Jesus addressed this parable
to those who were convinced of their own righteousness
Jesus used a Pharisee as an obvious example, but we tend to be more like this than we are like to admit. We prefer to be convinced that we are righteous, doing all of the right things, checking all of the right boxes, living in the best way available. But the trouble is that we really want it to be our own righteousness, something which is entirely caused and sustained by our own effort. Why do we prefer this? Because anything else feels too tenuous and insecure and we have a deep desire to feel as though we are in control.
and despised everyone else.
This symptom is a key indicator that we are not free from the need to be responsible for our own righteousness: that of comparing ourselves with others. We might not say that there is anyone whom we really despise. Yet we desire to feel as though our spiritual practices, tithing, fasting, and the rest, compare favorably, or are at least at parity, with others who seem to us to be good people. What can these comparisons mean except that we attribute our righteousness to us and theirs to them? Our egos force us into this competition which in the end has no winners.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself
The Pharisee represented someone so preoccupied with himself, someone so prideful, so intent on self-image, that he no longer even spoke to God about it in his prayers, but rather to himself. He attempted to obscure that truth from his mind by beginning "'O God,'" but the content of his prayer made it clear that he was still the main focus and not the God whom he tacitly acknowledged. Too many of our prayers are also like this, preoccupied with ourselves, and designed to shield our egos from any negativity or correction.
‘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.’
The Pharisee said he thanked God for these things. But he was truly celebrating himself rather than God. Tithing and fasting were good things, and it would have been right to thank God for making possible the righteousness implied thereby. But if he really meant it, he couldn't have pivoted so quickly to comparison with the rest of humanity or the tax collector.
But the tax collector stood off at a distance
and would not even raise his eyes to heaven
It is more difficult to stand alone in prayer, with no others with whom to compare ourselves. With no basis for comparison to assuage our guilt and assure us of some imagined righteousness earned through effort we realize the truth that there is nothing that we have earned, no merit of our own by which we stand before God. We come to see that all depends on his mercy and grace.
but beat his breast and prayed,
‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’
This is our posture in the mass as we pray "Mea Culpa" and it is what we recognize when we say, "I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof". But is it ultimately a posture of despair and self-hatred? Anything but! Once we abdicate the position of responsibility for our own righteousness we can stand aside and instead receive it as a gift. It is a gift that will be forever beyond our complete control, something which will never be properly a boast of our own. Instead it will be something which calls us to genuinely give thanks to God, while forgetting ourselves. It is something that will unite us with the rest of humanity, including the tax collector, since we and they all depend on the same mercy and grace.
Come, let us return to the LORD,
it is he who has rent, but he will heal us;
he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.
He will revive us after two days;
on the third day he will raise us up,
to live in his presence.
The Lord desires to heal us of "piety that is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away". He speaks hard words to us in order to call us out from ourselves, from our rigid need to be in control, and onward and upward into love of God and of our neighbor. It is no exaggeration to say that what we need is a resurrection and a new heart. But this is exactly what he has promised!
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