Thirtieth Sunday
in Ordinary Time Year C
OK, let’s be honest. What are you thinking after you heard
this famous parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector? I guess that many
of us who had listened to today’s gospel would have said in our hearts, “Thank
God, I’m not like the Pharisee.” Most likely, we will naturally and easily
identify with the humble tax-collector, and not the pious, self-righteous
Pharisee. In fact when the Pharisee is mentioned, we can already vividly
picture the familiar face of a contemporary and thinking, “Hmm, this sounds like so-and-so.” But the moment we do that, we’ve fallen
directly into the trap Jesus had set for us here - I have become the very one I
detest. What an irony, that it is so easy to read this parable in a self-congratulatory
way! Faced with two characters, I naturally gravitate towards the one
commended.
When comparing a Pharisee to a tax-collector, the Lord had
chosen the two most opposite figures in the entire Jewish community. The
Pharisee, the separated one, was held to be the best, the most righteous, the
most religious, the most holy and the most godly of all men in Jewish society.
Whereas the tax collector, the lap dog and agent of the hated colonisers, a
profession notorious for its blatant extortion and corruption, was looked on as
the worst, filthiest and traitorous scoundrel imaginable! Then Jesus does the unimaginable – he
switches their positions. The righteous is regarded as the scoundrel and the
scoundrel, the righteous. You can see why, then, that Jesus’ conclusion of this
parable literally stunned His audience. It was an outrageous and politically
incorrect illustration to suggest that a tax collector would be justified and
saved, while a Pharisee would be unforgiven and lost.
However, it is important to note that the crime of the
Pharisee was not his legalism nor his righteous lifestyle. No, he was condemned
because he was blinded by his own self-righteousness. This is why Pharisaism is
so dangerous, because of its subtlety. Our own faults are hidden to us, whereas
the faults of others are always so evident. How easy it is for us to scorn
others and hold them in contempt. How natural for us to think that we are
healthy, spiritually balanced and have it altogether, when in reality we are diseased,
dying and far from God. What the Pharisee needed was a healthy dose of
humility, which was the saving grace of the tax collector who had no doubt that
he was a sinner in need of grace and mercy from God.
This humility, this acknowledgement of our utter neediness,
is the heart of true repentance. “A humble and contrite heart, thou, O God,
will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). In God’s order of justice, only those who
accuse themselves of their sins and confess like common criminals can find
forgiveness, just as the one with leprosy can only find healing when he runs to
the nearest physician. It is only when we are condemned in our own eyes, that
we find pardon.
Whether I choose to identify with the Pharisee or the
publican in this story, it can get me into trouble. This is because a spirit of
self-justification and self-righteousness can infect just about anyone. It does
not require that I be religious or to have a spotless reputation, like the
Pharisee. It only requires that I be right in my own eyes. Sinners like the tax
collector can think like that too. No matter who I am, seeing myself as “right”
feels pretty good. This seems to be a common cultural trait among many in
today’s society, those who see no problems with their sinful lifestyle and in
fact do not even recognise the sinfulness of their own actions. Just like the
judgmental Pharisee, those who revel and feel comfortable in their sinful skins
often disdain and even react violently against those striving to seek holiness,
because the latter seems to reveal their own personal faults, just like how a
mirror spotlights what we deem as non-existent blemishes in our complexion.
Most people make the common mistake of equating holiness
with self-righteousness or being “holier than thou.” In contemporary times,
holiness has gotten a bad reputation with many young people viewing holiness as
something optional and even legalistic. To them, holiness suggests spiritual
superiority. Pejorative terms, like “holey moley,” are often used to describe someone
prone to exhibit hyper religiosity. The person striving to be holy is often
accused of being neurotically unbalanced and would receive this unsolicited
advice from others, “Don’t try to be so holy!” as if holiness was a form of
disease. Given this confusion, it is
crucial to clear the fog that blurs the lines between holiness and
self-righteous. Every one of us is called to holiness, we are called to be
saints by virtue of our baptism. But how do we live our lives in a holy way
without running the risk of being “Holier than Thou”? Holiness is not “I’m
better than you.” Rather the journey towards Christ acknowledges that we are
all “works in progress” as we seek to allow our maker to shape us and mould us.
Being Christ-like is never about saying “I’m better than you;” it’s about
saying “I love you.”
Therefore the real problem isn’t righteousness or holiness
but self-righteousness. From this safe, lifted-up vantage point as a
“righteous” person, I can look down on the unwashed around me, and feel good
that I am not characterised by their faults. Or, as a sinful outsider, I can
look at myself as being “real” and look down on the respectable folks around me
and condemn them for their hypocritical “fake” religious piety, their “holier
than thou” bearing, and the narrowness and legalism of their lifestyle. So the
righteous look down on sinners and thank God that they are not like them.
Whilst the sinners look down on the righteous and assert that they wouldn’t be
caught dead being such snobs, openly suspecting it’s all a big act put on by
whitewashed tombs. Slippery slopes abound on either side when our attention
focuses on others or on ourselves in comparison to others, whether from the
side of the Pharisee or the tax collector.
As usual, the
ever-wise C.S. Lewis had his finger on the pulse of the matter here. In Mere
Christianity
, he wrote: “Whenever
we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good above all,
that we are better than someone else I think we may be sure that we are being acted
on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God
is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small,
dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.”
So then, how should we read this parable? We should read it
looking only at Jesus. Not at the Pharisee. Not at the tax collector.
Trying to identify with either of them in contrast to the other, leads only to
spiritual pride regardless of which one I’m pointing to. But when I look at
Jesus and realise that He is pointing me to God, who alone has the power to
forgive me and sanctify me, then I will take the appropriate position of
turning towards Him. Comparison with others will not cross my mind. In a
desperation that consumes all my energies, I will find myself crying out for
His word of forgiveness and mercy. My concentration will become incredibly
focused, not on myself, not on others, but on the One who made me, who knows
me, who speaks the truth to me, who invites me to wholeness and a life of
holiness once again.
The truth is, we are all desperately in need of God’s
healing and forgiveness. We are all sinners; there is no place for us to
despise or condemn anyone but ourselves. What pleases God is that we bring to
Him, not our ability and sufficiency, but our emptiness. What God desires is
that we acknowledge our sin and need of forgiveness. God desires that we come
before Him, not brimming over with foolish self-confidence, but broken in
spirit, humbled by an awareness of how far we fall short. That’s the person,
Jesus tells us, whom God will lift up and exalt. Not the person who thinks that
God needs him, but the one who knows that he needs God.
