Pentecost 22

Pentecost 22 (Luke 18:9-14)
“He who exalts himself will be humbled.”

Pride goeth before a fall. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins and is in fact near the root of all sin.

We hear the voice of pride in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the tax collector. According to the standards of the day the Pharisee is the virtuous religious and patriotic man. The tax collector is a traitor to his nation, his religion and to ordinary ethical standards of behavior.

Tax Collectors worked for Rome. They extorted money from ordinary citizens to enrich themselves. They stayed away from the synagogues and the Temple. People hated them. They despised and used the people. They were the bad guys in every morality tale and in every religious parable.

Pharisees would not even peak with Romans. They kept themselves separated from pagans. They worshipped regularly in the Temple, studied the scriptures in the synagogue, and gave money to support the religious institutions of Israel. They were the good guys in the morality tales and religious parables of the time.

Jesus reversed the standard roles assigned to these two people to illustrate a point. The Bible often confounds people by praising those whom the world condemns. It is a way to get people to think outside the box. It is a way to break through layers of cultural expectations and demands to the truth God wants to reveal to people.

Jesus inverted the expected roles of the Pharisee and the Publican in his parable to demonstrate a very precise and important point. That point might be summarized in the statement: the “I”s have it.

The Pharisee begins his prayer with the word “I’. That word defines his prayer. That prayer forms his worship. That worship reveals who he is and who he is choosing to become.

The Pharisee prays, God, I thank you that I am not like other people. And then he lists all the sins and sinners in the world , all of the things he asserts he is not; and, of the things that set him apart from and superior to everyone else. In fact, all of the things he lists are sins. His assessment of these activities is correct.

Next, he lists all of his virtues, good works, and religious observances. I fast. I give. I- me. Once again, the things he is doing are good. The defect is the motive. The motive is revealed in that little word “I” that so dominates his prayer that it leaves no room for God.

For the Pharisee, God is simply the backlighting that reveals the Pharisee’s own stellar spiritual condition. God is simply a rhetorical device the Pharisee can summon to contrast his virtue with the Publican’s vice.

He had so much going for him. He had achieved so much. But, he used it to glorify himself. I. me. His motive was no different than the motive which led the Publican into a life of sin. Me. What’s in it for me. Where the Publican asserted his self indulgent pride by breaking the law, the Pharisee asserted his self indulgent pride by asserting that he had kept the law.

Both men were self absorbed. Both men made choices to assert their will to power to dominate their world. One dominated by sin. The other dominated by an outward display of virtue.

The difference comes when the Publican prays. There is no “I” in his prayer. There is no comparison to others. He doesn’t say: God, I may not be all that good but at least I’m not a Samaritan. Those guys are really disgusting. He doesn’t say that. He simply stands before the living God.

There. In the Divine Presence, God’s holiness reveals the Publican’s many sins and his single virtue. He has one virtue left. Just one. It is enough. The virtue is humility. In the Divine Presence he has the one quality that God seeks from all people. He has the humility to accept the truth.

He is a sinner. He deserves judgment. As he recognizes this aspect of himself he does not try to argue with God. He does not try to blame others. He accepts full responsibility for his sin and simply asks for mercy. God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

The Pharisee stood in the Divine Presence and compared himself to the sinners. His conclusion was: I am here to show you, God. How wonderful I am. I need nothing from you because I have already done it all. So thank you God that I am so righteous and everyone else is so sinful.

Jesus said: it was the Publican who experienced reunification (justification) with God. The Pharisee was simply there to tell God how wonderful he was. His pride would not allow him to admit that he, too, for all of his good deeds, needed to be reunited to God through God’s justifying grace.

This is the core of the Good News. All have sinned. All need to be reunited to God. In Jesus Christ, God has accomplished this reunification and now offers the blessing as a gift. We need only receive the gift to experience the blessing.

It is so straightforward. It is so simple. But, it is not easy. It requires we stop comparing ourselves to others. It requires a shift in our awareness. It requires a transformation in our basic attitude to ourselves, others, the world around us, and God.

Pride is the great obstacle to salvation. Pride inflates the ego. The ego builds itself by comparing itself to others, condemning others and blaming others. The soul which is caught in pride is a soul that is creating its own destruction. Pride has no room for grace. Pride says, I can do it. I know what is best. Religious pride says: I know the best way to practice my religion. My God would never condemn me or anyone for our honest opinions.

Secular pride says: I am fine just the way I am. I don’t need a religious crutch to help me through life. I believe in myself. That is all I need to survive and thrive.
Humility starts when we can say: there is a mystery to life. I can’t figure it all out. I am not the superior individual I thought I was. I am willing to learn. I am even willing to unlearn what I have been taught. I am even willing to listen to the most improbable of stories ever written: the stories about Jesus.

Those who exalt themselves build a false ego based on false assumptions about themselves, other people, even God. These false assumptions are so embedded in our culture that we take them for granted. We take them for granted in much the same way people in Jesus’ time took for granted that the hero of the story should be the righteous Pharisee and the villain the corrupt Tax Collector.

God sees things from a very different perspective. God’s perspective is revealed in part in the Bible. God’s perspective is fully and completely revealed in his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

Those who know that they know about God, whether religious or secular- don’t know. They have no room in their minds, hearts or wills to experience the infinite and eternal reality that is God. They have no need of faith. They have knowledge. They are their own God.

Those who think they know about God are a little closer to faith. Whether religious or secular, righteous or sinful, they have some room to consider another possibility. They have the some place where the seed of faith might fall and grow and blossom.

Those who know they don’t know are blessed. They are the ones who stand in the Divine Presence with an attitude of humility. Whether they are religious or secular, righteous or sinful, their prayer is: God be merciful to me . God- be who you are and transform me according to your divine nature.

Those who know they don’t know are those who have entered into the Divine Presence with the necessary and sufficient humility to acknowledge a reality beyond themselves, beyond their false ego, beyond their preconceived ideas about knowledge and power. These are the ones who experience exaltation in the steadfast holy love of the divine nature.

Through pride we fall into the inner recesses of our own egos.
Through humility, we stand before God by grace through faith so that God can lift us up and bless us in the Mystery of Divine Love made flesh and revealed in Jesus Christ.