Glory to Jesus Christ!  Glory forever!

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“’Two men went up into the Temple to pray, . . . .’”

Inasmuch as Zacchaeus Sunday last week alerted us to the looming season of the Great Fast, the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee initiates us into the weeks leading us up to that Great and Holy Fast.  These Pre-Lenten Sundays serve as a warm-up period for us, getting us ready for what we are about to dive into in terms of increased activity of prayer, worship, almsgiving, and fasting, of an intensified spiritual introspection and emptying of ourselves for the love of God and neighbor, and of spiritual warfare with the powers of sin, death, and the devil all under the banner of the Precious and Life-giving Cross.  In some respects, we might say that these Pre-Lenten days will be used by the armies of Heaven to soften up the hardened beachhead of our hearts and souls, so that they might advance the Kingdom of God in us and allow the Holy Spirit to better speak to us and to work with us, fashioning us more and more into the image and likeness of the crucified Son of God through repentance, confession, and absolution (Rm. 8:29).  This is the whole point of why we do what we do in these days: we yearn to be more like Jesus.  Thus, we are told by the Evangelist and Theologian in his Epistle, “And everyone who has this hope in [Christ God] purifies himself, just as [Jesus] is pure” (1 Jn. 3:1-3).  The Church, in her divine wisdom, assists us along the path in these upcoming most holy days of Great Lent.  You got to sand wood a lot in order to get a beautiful finish, so I’m told.     

With that in mind, then, we hear this parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee.  We know it well, very well, maybe to our detriment, too well.  Yet, our Lord presents to us in all simplicity the path of our salvation by juxtaposing these two figures.  If we hope to be saved, if we want the Kingdom of God to be furthered in our souls and hearts (Lk. 17:21), if we yearn for Jesus Christ to shine in us and through us, then we must, above all else, learn humility from Him Who is Himself meek and humble of heart (Mt. 11:28-29).  St. Luke alerts us as to why our Lord spoke this parable.  He says, Jesus “spoke this parable unto certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others” (Lk. 18:9).  If we wish to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, in all humility, we must die to self-trust, die to self-reliance, die to self-actualization, die to self-worth and trust only in Jesus Christ crucified and risen “for us men and for our salvation” (Nicene Creed).  All of us who have this hope in the Son of God purify ourselves through humility just as He has been purified through His act of self-emptying (Pp. 2:5-11) and perfected through His sufferings.  “But we see Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone,” says St. Paul.  “For it was fitting for Him, for Whom are all things and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hb. 2:9-10). 

Beloved, the image presented by our Lord of two souls going up to pray in the House of God is certainly not an uncommon experience.  In fact, that’s what we’re doing today!  We have come up, Lord willing, in order to pray in all humility and not to inflate our chests and exalt ourselves by putting down our neighbor next to us.  We all assume we’re here to pray and to worship God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  But, only God truly knows for what purpose we have come here.  For He and He alone can see our hearts and He and He alone knows our thoughts, though some of us might presume to know what’s inside another just by their outward appearance or our limited and oftentimes tainted knowledge of them and their circumstances.  St. John Climacus would remind us, if we presume to be righteous judges of others,

Fire and water do not mix; neither can you mix judgment of others with the desire to repent.  If a man commits a sin before you at the very moment of his death, pass no judgment, because the judgment of God is hidden from men.  It has happened that men have sinned greatly in the open but have done greater deeds in secret, so that those who would disparage them have been fooled, with smoke instead of sunlight in their eyes (Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers II, 107). 

Echoing this wisdom of St. John Climacus, the Western saint, Francis de Sales, in his own way asks, “How do you know, O judge, that the one despised has not repented?”  Why does the Pharisee assume he is righteous and his neighbor standing by him in prayer is not?  This communion of forgiven sinners – of sinners being saved by the grace of God – is not the place to elevate one’s self into the courts of Heaven at the expense of one’s brother or sister in the Faith.  Allow me to quote St. Francis at length here to drive home the point:

Do not say that so and so is a drunkard even though you have seen him intoxicated, or that so and so is an adulterer even if you saw him in his sin, or that he is incestuous because he has been guilty of a certain depraved deed.  A single act is not enough to justify the name of vice.  The sun stood still once for the sake of Joshua’s victory and at another time it was darkened for our Saviour’s victory, yet no one will say that the sun is stationary or dark.  Noah got drunk once and Lot twice and Lot also committed the great sin of incest, yet neither one was a drunkard and Lot was not an incestuous man.  Because St. Peter once shed blood does not mean that he was bloodthirsty, nor was he blasphemous because he once blasphemed.  To deserve the name of a vice or [of] a virtue, there must be some advance in an act and it must be habitual.  Hence it is untrue to say that so and so is bad-tempered or a thief simply because we once saw him in a fit of anger or guilty of theft.

He goes on:

          Even if a man may have been addicted to a vice for a long time, we

are in danger of falsehood if we call him a vicious man.  Simon the leper called Mary Magdalen a sinner, because she had been one not long before, but he spoke untruly since she was no longer a sinner but a most sincere penitent.  Hence our Saviour took her under His protection.  The foolish Pharisee took the publican for a great sinner, perhaps even an unjust man, an adulterer, and an extortioner.  He was much deceived for at that very hour the publican was justified.  Since God’s goodness is so immense that a single moment suffices for us to ask for and receive His grace, what certainty can we have that a man who yesterday was a sinner is such today?  A day that is past must not judge the present day and the present day must not judge the day that is past.  It is only the Last Day that judges all days.  Hence we can never say that a man is wicked without exposing ourselves to the danger of telling a lie.  If we must say something it is only that he did such and such a bad deed, that he lived a bad life at such a time, or that he does ill at present.  We must never draw conclusions from yesterday to today, nor from today to yesterday, and still less tomorrow (Introduction to the Devout Life, 203-204). 

It is God the Almighty Who counsels us to hold our tongues and to suspend our “righteous judgment” and allow Him – to trust Him – to do what He only can do because He sees and knows all things (Gn. 18:25; Rm. 12:19-20).  What secret dark things in our hearts and lives might be revealed by the all-exposing Light of God?  And we wish to judge our neighbor?

Without humility our repentance is nothing and meaningless.  Without humility the salvation of God is without effect in our hearts and souls.  “’He must increase, but I must decrease,’” was the motto of the Baptist and Forerunner of our Lord (Jn. 3:30).  It is good counsel for us who seek the grace and mercy of God.  Mercy is the fruit of humility (St. John Climacus, Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers III, 82).  God will not fault us for showing mercy on the worthy and the unworthy alike.  “Always let mercy outweigh everything else in you,” we’re told by St. Isaac the Syrian.  “A hard and unmerciful heart will never be pure” (Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers II, 81). 

According to St. Isaac the Syrian, “Humility is the garment of the Deity” (Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers III, 59).  What a beautiful image!  And if our Lord God and Saviour Jesus Christ gladly put on such a garment for our salvation – for my salvation – why would I not also want to wear so beautiful a garment, a garment made even more beautiful by our Lord Himself?  And yet, in this parable where do I find myself: Pharisee or publican?  Where do you see yourself?  St. Sarmatas of the Thebaid offers this: “I prefer a sinful man who knows he has sinned and repents,” he says, “to a man who has not sinned and considers himself to be righteous” (Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers III, 117).  Someone else has said that we need to be obedient like the Pharisee and repentant like the publican.  Indeed! 

So, at the start of this Pre-Lenten season, let us allow God to pummel us, to soften our hearts and souls, and let us pursue with all speed to don the garment of humility which is the most important thing in our Christian religion (Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers III, 61).  Our obedience to God is the grave of our own will which gives rise to humility (St. John Climacus, Wisdom of the Divine Philosophers III, 59).          

Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.  Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ!  Glory forever!

PROPERS:

2 Tm. 3:10-15

Lk. 18:10-14