Saturday of the Third Week of Lent
Intention: For all who live in fear of violence, exploitation or abandonment, that society’s commitment to peace and justice will grow and help to end their suffering.
Today’s Gospel | Luke 18:9-14
Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’ But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’ I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
A Brief Lenten Reflection
A reoccurring theme within Gospel narratives is the problem of hypocrisy within the religious establishment of Jesus’ day. Jesus often confronts the Temple leadership about the damage that their spiritual and social corruption was doing to the community. The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector was his powerful indictment of them, but it also was meant as a lesson to all of his listeners about the relationship between humility and salvation.
In the story, as a Pharisee and a tax collector enter the Temple to worship, there is a marked difference between their attitudes. While the former’s is arrogant and entitled, the latter’s is unassuming and grateful. The Pharisee had chosen to interpret his affluence as a mark of blessing and holiness. He saw himself as set apart and above, justified and whole in God’s eyes, with no need either to repent or to change. Meanwhile, the tax collector held no illusions about his own brokenness and helplessness. His stance seems to suggest that he knew that without God’s grace he would never be able to overcome his own sinfulness, and so he kept returning in embarrassment to beg God not to give up on him. The Pharisee had arrived denying and manipulating the truth about himself, whereas the tax collector had arrived accepting and surrendering to his.
What this all suggests is that the virtue of humility is essentially about honesty. The author Brené Brown wrote, “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” Like the tax collector, we humbly admit to who we are and who we are not, and to our reliance on God’s grace for life and redemption. In this season of Lent, may we learn to be humble in our place among God’s people and grateful for having the chance to build God’s Kingdom together.
Prayer
Eternal Father, your son walked through a sinful world teaching humility and compassion. In this time of Lent, help us to put aside our selfishness and pride, our judgments and divisions, our fears and indifference. May renewed faith, hope, and love turn us back to you and to one another, so that we may share as one family in the salvation that your son has brought to all of us. We ask this of you who lives and reigns with your Son and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.