2 Timothy 3:10-15; Luke
18:10-14
Today we begin the Lenten Triodion, the three-week of
period of preparation for the spiritual journey of following Christ to His
Cross and victory over death at Pascha. The first step in our preparation is to
remember that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (Jas.
4:6) Today the Church reminds us of how
easy it is to distort the spiritual disciplines of Lent in a fashion that makes
them nothing but hindrances to the healing of our souls. Today we are warned that it is entirely
possible to corrupt prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and other laudable practices
according to our own pride such that they become obstacles to receiving the
healing mercy of the Savior.
Contrary to what we are tempted to
think, embracing these disciplines with integrity is not a way to impress God,
ourselves, or our neighbors. It is not a
way of accomplishing anything at all by conventional human standards. Even the most conscientious use of these
practices never justifies having negative opinions or speaking critical words about
anyone else. To the contrary, even our
most feeble attempts to purify the desires of our hearts will quickly reveal
the weakness of our souls. They will bring to the surface how disinclined we
are to be fully present to God, how addicted we are to satisfying our various
appetites, and how much more we care for our own possessions and comfort than
for the wellbeing of our neighbors. We will then face the choice of how to
respond to what we have learned about ourselves. If we want to pursue Lent for the healing of
our sick souls, we must refuse to blind ourselves from the truth about where
stand before the Lord, as did the Pharisee in today’s gospel reading.
The Pharisees were experts in the
Old Testament law, which they interpreted very strictly in terms of outward
behavior. The Pharisee was correct to
fast, tithe, pray, and live a morally upright life. The problem is that he did so in ways that
served his pride to the point of grave spiritual blindness. Instead of pursuing
these disciplines in humility so that he would grow in spiritual clarity and
knowledge of where he stood before God, he used them as justification to condemn
a neighbor. Doing so revealed only his
own sinfulness. We can easily fall into
the same trap this Lent, for there is a strong temptation to ignore the
brokenness of our own souls as we obsess about the apparent failings of
others. As those who confess that we are
each “the chief of sinners” before receiving Communion, we must focus on our
own need for the Lord’s healing mercy and refuse to become the self-appointed
judges of our neighbors. When we embrace such proud delusions, it becomes
impossible for us to follow our Lord to His Passion in a true spiritual sense.
Doing so amounts to refusing to receive His healing mercy, for we will then be
so full of pride that we will imagine we have already reached the heights of
holiness by our own accomplishments. Even as we think that we are models of
righteousness, we will worship only ourselves as we deny our need for the
Savior’s victory over death. Like the
Pharisee, we will use the word “God,” but in reality we will pray only to
ourselves as we wander ever deeper into spiritual blindness.
The more we devote ourselves to
spiritual disciplines, the greater the temptation will likely be to focus on the
apparent failings of others in order to distract ourselves from the great struggle
to become fully present to God, stripped naked of all our pretensions and usual
efforts of self-justification. We need
profound humility to open ourselves to the One Who is “Holy, Holy, Holy” as we
“lay aside all earthly cares” to focus on the one thing needful. When even a glimmer of the brilliant light of
the Divine Glory begins to shine through the eyes of our souls, the darkness
within us becomes obvious. The temptation will then be strong to shift our
attention to whatever we think will distract us from confronting our spiritual
vulnerability.
The Publican was an easy target
for the Pharisee, for tax collectors were Jews who collected money from their
own people to fund the Roman army of occupation. Like Zacchaeus, they collected more than was
required and lived off the difference. The Pharisee believed that he was
justified in looking down on someone who was both a traitor and a thief, even
as we typically think that we are justified in condemning those we love to
hate. Ironically, this tax collector
would not have denied the charge. He knew he was a wretched sinner, and his
only apparent virtue was that he knew he had none. Standing off by himself in the temple, the
man would “not even lift up his eyes to Heaven, but beat his breast,
saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner.’”
Despite his
miserable way of life, the tax collector somehow mustered the spiritual
strength to do something the Pharisee could not: He exposed his soul to the blinding light of
God from the depths of his heart; he made no excuses and did not try to distract
himself from facing the difficult truth.
Christ said that the Publican, not the Pharisee, went home justified
that day. That was not because he had
done more good deeds, obeyed more laws, or been more conventionally religious
or moral, but because he had the humility to encounter God honestly as the
sinner that he was. Such humility is
absolutely essential for opening our souls to the healing mercy of Christ. Without it, pride will destroy the virtue of
everything that we do and plunge us into even greater spiritual darkness and
delusion. But with it, there is hope for
us all to receive the healing mercy of the Lord.
There is surely
no greater sign of the folly of exalting ourselves and condemning others in the
name of religion than the Passion of Christ.
Highly religious people like Pharisees and chief priests rejected Him
and called for His crucifixion because they had blinded themselves spiritually
with their pride and lust for power over other people. It was not the tax collectors and other public
sinners who wanted Him dead, but those who were so self-righteous that they could
accept only a Messiah who confirmed that they were deserving of glory and
praise. They defined themselves as holy
over against “the sinners,” even though they were the guiltiest of all due to
their pride. Had they come to recognize
that and cry out to the Lord from the depths of their hearts for mercy like the
Publican, they surely would have received it.
There is no
clearer warning to us about the dangers of pride corrupting our Lenten
disciplines than today’s gospel reading.
The point is not, of course, that we should all become public criminals,
but that we must use our ascetical practices to grow in humility as those who
know truly our need for the healing mercy of the One Who offered Himself fully
on the Cross and rose in glory for our salvation. Whenever we catch ourselves thinking that at
least we are better than that person or group of people, we must focus our
minds on the words of the Jesus Prayer or otherwise call out to the Lord from
our hearts “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”
If we have identified some earthly agenda with God’s Kingdom such that
we exalt ourselves in our own minds over neighbors who see things differently
and blame them for all the world’s problems, we must likewise fall on our faces
in humility. As the Savior said, “He who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will
be exalted.” Now is the time to prepare
for a spiritually beneficial Lent that will help us grow in the humility
necessary to reorient our lives toward the great joy of Pascha. On
every step of the journey over the next several weeks, let us remember that “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” That is really our only hope to find the
strength to follow the Savior through the horror of His Cross to the
unspeakable joy of His empty tomb.
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