Pharisee, Prostitute, Tax Collector

To the Pharisee, prostitute

Tax collector too

The leper, the sinner

Untouchables who

Cannot help themselves,

Change themselves,

Save themselves while

The world has decided

The names they’ll go by

To the failure, the fraudster

The phoney, the freak

The wicked, the woeful

The willful, the weak

Your lives are now set for you

In stone like a tomb

And every pathway now

Chosen for you

Be you branded a bigot

A harlot or worse

There’s no life for you

Under this curse

And how it weighs you down

Like a burden borne on sodden ground

To the Pharisee, prostitute,

Tax collector too

The leper, the sinner

Untouchables who

Cannot help themselves,

Change themselves,

Save themselves while

There’s One walks among you

With fullness of life

For the failure he comes

And the wicked he calls

Out of their bonds

No more judged by their falls

And to no longer stick to the script

They’ve received

To know themselves love,

Now to trust and believe

Be you branded a bigot

A harlot or worse

There’s life in abundance

An end to this curse

There’s One to save you now

And set your feet on solid ground

Yes there’s One to save you now

And set your feet on solid ground

For every life that’s diminished, undone

In this litany of losers, of which I am one

But one now who knows himself in whole,

Not in part

Whate’er else I am,

I’ve been loved from the start.

Chorus

To the Pharisee, prostitute,

Tax collector too

The leper, the sinner

Untouchables who

Are called now to know themselves

By more than their sin

Though poor in the spirit

There’s riches within.