Last Sunday we listened to the first of two parables about praying. Recall that it dealt with the woman who kept pestering the corrupt judge with her needs until he finally gave up and gave in. This week (Luke 18:9-14) we hear the second parable, addressed specifically to those who pride themselves by praying and reminding God how they are not like others less “virtuous.”
The self-righteous and others-critical are represented by the first pray-er, the Pharisee. He is pictured as praying to himself and also about himself. He does not need anything, any grace, any relationship with God. He seems to be preening himself and loving his self-virtuous feathers. He wants God’s approval for all his wonderful deeds in keeping the Law. He is not like “that other guy”, the tax collector, in the back of the temple where he barely belongs.
This tax collector, the most despised of all within the Jewish community, has no feathers to preen. Jesus presents him as praying, not to himself, but about himself and about his real self. He has come to his senses, as did the Prodigal Son, and has come to ask for God’s recovery and reorientation, rather than God’s applause. He knows the truth about himself and relies on God’s true self to be true in forgiving.
When the dust of the parable settles, the tax collector goes home justified while it is left to our personal reflections as to where the Pharisee is. Perhaps, like Narcissus of the Greek myth, the Pharisee remains in the temple loving his self-approval. He is seen as the one who exalts himself by not allowing God to be God. The tax collector, on the other hand, humbles himself by allowing God to be merciful and freeing. Humility is being as truly simple as we can about our truth. It is not saying downward falsehoods in God’s presence. The “mercy” for which the tax collector prays is more than judicial acquittal but a healing of spirit that he might return “home” justified by the infinite love of a God who now seems to play favorites, those who are real, truthful, and hence, humble.
I am always struck by the irony that many people today, who claim to be religious in the broad Judeo-Christian tradition, by their words and actions ignore the obvious lessons and teachings of Jesus: Even though God does not play favorites, He has a special concern for the poor; the prayer of the lowly will be heard on high; and God will affirm what is right. Jesus reinforces this message of solidarity with the poor by reminding us that we should be very careful of being convinced of our own righteousness, for by doing so we run the risk of being humbled.
I think moving down the path toward being convinced of our righteousness is inevitable when we focus on ourselves and are not aware of all that is happening around us. When we fail to listen with open ears, minds and especially hearts, we can see only our own troubles and fail to hear the very real cry of all the actual poor people in the midst of our human existence – our oppressed sisters and brothers, both at home and abroad.
Certainly, those of us, or our family and neighbors, who have been harmed financially by recent economic challenges feel poorer materially by the standards of our society. We compare the reduction in our well-being to that of our neighbors and see disparity. But do we truly understand how much better off we are compared to the poor in so many parts of the rest of the world? Do our news stories and papers and magazines compare our material well-being in Our Town, USA to the people dying daily in Africa, Europe, and Asia? Do we create false comparisons by not seeing ourselves as part of a community of humankind, instead of merely neighbors in Middleburg America?
Have we become convinced of our own righteousness when we seek to exclude rather than provide refuge to our oppressed sisters and brothers who are displaced by war and famine and disease in their native countries? Have we become convinced of our own righteousness when we are not sensitive to the cries of people who are physically and emotionally harmed because of their skin color, or their economic status, or their religious traditions; or their addictions, or their desire to live in families as they feel God has called them to do? Have we become convinced of our own righteousness when we feel resentful for all that we do not have, instead of being grateful for even the very breath that keeps us alive at this moment? Have we become convinced of our own righteousness when we feel entitled to all we think we control instead of generously relinquishing control to our loving God, as Jesus so poignantly taught us to do?
The Lord hears the cry of the poor. Doesn’t the Lord expect us also to hear the cry of the poor? The Lord gave us ears to hear and hearts of compassion and free will to hear that cry and to see and to act. Doesn’t the Lord expect us to rescue these poor through our actions? Jesus taught us over and over to do what we are able to do for the least among us. When we act for those who are oppressed, and serve the Lord by comforting them in their time of need, are we not humbling ourselves by recognizing that our positions of relative privilege and good fortune are not a right to be hoarded but are gifts to be shared?
My prayer for all of us today is for the grace to hear the cry of the poor, and to act on what we hear.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!