Saturday of the Third Week of Lent
Jesus addresses a parable to all of us today. Our Lord reminds each one of us that we are sinners in need of God’s mercy. May the life-giving words of the Gospel call us to repentance and deep conversion this day. And may we pray with sincerity the verse before the Gospel, If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Our text begins, “Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.” At first glance, you and I may be tempted to gloss over this preamble. We might be quick to say, oh that’s not me – I don’t despise anyone; I’m not convinced of anything when it comes to my holiness . . . but let’s linger here for a moment. Pride is the excessive love of one’s own excellence and a refusal to acknowledge dependence on God. St Thomas Aquinas considered the capital sin of pride the “queen of all vices.” The verse above can be literally translated, “. . . trusting in themselves that they are righteous . . .” Spiritual pride is an insidious manifestation of pride in general. Let us pause for a moment to examine ourselves. Do I trust in myself or in my own righteousness?
The verse continues, “. . . and despised everyone else.” The Greek word translated despised means to despise, treat with contempt, regard as nothing, to esteem not, or reject. The horrible irony is that in harboring contempt toward others, we actually demonstrate contempt toward God! When I regard my neighbor as less than myself, I prove myself guilty of esteeming myself and making ungodly comparisons. My pride is on display. The sin of pride shows up when I believe that I know more or better than others; when I condemn those whom I deem to be wrong or misguided. When I disregard others or their gifts, I show contempt for the God who created them. I have absolutely no way to know the heart or spiritual state of another person; that is why God alone is judge.
Jesus describes two people at prayer, a Pharisee and a tax collector (sinner). “The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’” Notice that he prayed to himself! Our sinful pride keeps us caved in upon ourselves. Let’s be honest, we do behave at times like this religious leader, attempting to justify ourselves in our own eyes by comparing ourselves to others whom we deem to be worse sinners than we are. At least I’m not that bad . . . By putting others down, we somehow inflate ourselves and our Egos in our own esteem.
But the tax collector “beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’” His humble prayer is directed to God, who alone is righteous and who alone can justify. We must recognize, like Hosea reminds us today, “Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away.” And as Isaiah declares, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away” (Isa 64:6). St Paul, quoting Psalm 14:1-3, attests, “. . . None is righteous, no, not one . . .” (Rom. 3:10). Those verses are humbling and sobering, but we must not let the pendulum swing to the opposite extreme and become preoccupied with our own misery – that, too, is pride.
We have hope! God comes to our rescue in Christ! “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). Christ took on our sinful humanity, redeemed us on the Cross, and leads us with him toward glory. God’s desire is that, joining ourselves to him in Christ, who humbled himself for our sake, we take on his divinity. We are not dead in our transgressions and sin. God asks that we maintain a humble posture: loving and esteeming God, self, and neighbor. In God, there is no contempt, there is no disregard; there is only humble, grateful love.
And so, let us walk humbly and joyfully throughout this day, singing with the psalmist, “I will come praising the mighty deeds of the Lord God, I will praise your righteousness, yours alone” (Ps. 71:16).
I’ll see you in the Eucharist,
Elizabeth Wells