Two people… comparison & judgment

Listening to the Spirit

Lord Jesus, send Your Spirit to help us read the scriptures with the same mind that You read them to the disciples on the way to Emmaus. In the light of the Word, written in the bible, helped them discover the presence of God in the disturbing events of Your sentence and death. Thus, the cross that seemed to be the end of all hope became for them the source of life and of resurrection.
Create silence in us so that we may listen to Your voice in the creation and in the scriptures, in events and in the people, above all in the poor and suffering. May Your word guide us so that we too, like the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, may experience the force of Your resurrection and witness to others that You are alive in our midst as source of fraternity, justice, and peace. We ask this through Jesus, son of Mary, who revealed the Father to us and sent us Your Spirit.
Amen.

Listening to the Word

LK 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 whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

Reflection

Two people…

Two. Most of the time when we are in front of two things to choose, automatically trigger in us the mechanism of comparison/judgment. Yes, we compare, this is part of our human behavior. We do think about the good we can achieve. In today’s gospel Jesus presents to us two people. He knows that within us the two characters of the disciples are present.

As we read this parable, we all probably thought to ourselves: “I thank you, Lord, that I am not like this Pharisee in the parable.” And by saying that we are!

The parable is the continuation of the last Sunday’s gospel, there was only one praying, the poor widow. Here there are two men. “Two people went up to the temple area to pray.” In their prayer one compares himself to the other (Pharisee) the other compares himself to God (tax collector).

The invitation of the parable is to go beyond appearance to go deep in own self. We do not have to take the side of one character and to oppose the other. We can draw precious lessons by looking deeply into both of them.

Comparison is not positive when one does it in relation to the bad and even to the good. In doing so, it is clear that one will feel better than the other. The two people went up to… Comparison brings no one to grow, to go up in the spiritual life if the model to follow is not Christ but others.

The words of the Pharisee: “I am not like the rest of humanity…” draws one reality often present in all of us, to compare itself to another human model, bad or good. If such models are bad, comparing one will feel superior to it, if it`s good, the feeling might be going to depression. Our conclusion that we are better than another person leads us to a spiritual dead-end. As well as on the opposite.

“O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” With these words, the tax collector goes within. He compares to God alone, the merciful Father, and recognized his own condition… me a sinner. He saw how far he had yet to go in his spiritual life and by doing that, at that moment, he is, in fact, moved closer to God.

Two, the latter goes home justified because he allowed God to make him aware of his own situation. When one gets close to the light, he/she sees with clarity his/her own shadow. The former, as he transforms the light of God, the good works, in his own, does not allow God to validate his prayer, because he put himself at the place of God by comparing his life to the others.

If we could get this story into our hearts, we would be helped enormously in our grasp and practice of the gospel. It spells out how to come before God and how not to come before God.