It was easy to tell the good guys and the bad guys in the spaghetti Western’s of our culture. The bad guys wore black hats, the good guys wore white ones. That made it pretty simple. Look for the hat and you’ll know. Today’s gospel starts about the same way. We have the obvious good guy – the Pharisee, and the obvious bad guy – the Tax Collector. The prayer of the Pharisee, ‘to himself’ – which may mean either quietly or something else – tells us that he is a good guy. He prays in gratitude, a variation of the ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ prayer – that he is not like others – greedy, dishonest, adulterous. He lists his ‘accomplishments – fasting 104 times a year when only 1 time was required; and tithing on ALL his income, not just the profit margin. He’s wearing a white hat, and wearing it well.
But he makes one mistake with his prayer. For whatever reason, he ‘notices’ the tax collector. He is aware of that other person standing in the back of the church, and from his position in the front, he makes a judgment on the state of the tax collector’s soul. And it just kind of slips out into his prayer: “Thank God that I am not like him…” And in that judgment, it all goes sour. In the midst of his prayer of thankfulness for all God has allowed him to do, you get a glimpse of the pride that spills over into judgment, and all is lost. And you realize suddenly that it is no longer about God, but about him.
The obvious bad guy – the tax collector (read in our day and age: the terrorist, the quisling, the one who sold his country for money, the collaborator with the occupiers) makes no such pretensions. Aware of his need for mercy, he simply asks for that mercy. Nothing else. He came to the temple, seeking mercy and he left living under that mercy. “I tell you the latter went home justified, not the former…”
The difference between the good guy and the bad guy was not their history of good deeds – the Pharisee wins that contest hands down. The difference was in the judgment. The difference was in that insidious attitude, sometimes called pride, that makes us believe we are better than others, and therefore, can look down upon others.
I wonder if this a providential gospel for us to hear during an election year cycle? Isn’t exactly what we hear in every political ad on the radio, tv, and cyber medium: “Voter, I am glad that I am not like my opponent -greedy, dishonest, adulterous, a nasty woman or unfit for office.” In this crazy election process, it seems like we have exalted this negative form of comparison to an art form – and it is hard for us, even in our dealings with one another, to not buy into that world of comparison, that world of putting the other down so that you good by comparison. “Thank you God, that I am not like those politicians running for office…” [And I am so busted, just like the Pharisee.]
Jesus tells us simply – the only attitude that gets noticed by God is the one that takes out, not your opponent, but your own shortcomings. God be merciful to me, a sinner…
Thomas Merton, the monk, wrote a prayer that used to get printed a lot on the cards that priests gave out upon their ordination. I have found it to be a good antidote to the tendency to judge that I find sometimes in my own heart.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. (Been there, seen that done that, still trying to figure it out)
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. (I try, but how do I know?
Yet, here is the part that consoles me) But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
As I pray that prayer for myself, it also allows me to believe that prayer about others. When others disagree with me or I with them, instead of judging them as wrong or evil or whatever, it gives me the heart of the tax collector. I know I need God’s mercy. I pray that people will see me, not as perfect or having it together, but trying to figure out in the unclear road that is ahead how to do God’s will. And it allows me to see them in the same light – fellow pilgrims, people trying to do God’s will the best they know how…
Merton concludes his prayer this way. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Lord, keep us like the tax collector, mindful of the mercy we need and the mercy we are invited to share. Amen. Amen.