Self-Righteous Pride: Obstacle in Receiving Mercy of God: Saturday of 3rd Week of Lent (A)

Which one of the two in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:9-14) reflects you more: a Pharisee, who boated of his righteous acts and thanked God for keeping him righteous, or a tax collector, who cried to God for His mercy? As we have entered in the latter halfway on our Lenten journey, examining ourselves with this question is of critical importance to ensure that we are on the right track.

 

What characterizes the Pharisee is self-righteousness, which reflects his excessive pride to himself. In contrast, the tax collector reflects penance and humble recognition of the need for mercy from God. If we were all as righteous as what the Pharisee thought of himself, then, why would we need to be on the Lenten journey? To feel superior to the rest of repenting brothers and sisters, who seek God’s mercy on the journey?

A self-righteous attitude of the Pharisee is sometimes observed even in a prayer meeting or faith-sharing meeting. At such a meeting, we share our personal experiences of being touched by God, experiencing His grace. We are to speak how God, especially in His mercy (chesed), has touched and how this experience has been transforming us. However, once in a while, there is a person simply describing good deeds he or she did in the name of God, as to be acknowledged by the rest of the attendees of the meeting. Rather than saying how God enabled him or her to do a good thing to others, this person simply speaks of his or her accomplishment.

Perhaps, this person did not intend to boast of his or her good deed to others. Nevertheless, it suggests that this person is blind to his or her tendency toward self-righteousness and psychological need to be recognized as superior.  Such a need reflects his or her inner insecurity, and it needs to be acknowledged by him or her. This acknowledgement of the insecurity deep within, contributing to his or her tendency to self-righteousness is, an indispensable step to be taken, while Lenten journey is still taking on.

It is important to understand why Jesus spoke this parable, and it is to teach a lesson to those who were too confident of their own righteousness and therefore looked down on others (Luke 18:9). Through our Lenten journey together, we come to realize that self-righteousness is a reflection of pride, as well as, an indication of spiritual blindness, which is addressed in the Gospel reading for the 4^th Sunday of Lent (A) (John 9:1-41). Not to mention, it is a major obstacle on our Lenten path.

As the repenting tax collector in the Gospel reading was asking for, what we need is mercy of God, as we continue on with our Lenten journey. We, in fact, journey on the path of God’s mercy during Lent. Mercy is what we pray for through our Lenten prayers with contrite heart. The First Reading (Hosea 6:1-6) reminds that the mercy of God is a healing and reviving medicine (Hosea 6:1-2). It is as reviving as rains enable the earth to be vegetated (Hosea 6:3) so that it will not be barren. And, it is what we pray for with our humility and penance. However, our pride is a major obstacle to receive the medicine of mercy from God.

As we continue to move forward on this Lenten journey, let us pray for God’s mercy, the very medicine we need, so that we can be transformed and we can perform acts of mercy to others.

It is in God’s desire to give us chesed : mercy in His covenant loyalty and steadfast love (Hosea 6:6; Matthew 9:13). It is also in His desire to be merciful to one another as He is so (Luke 6:36).  Let us be touched by God through His medicine of mercy so that we can be transformed to become more merciful, eradicating all the causes of our self-righteousness, such as pride.

Pride to ourselves keeps us from God but humble recognition of our need for God’s mercy is a stride into the closeness to God.