“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” – Luke 18:14
The Gospel passage for this upcoming Sunday is one of my favorites. It is a parable, wherein Jesus pits a proud Pharisee against a repentant tax collector. Both come to the Temple to pray. The Pharisee makes a spectacle of himself as he boasts of his adherence to the law. Meanwhile, the tax collector kneels down in the presence of the Lord and begs for mercy because of his many sins.
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| Jesus calls Matthew from among the businessmen of Capernaum. http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/V0034720.html |
Can you guess which of these two characters made the more authentic prayer? Of course, it was the tax collector, who ironically, was the more honest of the two. He admitted his own sinfulness, but the Pharisee did not. The Pharisee believed he was quite righteous, especially compared to that lousy tax collector. Yet, even though he kept all the laws and did many good deeds, the Pharisee was not perfect. He could not admit what St. Paul put so eloquently in his letter to the Romans, that “all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God” (3:23).
As G.K. Chesterton once noted, “A saint is someone who knows he is a sinner.” The Pharisee’s hidden downfall was the age-old sin of pride. He simply thought too highly of himself. That kind of attitude makes it difficult to be in right-relationship with God, because it is not rooted in the Truth.
Do you want to see God as He truly is? Then you must learn to see yourself as you truly are. That is why the tax collector “went away justified” while the Pharisee did not (Luke 18: 14). To be justified means to be properly aligned. The proper alignment of man in relation to God is a posture of humility.
We imperfect beings must bow before the Perfect One. We poor creatures must bend the knee before our all-powerful Creator. We foolish know-it-alls must acknowledge that only God is omniscient.
Thankfully, however, that is not the extent of our relationship with God. We were not merely made to be submissive minions of a tyrannical overlord. We were created to be sons and daughters of the King.
Perhaps that is the more “positive” side of humility. As much as God demands our obedience, He can also inspire great courage and confidence within us with His Fatherly love. Yes, we are weak and poor compared to Him, but He is strong, and He is on our side. He wants to fight for us; He wants to save us from our sins. We just need to be humble enough, like the tax collector, to let Him do so.
Merciful Father, You hear the cry of the poor. We humbly implore you to defeat all evildoers and console the brokenhearted, through Your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
