in Hidgekin's well

Headfirst, said Cyrus Brown,

With both my heels a -stickin' up

And my head a-pointin' down.

And I made a prayer right then and there,

The best prayer I ever said,

The prayingest prayer I ever prayed,

A-standin' on my head.

The tax collector would have identified well with ol' Cyrus Brown. He understood that what God wanted was not elegant speech or a certain posture. God was interested in the sincerity and earnestness of the tax collector's heart. Someone has called the tax collector's prayer a holy telegram. Another description could be - a short, pithy, right-to-the-point prayer. Most of all, a TRUE prayer, genuine and from the heart.

Luke 18: 9-14