Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“I’m a good person,” many might say in an effort to be humble, should ever the topic of their relationship with God come up. In other words: “God and I have a special understanding.” In one sense the latter comment is correct: they and God indeed have a special understanding, but Jesus might argue that their understanding and His own are considerably different.
In today’s Gospel the Pharisee lets slip a soliloquy of self-praise, reassuring himself that he is doing just fine, thank you very much. He’s doing the right things, he’s a good person; he is therefore close to God. Not so! Jesus says; rather it is the man who humbly admits his own sinfulness that has an “understanding” with God.
The difference between the two men is a matter of honesty before God, for the Pharisee has said to God, “I don’t need your help.” Is there any greater self-deception than this? And yet it is pervasive throughout our culture and world. There is something distasteful to many about the idea—rather, the reality—that we are in desperate need of God precisely because we are all, as even our Holy Father admits in his recent interview, sinners. The Pharisee is so blinded by the cloak of his own good deeds that he has forgotten his naked sinfulness before God and will one day, Jesus warns, be stripped bare. The tax collector, however, having come naked and honest before God in all humility, shall be exalted; clothed in the rich robe of the Father’s love and mercy.
It sounds a bit old-fashioned today to speak of being a sinner before God but, brothers and sisters, do not forget how blessed we are to need God so desperately! For it was our dire need that moved the Eternal Heart to be poured into our very nature, to beat in our very midst, to be united inseparably to us in all our suffering, to fill our emptiness with infinite abundance. Do not let your own sin and shame keep you from God; rather, come to Him poor and exposed, humble and longing for His love. Approach Him as you are in all humility that, in this moment of truth, He, too, might approach you as He Is: love Incarnate.