Dig Deeper into Sunday’s Gospel: Read Luke 18:9–14
The podium was at the perfect height, my notes were in place, and the microphone system was cooperating. I was minutes away from giving my most personal talk yet, a heavy subject suited for a mature audience. Moments before taking the stage, the event host came over to fill me in on one last detail she had failed to communicate: “I invited the children from religious education to join us.” With that, the back door swung open, and thirty second graders filed in. Well aware that the talk I had prepared was highly inappropriate for this crew, I pivoted quickly, thanking God for all those years in improvisational theater.
The moral of the story? Know your audience.
No one knew His audience better than Jesus. Take the first verse of The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector:
“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others” (emphasis added, Luke 18:9 RSV).
This wasn’t some random storytelling thrown out for anyone within earshot. This was a deliberately calculated message, communicated to a specific group of people who needed to hear it. Jesus knew the audience He was addressing: they were the proud. I am not speaking of the contemporary definition of the word pride that we have today, as in, “I’m so proud of my son’s accomplishments!” Instead, I am talking about the sin of pride: the pride that makes us believe we don’t need God because we’ve got it all under control; the pride that dulls our minds and closes our hearts. This was His audience, a people who thought too highly of themselves, whose puffed-up egos knocked others down. His listeners were the arrogant and judgmental, the victims of disordered self-love.
Please tell me that I am not the only one who reads this passage, looks at the Pharisee, and thinks, “I know so many people just like him.” We are experts at pulling up the names and faces of other people who fit the Pharisees' description—you know, those other sinners with their messed-up worldview and misguided ideology and who are just so far from the Lord, bless their hearts.
But by the grace of God, the Holy Spirit swoops in, hovering over us as He performs some kind of spiritual LASIK surgery, and for a brief moment, we see clearly and realize: ohhhh, we are the Pharisees. We are the other sinners. Jesus isn’t talking to those guys over there. He is talking to us.
Revealing our spiritual condition through parables was the way Jesus operated, and what He’s doing here in the temple is illustrating two different postures of prayer. The first is the Pharisee, who stands up front, prays to himself, and lists his credentials as he thanks God for not being like the other men. This is the posture of spiritual pride. Next, we have the tax collector, who stands far off, acknowledges his sin, and asks for mercy. His public display is a witness to his self-awareness, a genuine desire for repentance, and his absolute need for Jesus. He stands before God in a posture of spiritual humility.
Question. Which posture rings true for you?
I have had moments where I have been the beggar before God, times where I have felt my lowliness and the weight of my nothingness. And oh, have I wept for His mercy. But if I’m being honest, the posture that shows up far too easily and more frequently than I care to admit is the one of pride. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve had to confess a critical spirit. It’s humiliating. And well, I guess that’s the point. If we want to make spiritual progress, we must root out pride. Pride, after all, was the devil's downfall, and anytime our focus zooms in on the sins of other people, we take his side. Every time we exalt ourselves by crushing others, the accuser takes delight. Saint Francis de Sales writes that humility repulses Satan.[1] Repulses. If that doesn’t motivate us to cut pride off at the root, I don’t know what will! So where does this pride show up? For me:
It shows up when I focus on everyone’s sins but my own.
It shows up when I sit myself in the front of the church, not because I want to see better, but because I want to be better seen.
It shows up when I hand God my list of credentials and call it prayer.
It shows up when I size people up in line for communion, question their attire, and shake my head at their lack of reverence.
It shows up when I repeat a private conversation, critique the sermon, or point out a flaw in anyone other than myself—in the church parking lot.
And what about you? How does pride show up in your spiritual life? If you are unsure, spend some quiet time with the Lord. Ask Him to please reveal it to you—to shine a light on the small changes you need to make to cultivate humility. Do as my pastor often suggests and pray, not to think less of yourself but to think of yourself less. And when you believe you are a bigger deal than you are, ask to be reminded of your nothingness.
Remember, Jesus knows His audience. He knows our inflated egos, our desires to be preferred, and our need for control. So what does He do? He tells us this parable. He shows us the self-righteous and the lowly, the self-made god and the beggar, reminding us of a sobering reality: it is the humble who return home justified, the humble who will be exalted. We need not sit in disbelief and discouragement over our failures (which, by the way, is just more pride). Instead, let’s imitate our friend, the tax collector: the one who doesn’t dare lift his eyes to heaven, who stands far off, who beats his chest as he acknowledges his need for Jesus.
Food for thought or journaling…
What is your posture when you come before the Lord? Are you a beggar or a show-off? Where’s your focus? Are you taking better notice of other people’s sins than you are of your own? In what ways do you trust in yourself? Who do you despise?
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen.
[1] Saint Francis de Sales, An Introduction to the Devout Life (Tan Classics, 2010), 128.
