On Friday
afternoon, I attended a meeting that included about 50 people, including
senior administrators, middle-managers, and representatives of the
organization’s professional divisions and support staff. As the meeting
wore on, the room in which the meeting was being held grew increasingly
cold. While I prefer the temperature to be colder than warmer, I did
notice that the room was getting pretty cold because the tips of my
fingers felt like they were freezing.
As I surveyed the
room, I noticed a few participants getting up from their chairs to fetch
their jackets and coats. One participant, the woman seated immediately
to my right, had already put on her coat. She began to complain under
her breath how cold it was getting and stated her hope that the meeting
would end soon, before she froze to death. I didn’t offer her much hope
because, although we were about half way through the published agenda,
the meeting was only about one third completed. I knew one of the items
yet to be discussed would take a lot of time.
As I refocused
upon the discussion, another participant―one of the senior
managers―interrupted to ask the Chair if something could be done to turn
up the heat. While the Chair was processing the question―this couldn’t
have taken more than one split second―the Senior Vice President of
Administration leaned forward in his seat, craned his neck to the left,
looked directly at the senior manager who was seated at the far end of
the long conference table, and said, “Sure, why don’t you just keep
talking.”
Everyone in the
room burst out in laughter. Everyone except, of course, the senior
manager, who I could tell from the stunned look on her face was busy
trying to craft a clever retort. Unable to come up with one, she said
in a somewhat sarcastic tone: “That was good. Re---al----ly good.”
That’s was it.
That’s all she said.
In think that was
all she could say in response to the joke made at her expense. She
simply was had. That’s all there was to it. There was no suitable
self-defense now that the missile the Senior Vice President of
Administration fired across her port bow had obliterated its intended
target. The best thing she could do was simply to laugh at herself
along with the rest of group. Which she did.
I’m sure that
many of us have found ourselves seated in that senior manager’s chair.
And, when someone has made a joke at our expense, perhaps laughing at
ourselves along with the rest of the group is about the best we could
do, too. However, unlike this senior manager, although we may
laugh at ourselves, we also grow resentful and angry toward those who
make an embarrassing joke or comment at our expense. And, then, as
hostility takes root in and extends its sinews around our hearts
squeezing out any humility that might be present, we become convinced of
our self-righteousness. We actually believe that we are justified to
hold those other people in contempt, no matter what the reason.
The Russian
writer, Anton Chekhov, once noted, “You don’t become a saint by naming
other people’s sins.” Now, there’s an insight into self-righteousness
because we’ve all been told “When you point the finger of blame at
others, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.” There is
perhaps no other more destructive attitude than self-righteousness
because it enables us to act out our resentment and anger under the
arrogant disguise of holiness.
That’s what Jesus
was talking about in today’s gospel when he told his disciples the
parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector.
Both men are
honest men. They are who they claim to be.
The tax collector
knew himself to be a traitorous Jew who worked on behalf of a foreign
occupying government. Furthermore, he knew what his fellow Jews thought
about him and how they’ve judged him. The Jews viewed the tax collector
in much the same way that Bathist Iraqis today look upon their fellow
Iraqis who collaborate with members of the Coalition and the Iraqi
Provisional Government. Think about those hundreds of Iraqi men who
have been assassinated because they just wanted to make a decent salary
as policemen so, in turn, they could provide for the needs of their
families. The Jews reviled the tax collector equally; but, the only
reason they didn’t attack, beat, punish, or even put the tax collector
to death is that the occupiers provided him protection. The Romans knew
that without his services, they wouldn’t be able to extort taxes out of
the Jewish populace.
The Pharisee also
is the person he claims himself to be. He was a good man; in fact, he
really was superior to many of his fellow Jews in terms of his
religion. He kept laws of the Torah faithfully and fulfilled its every
precept, sometimes even going beyond what the law required. The
Pharisee also knew that his fellow Jews viewed him in much the same way
that the followers of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s in Najaf, Iraq, view
him today. Al-Sadr’s followers believe him to be a wise and holy man,
one whose advice is trustworthy not only because he knows and
understands the laws of the Koran but also because he lives them each
and every day and exhorts his fellow co-religionists to do the same.
Yet, while each
of these two men knew and was the person he claimed to be, there was a
big difference between the two, spiritually speaking. The tax collector
clearly understood where he stood in relation to God as this can be
gleaned from his prayer, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner. In
contrast, the Pharisee told God where he stood in relation to other
people as can be gleaned from his prayer, “O God, I thank you that I am
not like the rest of humanity….”
The tax collector
understood that if he was to have any hope whatsoever, it would only be
at the hands of a God who was just, yet merciful . As we heard in
today’s reading from Sirach: “The Lord is a God of justice, who knows no
favorites.” So, using as the standard of comparison where he stood in
relation to God, the tax collector’s prayer revealed the distance this
man knew he had wandered from God. And, in all honesty, the tax
collector portrayed himself in his prayer exactly as what he knew
himself to be, namely, “scum of the earth.”
Is this how we
approach God in prayer? Are we honest, identifying the divide we’ve
created between ourselves and God? Do we “break open our hearts” as we
said in today’s Psalm response, so that by honestly admitting how far
we’ve wandered from God, we might not incur further guilt by taking
refuge instead in God?
Contrast the
prayer of tax collector with that of the Pharisee. This fellow was so
proud of himself and all of his accomplishments that the Pharisee
actually believed God was required to take pride in the Pharisee and his
accomplishments. In the Pharisee’s mind, he was fully and completely
justified; he had no need for God’s mercy. So, using as the standard of
comparison where the Pharisee stood in relation to his fellow Jews, the
Pharisee believed himself completely justified in telling God how God
should look upon him, quite literally, as a “poster child” for Jewish
holiness.
Is this how we
approach God in prayer? Do we tell God about all of the ways in which
we’ve fulfilled our religious obligations, how justified we are because
we’ve gone to Church, contributed to the support of the Church,
participated in the sacraments, provided assistance to the needy, and
the like? (Well, maybe not “told” God. How about believed that God
owes us or that God couldn’t possibly judge us harshly because so many
other people are worse than we are?)
From God’s
perspective, however, the difference between the prayers of the two men
couldn’t have been more obvious. The tax collector exuded humility, a
man who realized the truth about himself and his wicked choices, to the
point that the tax collector feared even to walk into the Temple and to
place himself in God’s presence. But, the Pharisee, puffed up by pride,
believed himself wholly justified not only to enter the Temple but also
to take the first seat and in the first pew, for all to behold.
As this parable
indicates, the temptation to self-righteousness is one of if not perhaps
the primary temptation confronting people who strive to walk the pathway
of holiness. Self-righteousness begins with a simple decision, that is,
the decision to make a positive comparison of oneself in relation to
another person or other persons rather than in relation to God.
We do this, for
example, when we decide to talk, gossip, or complain about other
people. They could be co-workers, a boss, classmates, family members, a
brother or sister, or even a spouse. No matter who these people are, we
speak about them in a way that makes these other people look worse in
comparison to ourselves. After a long day at work, in school, or a
tense situation at home, we might say, “Well, at least I’m as bad
as…(fill in the blank).” We do this when we come to church on Sunday
and compare ourselves to the people seated beside, in front of, behind
us, or even outside church in all of those other places of our daily
lives. And, judging from what our feelings betray about all of those
people, we justify our self-righteousness and grow increasingly
indignant and harsh in our judgments about them and arrogant in our
assessment of ourselves.
It’s much harder
to compare ourselves to God. In a homily Pope John Paul II delivered in
1986, he noted:
The Word of God
returns insistently…to the value and necessity of humility. It is a very
important lesson, which we must learn well if we truly desire to walk on
the way of truth. In fact, humility is truth. The first fundamental
truth is the absolute transcendence of God the Creator, manifested in
the infinite goodness of Christ the Redeemer: this is the supreme and
decisive reality, in the face of which the person feels both exalted as
a [child] and abased as a lowly creature who can boast of nothing.
So, in light of
today’s readings, it is important that all of us ask ourselves some
pretty challenging questions: Am I really as perfect as I believe I am?
If so, why is it that I don’t read and study the Bible as I ought? that
I don’t pray as I ought? that I don’t celebrate the Sacrament of Penance
as I ought? that I don’t give from my abundance to the Church, the poor,
the needy, and the destitute as I ought? that I don’t believe that
prohibitions concerning immoral and illegal behavior apply in my case?
that I think I can do whatever I want and whenever I want to do it? And,
most importantly: that I don’t love God as I ought?
When we compare
ourselves to the standard of perfection that is God, as Pope John Paul
II reminds us, the fig leaves of prideful self-righteousness are peeled
away and we suddenly realize that our choices have made us look a lot
more like the Pharisee than the tax collector.
That’s the
spiritual problem Jesus addresses in today’s gospel. While many of us
probably think the message of today’s gospel can be formulated in the
prayer, “Lord, I thank You that I am not like the Pharisee,” our
imperfection testifies that we are just like the Pharisee who we so
desperately want to pretend we’re not like. We’re so obsessed with what
we’ve done, what we haven’t done, what we should do and what others
should or shouldn’t do according to our rules and expectations that we
not only lose sight of God but we also compare ourselves not to God’s
perfection but according to the imperfections we point out to God about
others.
The Catechism
of the Catholic Church asks:
When we pray, do we
speak from the height of our pride and will, or “out of the depths” of a
humble and contrite heart? He who humbles himself will be exalted;
humility is the foundation of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge
that “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” are we ready to receive
freely the gift of prayer. “[A human being] is a beggar before God.” (#
2559)
This realization
should cause us to fall to our knees when we enter church, just as the
tax collector fell to his knees upon entering the Temple. Or, unlike
the tax collector, perhaps this realization so embarrasses us that we
fear even coming to church, of entering its doors, and of availing
ourselves of the healing that is only available in the Church and its
sacraments. Thank God, the tax collector did enter the Temple and,
hopefully, we enter the church, too.
When we compare
ourselves to God rather than to other human beings, as the tax collector
did, we grow in the virtue of humility. People who are humble do not
identify themselves by their proximity to God; no, people who are humble
identify themselves by their accurate assessment of their distance from
God.
For those of us
who have become resentful, angry, and arrogant―who fear coming into the
presence of God because of our wicked choices―there is hope. As the
Protestant minister Terry Cole-Whitakker noted in the title of her book,
Every Saint Has a Past, Every Sinner Has a Future:
People around us can
make it even more difficult for us to release the past and live in the
present. Old friends and family tend to view us as we were and not as
we are.
Family and friends
may feel the need to continually remind us of what we did that wasn’t
okay or what we failed to do. Sometimes they don’t say anything; they
don’t need to. Resentment, anger, and judgment pervade the very air we
are breathing in their presence….A relentless stream of thoughts and
conversations about a dead past forces us to perceive and believe that
hope is gone when the truth is, hope is eternal….
The past is valuable
to the degree that we can take the love, lessons, and successes and
apply this knowledge to our present situation. Nothing we can do will
change yesterday, bring back what was, or allow us to regain the lost
moment….A sinner can be transformed into a saint in a flash….There is
hope for everyone. (pp. 2-6)
I believe that,
like Jesus, Terry Cole-Whittaker was speaking about the tax collector,
not the Pharisee. Casting himself upon God’s mercy, the tax collector
had hope. Trusting only in himself, the Pharisee had no hope and
didn’t even realize it. Our goal, as we traverse the pathway of
discipleship, is to pray to God using as the standard of judgment God’s
perfection, not the imperfection of other people and to trust in the
justice and the mercy of God our loving Father not to trust in
ourselves. |