He who humbles himself...

 

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Let us flee from the pride of the Pharisee and learn humility from the Publican's tears. Let us cry to our Savior: Have mercy on us, O only merciful One. (Kontakion of the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee)

 

At Sunday's Divine Liturgy, we heard the first of four pre-lenten Gospel readings: The Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (LK. 18:10-14). A parable is a story, and therefore is not based on an actual event, but who would deny that it reveals to us the truth about our relationship with God? That is why, in some of our prayers, we ask the Lord to grant us the spirit of the Publican and the Prodigal even though they were not individual historical characters. And yet these characters - the positive and the negative - are representative of all humanity. The parables are thus timeless sources of revealed Truth. They challenge us today, as they challenged our Lord's contemporaries.

This short parable describes "Two men" that "went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector (or publican)." (LK. 18:10). The Lord continues:

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God , I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get. (v. 11-12)

 

The primary sin of this man who would have been considered "righteous" among his fellow Jews, is that of self-righteousness. True righteousness is God-sourced; but the pharisee's righteousness was self-sourced. Perhaps it is significant that Christ specifically says that he prayed "with himself." His "prayer" to God was a concise formulation of self-praise. He trusted in himself more then he trusted in God. He did the "right things," but in the wrong spirit. The sinners that he encountered on a daily basis only served to affirm him in his own perceived righteousness. The comparisons and contrasts were always to his advantage. He "needed" the sinners that surrounded him! His pride was his downfall. If pride leads to the self apart from God, then pride is the bitter road to nowhere. "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled." (v. 14)

Of the publican, the Lord offers this short but moving description:

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!' (v. 13)

 

Aware of his sin, the publican manifests deep, heartfelt repentance. This humble recognition of his sin is, paradoxically, the publican's road back to fellowship with God based on forgiveness and restoration. Empty of pride, there is now "room" for God. Humility is the "mother of the virtues" according to the saints, and this is not the way of the world. Humility demands great trust on our part, for the humble suffer reproach in this world, and our fear of being taken advantage of works against nurturing a humble spirit. Humility is the beginning of God-centeredness as opposed to self-centeredness. "He who humbles himself will be exalted." (v. 14)

We all know the temptation toward self-righteousness and pride. The "rewards" are meaningless, for the exalted self ultimately experiences loneliness and emptiness. The proud person lives and dies alone. Yet, we still find it diffiicult to avoid such temptation. The "world' has driven the thirst for autonomy and its pride-based assumptions into our minds and hearts. To follow the Lord in His humility demands a total reorientation of our accumulated worldly "values" and worldly "wisdom." It means trusting in God, and not in oneself. Great Lent creates the environment wherein we can focus our attention on this never-ending battle for the heart's loyalties and final place of rest. The parable is a wonderful reminder of how we should approach this battle.

'Humility is a powerful force'

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

"Humility is a powerful force." 

- Prince Myshkin in The Idiot by Dostoevsky

In the Orthodox Church, the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (LK. 18:10-14) is the first of a cycle of appointed Gospel readings that inaugurates the pre-Lenten season. In other words, on an annual basis, precisely four weeks before Great Lent begins, we hear this parable proclaimed in the Liturgy. The intentions of the Lord in delivering this parable are clearly expressed in the solemn pronouncement following the parable itself:

"For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted" (LK. 18:14).

The pride and self-righteousness of the Pharisee - he who "exalts himself" - is rather starkly contrasted with the humility and repentance - he who "humbles himself" - of the Publican. From these two examples of a revealed interior disposition, it is only the publican who is "justified" according to Christ. With a kind of "folk-wisdom" that would have resonated for his rural flock in early 20th c. Serbia, Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich recasts the parable in an earthy story form that seeks to reinforce Christ's teaching:

A man went into the forest to choose a tree from which to make roof-beams. And he saw two trees, one beside the other. 
One was smooth and tall, but had rotted away inside, and the other was rough on the outside and ugly, but its core was 
healthy. The man sighed, and said to himself: "What use is this smooth, tall tree to me if it is rotten inside and useless for 
beams? The other one, even if it is rough and ugly, is at least healthy on the inside and so, if I put a bit more effort into it, 
I can use it for roof-beams for my house." And, without thinking any more about it, he chose that tree. 

 

And just to be certain, Bp. Nikolai drives home the moral point in the following conclusion:

So will God choose between two men for His house, and will choose, not the one who appears outwardly righteous, but 
the one whose heart is filled with God's healthy righteousness.

The Pharisee acted according to the Law, keeping himself externally free from sin, fasting twice a week and paying a tithe on all that he had. It would be wonderful if members of the Church lived and acted like that with such consistency! However, it is the interior orientation of the heart that Christ is most concerned with; and it is here that the Pharisee twisted righteousness into self-righteousness which is basically a form of idolatry - worship of the "self." Do any of us escape that self-deceptive trap? If not, then better to admit it, as St. John Chrysostom reminds us:

It is evil to sin, though help can be given; but to sin, and not to admit it - there is no help here.

The humility of the publican is perhaps best expressed in a series of short descriptions - unwillingness to look up towards heaven, the beating of the breast, the plaintive cry: "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner" - rather than in an intellectually-constructed abstraction. Moved by an awareness of God's holiness and his own sinfulness, the publican did not fear to openly express his humility upon entering the Temple. 

But why do we fear humility? How does the very concept of humility seem to frighten us, if only unconsciously? Perhaps we fear being taken advantage of, of being used by others, of "losing ground" in our struggle to not only get ahead, but to simply survive in a harsh world. We equate humility - wrongfully, I am convinced - with weakness, timidity, fear of conflict, etc. We may occasionally use the language of humility, but deep down, we "know better." We may even practice a cautious form of humility but only if that will allow us to remain in our "comfort zones." But do we actually know better? Can we actually ignore a universally-acclaimed Christian virtue without having experienced it ourselves? And yet, we literally depend upon the humility of Christ for our salvation! And we praise and glorify Christ precisely because of His humility! Perhaps, then, if we ever made a sustained effort to be humble, we would appraise this essential virtue differently. As the saints teach us:

Until a human person achieves humility, he will receive no reward for his works. The reward is given not for our works but for our humility. (St. Isaac the Syrian) 

A humble person never falls. Being already lower than any, where can he fall? Vanity is a great humiliation, but humility is a great exalting, honor and dignity. (St. Macarius the Great)

The Gospel - based on the scandal of the Cross - has turned many things upside down. In God's judgment, according to Christ, the proud are humbled and the humbled are exalted. The Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee sets this choice before us.  

More Lessons from the Publican and the Pharisee

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Reproaching the Pharisee ~ St Cyril of Alexandria

 

Here is some more on the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, from “our Father among the saints,” St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444). St. Cyril, with great rhetorical skill, reproaches the Pharisee for praising himself while pointing out the infirmities of the conscience-stricken publican:

What profit is there in fasting twice in the week if it serves only as a pretext for ignorance and vanity and makes one proud, haughty and selfish? You tithe your possessions and boast about it. 

In another way, you provoke God’s anger by condemning and accusing other people of this. You are puffed up, although not crowned by the divine decree for righteousness. On the contrary, you heap praise on yourself. He says, “I am not as the rest of humankind.” Moderate yourself, O Pharisee. Put a door and lock on your tongue. (PS. 141:3) 

You speak to God who knows all things. Wait for the decree of the judge. No one who is skilled in wrestling ever crowns himself. No one also receives the crown from himself but waits for the summons of the referee…. 

Lower your pride because arrogance is accursed and hated by God. It is foreign to the mind that fears God. Christ even said, “Do not judge and you shall not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.” (LK. 6:37) 

One of his disciples also said, “There is one lawgiver and judge. Why then do you judge your neighbor?” (JM. 4:12) No one who is in good health ridicules one who is sick or being laid up and bedridden. He is rather afraid, for perhaps he may become the victim of similar sufferings. A person in battle, because another has fallen, does not praise himself for having escaped from misfortune. The weakness of others is not a suitable subject for praise for those who are in health. 

Commentary on Luke, Homily 120.

 
 

A Reversal of Fortune

 

From a contemporary biblical scholars, we read the following on how the parable turns upside down some of our own perceptions of relationships with God and neighbor:

The parable perfectly illustrates Luke's theme of reversal (v. 14b). God will one day move to align the human situation with the nature of God as God truly is - not as persons like the Pharisee perceives God to be. That reversal will take place in the full realization of the kingdom (6:20-26 [the Beatitudes and Woes]). The task of Jesus is to summon human beings to align themselves with that new perspective so that when the reversal comes they will be in the right position to benefit from it. The parable, then, offers more than a simple instruction of prayer. It belongs to the preaching of the kingdom. 

It could also offer comfort to many people today who find themselves or their loved ones (for example, their children) caught in situations judged objectively sinful on more traditional thinking - whether in the area of sexuality, or marital involvement or professional occupation. In a complex world, loyalties often run in several directions, excluding simple application of rules and norms to the patterns of individual lives. The parable suggests that God may be able to cope with "disorder" in terms of objective morality or church discipline far better than those who guard the tradition sometimes imagine. 

Prayer, as the Pharisee failed to see, consists not in our telling God how things are but in allowing God to communicate to us the divine vision of life and reality. Two people came up to God's house to pray. Only one really found the hospitality that was there. As so often in Luke's Gospel we are left with the challenge: which one are you going to be? 

From The Hospitality of God - A Reading of Luke's Gospel by Brendan Byrne, p. 144-145

The Publican and the Pharisee, and the Struggle for Humility

 

The Publican and the Pharisee, 14th c., Serbian (Legacy Icons)

 

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

 

The parable of the Publican and the Pharisee confronts us with a stark contrast between religious pride and self-righteousness, on the one hand; and heartfelt humility and repentance on the other hand. The Pharisee, of course, is the one who manifests the pride, and it is the publican who manifests the humility. The Lord closes this short parable by declaring the Pharisee “condemned” and the publican “justified.” This is a genuine “reversal of fortune” upending our preconceived notions of piety and righteousness, as forcefully as this must have struck those who initially heard the parable as delivered by Christ. Yet, that reversal of fortune should not obscure other notable factors that are also working within this parable.

For Christ is not condemning the actions of the Pharisee. The Lord is not telling us through this parable that the Pharisee – or anyone else, and that includes us – is wasting both time and energy by going up to the temple to pray, by fasting and by tithing. These are not being condemned as empty practices, thus consigning all such practitioners to the barren realm of hypocrisy and religious formalism. We, as contemporary Christians, are encouraged to enter the church with regularity and offer our prayer to God; to practice the self-restraint and discipline of fasting; and to share our financial resources with the generosity implied by the biblical tithe. We could add other practices to that. In fact, we would do well to imitate the outward actions of the Pharisee in practicing our Faith! 

Yet, on a deeper and far more significant level, the Pharisee got it all wrong. He was consumed by a self-satisfied and self-righteous interior attitude that left no room for God to transform him by divine grace. The Pharisee’s prayer was seemingly directed to God, but in reality it was an exercise in self-congratulations (for not being like other sinful men). Here was a man who did not suffer over low self-esteem! The Pharisee was self-centered, but not God-centered. Something went wrong, and the self replaced God as the center of his energy and passion. The exterior forms of piety that he practiced were disconnected from the interior realm of the heart, where God is meant to dwell and, again, transform the human person from within, so that each person becomes less self-centered and more God-centered with time and patience.

Based on our knowledge of the role of the publican in first century Israel, we can be assured that Christ was not “justifying” the particular “life-style” that made the publicans such notorious and despised figures of that world. In fact, they were always included with “harlots” when reference was being made to the marginalized, if not ostracized, members of first-century Judaism. Rather, the publican was declared “justified” for the very fact that he recognized and was profoundly struck by just how sinful he had become in cheating and defrauding his neighbor as a hated tax-collector working for the occupying Roman authority. He had the experience of true contrition of heart; he realized that he stood self-condemned before the Lord; yet he did not despair but cried out plaintively: “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” Human persons are not saved as sinners, but as sinners who in humility repent before God and then offer the fruits of repentance.

The hymnography for the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee exhorts us to flee from pride and to embrace humility. We live in a culture obsessed with the self and thus not only susceptible, but openly promoting, both pride and vainglory. “In your face” is widely seen as a “heroic” gesture of self-defiance and legitimate self-promotion. Humility is treated as weakness and ineffectual for “getting ahead” or for fulfilling one’s desires. We hear the voice of the Lord and we hear the voice of the world. It is our choice as to which voice we will listen to. And that choice will be determined to a great extent by just what the desires that move us to action are actually for. “For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”

The Gospel Has Turned Things Upside Down

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

We have entered the season of the Triodion, that vast compilation of lenten hymnography gathered together in one book over the centuries that will guide us through the pre-lenten period; and then on through Great Lent and Holy Week; taking us to the very brink of the paschal celebration of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. 

The inspired hymnography of the Triodion interprets the Scriptures in a direct and accessible manner, in the process making it challengingly clear that each person and event from the Scriptures – Old or New Testament; positive or negative – is meant to be applied to our own lives as someone or something to emulate or avoid. The Church always treats the Scriptures as a living Word, not as a chronicle of the past or as an abstract system of belief. This form of concrete realism is indeed more challenging than a presentation of untested ideas. 

Be that as it may, the Triodion opens with the Sunday of the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (LK. 18:10-14). In the Orthodox Church, this reading is part of the pre-lenten cycle always prescribed for the fourth Sunday before Great Lent begins. The intentions of the Lord in delivering this parable are clearly expressed in the solemn pronouncement following the parable itself:

 

For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. (LK. 18:14)

 

The pride and self-righteousness of the Pharisee – he who “exalts himself” – is rather starkly contrasted with the humility and repentance of the Publican – he who “humbles himself.” From these two examples of a revealed interior disposition, it is only the publican who is “justified” according to Christ. With a kind of “folk-wisdom” that would have resonated for his rural flock in early 20th century Serbia, Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich recasts the parable in an earthy story form that seeks to reinforce Christ’s teaching:

 

A man went into the forest to choose a tree from which to make roof beams. And he saw two trees, one beside the other. One was smooth and tall, but had rotted away inside, and the other was rough on the outside and ugly, but its core was healthy. The man sighed, and said to himself: “What use is this smooth, tall tree to me if it is rotten inside and useless for beams? The other one, even if it is rough and ugly, is at least healthy on the inside and so, if I put a bit more effort into it, I can use it for roof-beams for my house.” And, without thinking any more about it, he chose that tree.

 

And just to be certain, Bishop Nikolai drives home the moral point in the following conclusion:

 

So will God choose between two men for His house, and will choose, not the one who appears outwardly righteous, but the one whose heart is filled with God’s healthy righteousness.

 

The Pharisee acted according to the Law, keeping himself free externally from sin, fasting twice a week and paying a tithe on all that he had. How many parish priests secretly wish that that was precisely how their parishioners would live and act!? (For the moment we will not investigate just how parishioners would wish their priests to act). In fact, conventional wisdom would lead up to expect that in such a parable, the Pharisee would be praised precisely for his exact piety; and the publican would serve as a stark reminder of how not to live. 

However, Christ turns all of this conventional wisdom "upside down," for it is the interior orientation of the heart that Christ is most concerned with; and it is here that the Pharisee twisted righteousness into self-righteousness which is basically a form of idolatry – that of the “self.” Do any of us escape that self-destructive trap? If not, then better to admit it, as St. John Chrysostom reminds us:

 

It is evil to sin, though here help can be given; but to sin, and not to admit it – there is no help here.

 

The humility of the publican is perhaps best expressed in a series of short descriptions – unwillingness to look up towards heaven, the beating of the breast, the plaintive cry: “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner” – rather than an intellectually-constructed set of abstract notions. 

Why is it so hard to be humble? Perhaps because it frightens us. But what would the source of this fear possibly be? We fear being taken advantage of, of being used by others, of losing ground in our struggle to not only get ahead, but to survive in a harsh world. We may pay lip-service to humility as Christians, but we act as if deep down we “know better.” Humility is hardly a recommended survival tactic! I would rather doubt that humility is the “stuff” of self-help literature. 

This silent and implicit rejection of the virtue of humility makes a certain amount of sense if we equate humility – wrongfully, I am certain – with weakness, timidity, passivity, fear of conflict, etc. So we usually practice a safe form of humility when that will keep us in our “comfort zone.” But do we know better? Can we actually doubt the strength of a universally-acclaimed Christian virtue without having experienced it ourselves? Certainly we recognize the truth that we literally depend upon the humility of Christ for the gift of salvation! We praise and glorify Christ precisely because of His surpassing humility. Perhaps, then, if we ever made a sustained effort to be humble, we would appraise this essential virtue differently. As the saints teach us:

 

Until a human person achieves humility, he will receive no reward for his works. The reward is given not for the works but for the humility. (St. Isaac the Syrian)

A humble person never falls. Being already lower than any, where can he fall? Vanity is a great humiliation, but humility is a great exalting, honor and dignity. (St. Makarios the Great)

 

The Gospel – based on the scandal of the Cross – has turned many things upside down. In God’s judgment, according to Christ, the proud are humbled and the humbled are exalted. The parable of the Publican and the Pharisee sets this choice before us.

 

More Reflections on the Publican and the Pharisee

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ.

Reproaching the Pharisee ~ St Cyril of Alexandria

Here is some more on the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, from “our Father among the saints,” St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444). St. Cyril, with great rhetorical skill, reproaches the Pharisee for praising himself while pointing out the infirmities of the conscience-stricken publican:

What profit is there in fasting twice in the week if it serves only as a pretext for ignorance and vanity and makes one proud, haughty and selfish? You tithe your possessions and boast about it.

In another way, you provoke God’s anger by condemning and accusing other people of this. You are puffed up, although not crowned by the divine decree for righteousness. On the contrary, you heap praise on yourself. He says, “I am not as the rest of humankind.” Moderate yourself, O Pharisee. Put a door and lock on your tongue. (PS. 141:3)

You speak to God who knows all things. Wait for the decree of the judge. No one who is skilled in wrestling ever crowns himself. No one also receives the crown from himself but waits for the summons of the referee….

Lower your pride because arrogance is accursed and hated by God. It is foreign to the mind that fears God. Christ even said, “Do not judge and you shall not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.” (LK. 6:37)

One of his disciples also said, “There is one lawgiver and judge. Why then do you judge your neighbor?” (JM. 4:12) No one who is in good health ridicules one who is sick or being laid up and bedridden. He is rather afraid, for perhaps he may become the victim of similar sufferings. A person in battle, because another has fallen, does not praise himself for having escaped from misfortune. The weakness of others is not a suitable subject for praise for those who are in health.

Commentary on Luke, Homily 120.

"Who Do I Resemble"

In addition, here is a link to an older meditation I wrote on the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, with the title "Who Do I Resemble?" — meaning the publican or the pharisee. In answering this question, perhaps some deeply honest self-examination may have us squirming in our seats a bit!

A Reversal of Fortune

From a contemporary biblical scholars, we read the following on how the parable turns upside down some of our own perceptions of relationships with God and neighbor:

The parable perfectly illustrates Luke's theme of reversal (v. 14b). God will one day move to align the human situation with the nature of God as God truly is - not as persons like the Pharisee perceives God to be. That reversal will take place in the full realization of the kingdom (6:20-26 [the Beatitudes and Woes]). The task of Jesus is to summon human beings too align themselves with that new perspective so that when the reversal comes they will be in the right position to benefit from it. The parable, then, offers more than a simple instruction of prayer. It belongs to the preaching of the kingdom.

It could also offer comfort to many people today who find themselves or their loved ones (for example, their children) caught in situations judged objectively sinful on more traditional thinking - whether in the area of sexuality, or marital involvement or professional occupation. In a complex world, loyalties often run in several directions, excluding simple application of rules and norms to the patterns of individual lives. The parable suggests that God may be able to cope with "disorder" in terms of objective morality or church discipline far better than those who guard the tradition sometimes imagine.

Prayer, as the Pharisee failed to see, consists not in our telling God how things are but in allowing God to communicate to us the divine vision of life and reality. Two people came up to God's house to pray. Only one really found the hospitality that was there. As so often in Luke's Gospel we are left with the challenge: which one are you going to be?

From The Hospitality of God - A Reading of Luke's Gospel by Brendan Byrne, p. 144-145

The Publican and the Pharisee, and the Struggle for Humility

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

The parable of the Publican and the Pharisee confronts us with a stark contrast between religious pride and self-righteousness, on the one hand; and heartfelt humility and repentance on the other hand.

 

The Pharisee, of course, is the one who manifests the pride, and it is the publican who manifests the humility. The Lord closes this short parable by declaring the Pharisee “condemned” and the publican “justified.” This is a genuine “reversal of fortune” upending our preconceived notions of piety and righteousness, as forcefully as this must have struck those who initially heard the parable as delivered by the Lord. Yet, that reversal of fortune should not obscure other notable factors that are also working within this parable.

For Christ is not condemning the actions of the Pharisee. The Lord is not telling us through this parable that the Pharisee – or anyone else, and that includes us – is wasting both time and energy by going up to the temple to pray, by fasting and by tithing. These are not being condemned as empty practices consigning all such practitioners to the barren realm of hypocrisy and religious formalism. 

 

We, as contemporary Christians, are encouraged to enter the church with regularity and offer our prayer to God; to practice the self-restraint and discipline of fasting; and to share our financial resources with the generosity implied by the biblical tithe. We could add other practices to that. In fact, we would do well to imitate the outward actions of the Pharisee in practicing our Faith! 

Yet, on a deeper and far more significant level, the Pharisee got it all wrong. He was consumed by a self-satisfied and self-righteous interior attitude that left no room for God to transform him by divine grace. The Pharisee’s prayer was seemingly directed to God, but in reality it was an exercise in self-congratulations (for not being like other sinful men). Here was a man who did not suffer over low self-esteem! The Pharisee was self-centered, but not God-centered. Something went wrong, and the self replaced God as the center of his energy and passion. The exterior forms of piety that he practiced were disconnected from the interior realm of the heart, where God is meant to dwell and, again, transform the human person from within, so that each person becomes less self-centered and more God-centered with time and patience.

Based on our knowledge of the role of the publican in first century Israel, we can be assured that Christ was not “justifying” the particular “life-style” that made the publicans such notorious and despised figures of that world. In fact, they were always included with “harlots” when reference was being made to the marginalized, if not ostracized, members of first-century Judaism. Rather, the publican was declared “justified” for the very fact that he recognized and was profoundly struck by just how sinful he had become in cheating and defrauding his neighbor as a hated tax-collector working for the occupying Roman authority. He had the experience of true contrition of heart; he realized that he stood self-condemned before the Lord; yet he did not despair but cried out plaintively: “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” Human persons are not saved as sinners, but as sinners who in humility repent before God and then offer the fruits of repentance.

The hymnography for the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee exhorts us to flee from pride and to embrace humility. We live in a culture obsessed with the self and thus not only susceptible, but openly promoting, both pride and vainglory. “In your face” is widely seen as a “heroic” gesture of self-defiance and legitimate self-promotion. Humility is treated as weakness and ineffectual for “getting ahead” or for fulfilling one’s desires. We hear the voice of the Lord and we hear the voice of the world. It is our choice as to which voice we will listen to. And that choice will be determined to a great extent by just what the desires that move us to action are actually for. “For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”

 

 

 

The Gospel Has Turned Things Upside Down

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

We have entered the season of the Triodion, that vast compilation of lenten hymnography gathered together in one book over the centuries that will guide us through the pre-lenten period; and then on through Great Lent and Holy Week; taking us to the very brink of the paschal celebration of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. 

The inspired hymnography of the Triodion interprets the Scriptures in a direct and accessible manner, in the process making it challengingly clear that each person and event from the Scriptures – Old or New Testament; positive or negative – is meant to be applied to our own lives as someone or something to emulate or avoid. The Church always treats the Scriptures as a living Word, not as a chronicle of the past or as an abstract system of belief. This form of concrete realism is indeed more challenging than a presentation of untested ideas. 

Be that as it may, the Triodion opens with the Sunday of the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (LK. 18:10-14). In the Orthodox Church, this reading is part of the pre-lenten cycle always prescribed for the fourth Sunday before Great Lent begins. The intentions of the Lord in delivering this parable are clearly expressed in the solemn pronouncement following the parable itself:

For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. (LK. 18:14)

The pride and self-righteousness of the Pharisee – he who “exalts himself” – is rather starkly contrasted with the humility and repentance of the Publican – he who “humbles himself.” From these two examples of a revealed interior disposition, it is only the publican who is “justified” according to Christ. With a kind of “folk-wisdom” that would have resonated for his rural flock in early 20th century Serbia, Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich recasts the parable in an earthy story form that seeks to reinforce Christ’s teaching:

A man went into the forest to choose a tree from which to make roof beams. And he saw two trees, one beside the other. One was smooth and tall, but had rotted away inside, and the other was rough on the outside and ugly, but its core was healthy. The man sighed, and said to himself: “What use is this smooth, tall tree to me if it is rotten inside and useless for beams? The other one, even if it is rough and ugly, is at least healthy on the inside and so, if I put a bit more effort into it, I can use it for roof-beams for my house.” And, without thinking any more about it, he chose that tree.

And just to be certain, Bishop Nikolai drives home the moral point in the following conclusion:

So will God choose between two men for His house, and will choose, not the one who appears outwardly righteous, but the one whose heart is filled with God’s healthy righteousness.

The Pharisee acted according to the Law, keeping himself free externally from sin, fasting twice a week and paying a tithe on all that he had. How many parish priests secretly wish that that was precisely how their parishioners would live and act!? (For the moment we will not investigate just how parishioners would wish their priests to act). In fact, conventional wisdom would lead up to expect that in such a parable, the Pharisee would be praised precisely for his exact piety; and the publican would serve as a stark reminder of how not to live. 

However, Christ turns all of this conventional wisdom "upside down," for it is the interior orientation of the heart that Christ is most concerned with; and it is here that the Pharisee twisted righteousness into self-righteousness which is basically a form of idolatry – that of the “self.” Do any of us escape that self-destructive trap? If not, then better to admit it, as St. John Chrysostom reminds us:

It is evil to sin, though here help can be given; but to sin, and not to admit it – there is no help here.

The humility of the publican is perhaps best expressed in a series of short descriptions – unwillingness to look up towards heaven, the beating of the breast, the plaintive cry: “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner” – rather than an intellectually-constructed set of abstract notions. 

Why is it so hard to be humble? Perhaps because it frightens us. But what would the source of this fear possibly be? We fear being taken advantage of, of being used by others, of losing ground in our struggle to not only get ahead, but to survive in a harsh world. We may pay lip-serviced to humility as Christians, but we act as if deep down we “know better.” Humility is hardly a recommended survival tactic! I would rather doubt that humility is the “stuff” of self-help literature. 

This silent and implicit rejection of the virtue of humility makes a certain amount of sense if we equate humility – wrongfully, I am certain – with weakness, timidity, passivity, fear of conflict, etc. So we usually practice a safe form of humility when that will keep us in our “comfort zone.” But do we know better? Can we actually doubt the strength of a universally-acclaimed Christian virtue without having experienced it ourselves? Certainly we recognize the truth that we literally depend upon the humility of Christ for the gift of salvation! We praise and glorify Christ precisely because of His surpassing humility. Perhaps, then, if we ever made a sustained effort to be humble, we would appraise this essential virtue differently. As the saints teach us:

Until a human person achieves humility, he will receive no reward for his works. The reward is given not for the works but for the humility. (St. Isaac the Syrian)

A humble person never falls. Being already lower than any, where can he fall? Vanity is a great humiliation, but humility is a great exalting, honor and dignity. (St. Makarios the Great)

The Gospel – based on the scandal of the Cross – has turned many things upside down. In God’s judgment, according to Christ, the proud are humbled and the humbled are exalted. The parable of the Publican and the Pharisee sets this choice before us.

Reproaching the Pharisee ~ St Cyril of Alexandria

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ.

Here is some more on the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, from “our Father among the saints,” St. Cyril of Alexandria (+444). St. Cyril, with great rhetorical skill, reproaches the Pharisee for praising himself while pointing out the infirmities of the conscience-stricken publican:

What profit is there in fasting twice in the week if it serves only as a pretext for ignorance and vanity and makes one proud, haughty and selfish? You tithe your possessions and boast about it.

In another way, you provoke God’s anger by condemning and accusing other people of this. You are puffed up, although not crowned by the divine decree for righteousness. On the contrary, you heap praise on yourself. He says, “I am not as the rest of humankind.” Moderate yourself, O Pharisee. Put a door and lock on your tongue. (PS. 141:3)

You speak to God who knows all things. Wait for the decree of the judge. No one who is skilled in wrestling ever crowns himself. No one also receives the crown from himself but waits for the summons of the referee….

Lower your pride because arrogance is accursed and hated by God. It is foreign to the mind that fears God. Christ even said, “Do not judge and you shall not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned.” (LK. 6:37)

One of his disciples also said, “There is one lawgiver and judge. Why then do you judge your neighbor?” (JM. 4:12) No one who is in good health ridicules one who is sick or being laid up and bedridden. He is rather afraid, for perhaps he may become the victim of similar sufferings. A person in battle, because another has fallen, does not praise himself for having escaped from misfortune. The weakness of others is not a suitable subject for praise for those who are in health.

Commentary on Luke, Homily 120.

"Who Do I Resemble"

In addition, here is a link to an older meditation I wrote on the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, with the title "Who Do I Resemble?" — meaning the publican or the pharisee.  In answering this question, perhaps some deeply honest self-examination may have us squirming in our seats a bit!

The Publican, the Pharisee, and the struggle for humility

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

The Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee confronts us with a stark contrast between religious pride and self-righteousness on the one hand, and heartfelt humility and repentance on the other hand. The pharisee, of course, is the one who manifests pride, and it is the publican who manifests humility.

The Lord closes this short parable by declaring the Pharisee “condemned” and the publican “justified.” This is a genuine “reversal of fortune,” upending our preconceived notions of piety and righteousness as forcefully as it must have struck those who initially heard the parable as delivered by the Lord. Yet, that reversal of fortune should not obscure other notable factors also working within this parable.  Being a relatively short parable, perhaps we should include the text here for reference:

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. 

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, 'God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get. 

But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even life his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner!'

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the  other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.  (LK. 18:10-14)

Christ is not condemning the actions of the pharisee. The Lord is not telling us through this parable that the pharisee – or anyone else, and that includes us – is wasting both time and energy by going up to the temple to pray, by fasting and by tithing. These are not being condemned as empty practices, consigning all such practitioners to the barren realm of hypocrisy and religious formalism. 

We, as contemporary Christians, are encouraged to enter the church with regularity and offer our prayer to God, to practice the self restraint and discipline of fasting, and to share our financial resources with the generosity implied by the biblical tithe. We could add other practices to that. In fact, we would do well to imitate the outward actions of the pharisee in practicing our Faith!

Yet, on a deeper and far more significant level, the pharisee got it all wrong. He was consumed by a self-satisfied and self-righteous interior attitude that left no room for God to transform him by divine grace. 

The Pharisee’s prayer was seemingly directed to God, but in reality it was an exercise in self-congratulations (for not being like other sinful men). Here was a man who did not suffer over low self-esteem! 

The pharisee was self-centered, but not God-centered. Something went wrong, and the self replaced God as the center of his energy and passion. The exterior forms of piety that he practiced were disconnected from the interior realm of the heart, where God is meant to dwell and, again, transform the human person from within, so that each person becomes less self-centered and more God-centered with time and patience.

Based on our knowledge of the role of the publican in first century Israel, we can be assured that Christ was not “justifying” the particular “lifestyle” that made the publicans such notorious and despised figures of that world. In fact, they were always included with “harlots” when reference was being made to the marginalized, if not ostracized, members of first century Judaism. 

Rather, the publican was declared “justified” for the very fact that he recognized and was profoundly struck by just how sinful he had become in cheating and defrauding his neighbor as a hated tax-collector working for the occupying Roman authority. He had the experience of true contrition of heart.  He realized that he stood self-condemned before the Lord, yet he did not despair but cried out plaintively,  “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” 

Human persons are not saved as sinners, but as sinners who in humility repent before God and then offer the fruits of repentance.

 

The hymnography for the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee exhorts us to flee from pride and to embrace humility. 

We live in a culture obsessed with the self and thus not only susceptible to, but openly promoting, both pride and vainglory. “In your face” is widely seen as a “heroic” gesture of self-defiance and legitimate self-promotion. Humility is treated as weakness and ineffectual for “getting ahead” or for fulfilling one’s desires. 

We hear the voice of the Lord and we hear the voice of the world. It is our choice as to which voice we will listen to. And that choice will be determined to a great extent by just what the desires that move us to action are actually for. 

“For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.”

Our Common Task

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

The kontakion for the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee reads as follows:

Let us flee from the pride of the Pharisee and learn humility from the Publican's tears.  Let us cry to our Savior:  Have mercy on us, O only-merciful One!

Our common task, therefore, is to "flee from pride" and instead "learn humility."  Life experience most probably teaches us that this is easier said than done! 

Along this challenging path, we are accompanied by the great saints of the Church - the holy Fathers from the ancient Church and those who are much closer to us in time.  There is a consistent teaching among them on the themes of pride and humility, as struggling with pride and acquiring humility was a goal that they set for themselves, mindful of the words of Christ, as found in the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. 

With this in mind, I thought to simply share some of these  "maxims" of the saints in order to provide us with a good deal of profound and meaningful wisdom as we progress through the Week of the Publican and the Pharisee.  My pastoral hope is that we carry the Gospel with us through the week, struggling against forgetfulness and distractions that push the Lord's teachings out of our minds and hearts. If the proud Pharisee went away from the temple "unjustified" - and thereby cutting himself off from experiencing the grace of God - this means that the consequences of his attitude were serious indeed. 

The Fathers of the Church write with that same seriousness in mind. Some of these sayings will "grab" — or even grab hold  — of us more than others; perhaps those will be the ones that we will meditate on with some attention.

These assorted texts are from the book Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers, compiled by Tom and Georgia Mitrakos:

A humble person lives on earth as if in the Kingdom of heaven - always happy, peaceful, and satisfied with everything.  —St. Anthony of Optina (19th c.)

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Have patience, my child, in the trial which the goodness of God is sending you for the greater benefit of your soul ... Many times, man's pride becomes a cause for God to give us a fatherly "slap" so that we can walk more securely in humility.  This is the best sign of how greatly God is concerned for our souls.

Why do we clash over a trifle? Because we do not have humility. He who has humility wards off troubles. Without true humility, troubles remain intact and increase, such that all hope of correction is lost.  A humble person does not remember any past wrongs that his neighbor did to him, but with all his heart forgives and forgets everything for the love of God.  Beg our humble Jesus in your prayers to give you a spirit of humble-mindedness and meekness.

—Elder Ephraim of the Holy Mountain, (a contemporary elder)

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There are certain kinds of trees which never bear fruit as long as their branches stay up straight, but if stones are hung on the branches to bend them down they begin to bear fruit. So it is with the soul.  When it is humbled it begins to bear fruit, and the more fruit it bears the lowlier it becomes. So also the saints: the nearer they get to God the more they see themselves as sinners.  —St. Dorotheos of Gaza (5th c.)

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He who is humble in this thoughts, and engaged in spiritual work, when he reads the Holy Scriptures, will apply everything to himself and not to his neighbor. —St. Mark the Ascetic (4th c.)

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For every humble person is gentle, and every gentle person is invariably humble.  A person is humble when he knows that his very being is on loan to him. —St. Maximus the Confessor (7th c.)

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Always consider yourself as needing instruction so that you may be found wise throughout your life. —St. Isaac the Syrian (7th c.)

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Before the Lord, it is better to be a sinner with repentance than a righteous person with pride. —St. Macarius of Optina (19th c.)