Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
We hear our Lord today addressing the proper attitude in prayer. And what ruins the prayer of the Pharisee was his pride. We don’t hear our Lord say that the Pharisee was greedy, dishonest, or adulterous. So we have no sense of his guilt. But his prayer is tainted, ruined, by his pride; by puffing himself up and gazing inward, rather than gazing towards the Lord in humility. The tax collector, on the other hand, while his physical eyes are not looking toward the Lord, his heart and his mind certainly are pleading with God for His mercy. Christ tells us that the tax collector went home justified, not the Pharisee. This should be no surprise, though, as the prayer of the Pharisee was not seeking justification–right relationship with God–while that was the far-off hope of the tax collector in his prayer.
As a quick tangent, I mentioned last week that I have watched “The Chosen,” a new series that presents the Gospels. It has made me think about certain passages in a new light, not changing what they mean, but changing maybe the background. And I can’t help but wonder if this parable was based upon the prayers that Jesus had seen from a Pharisee, and perhaps from St. Matthew himself, one of the most famous tax collectors in the Gospels. Perhaps St. Matthew, even as a disciple of our Lord, still felt the pain of his former profession, and the shame that accompanied that profession from most Jews, and had made that prayer himself: “‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’”
Ok, back to the main thread. Pride really is something that can ruin our prayer. We see it in the way it is mentioned in the Gospel: I think I am better than someone (or everyone) else. We can also see it when we feel we have to take our salvation in our own hands, or on our own terms. That quintessential American virtue, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, while helpful in our civil life, is deadly in our spiritual life. But pride, in any form, can ruin our prayer, since it seeks to put ourselves in the place of God.
Pride can also rear its ugly head in terms of our relations with others, as it did with the Pharisee in regards to the tax collector. Both were praying; both were worshipping the Lord (at least in theory). But the Pharisee elevates himself over the tax collector. St. Paul reminds us that we receive different gifts from the Holy Spirit, which are all meant to build up the Body of Christ.
But how often do we play the comparison game about which gift is better? St. Paul mentions different manifestations of the Holy Spirit, namely, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues. But all are meant to work together for the good of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church. It is easy, though, to fall into the trap of thinking that our gifts are more necessary. Or maybe to think that someone else’s gifts are more necessary and ours aren’t that important. Instead, we are invited to utilize the gifts that we have, whatever they may be, so that Christ may be all in all.
Even we priests can fall victim to this at times. While we love and support each other as brother priests, it is easy to wish that we had the gift of that priest in that parish to raise money easily. Or that priest whose parish is growing substantially in numbers. Or maybe our homilies are ok, maybe B- caliber, but we wish we had the gift of that priest in the neighboring parish whose homilies are more in the A range. The devil loves to get us with pride, and say that we are better than others, or that we wish we had other gifts than what God gave us. It is the age-old temptation given to Adam and Eve, to try to replace God with ourselves because we know best.
Instead, we utilize our gifts as God has given them to us, not just priests, but all of Christ’s faithful. God calls us not to worry about what gifts the other person has, but to use the gifts that God gave us to do what He has called us to do. It’s like Peter and John at the end of John’s Gospel. We don’t have to worry about the other person, we just follow Jesus.
So this week, let’s work on asking God to help us live the virtue of humility, and asking God to stamp out in us the sin of pride. In prayer we should turn to God, rather than praying to ourselves and self-promoting like the Pharisee. In all things we should welcome the gifts of others, and do the best we can with the gifts we have received. Don’t put hairs and fingernails in your crème brûlée; don’t ruin your prayer or your spiritual life with pride. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
