“He spoke the following parable
to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone
else, “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax
collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, ‘I thank
you God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind,
and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a
week; I pay tithes on all I get’. The tax collector stood some distance away,
not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven, but he beat his breast and said,
‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’ This man, I tell you, went home again at
rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be
humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Within this
parable there is a very strong message that challenges the egocentricity of
those who are unable to see their own faults, an egocentricity that is caused by
false pride and arrogance. How
interesting it is, that the Pharisee did not say his prayer to God, but to
himself. The Pharisee in this parable was entirely wrapped up in self. He
believed that because he could do nothing wrong in the sight of God and
therefore he was better than others. The tax collector, on the other hand, was
seen as a man who was in league with the Romans by collecting their taxes, and
as one who cheats the taxpayers. In the eyes of the Pharisee, the tax collector
is someone who is despised, yet in the eyes of God, it is the tax collector who
is justified through his humility in asking forgiveness and mercy because of his
sins.
What are the challenges within this parable
that can be applied to daily life?
First of all there is the challenge of admitting “I could be wrong”. When a person suffers from too much
pride and is egocentric, that person is rarely able to admit the possibility of
making a mistake or being wrong. The egocentric is one who is extremely
self-centred to the point that he has created his own god called “self”. The egocentric is like the Pharisee who
considers himself to be perfect, whilst he looks down upon the tax collector.
The egocentric might have the following characteristics:
·
Do wrong to
others but refuse to acknowledge guilt;
·
Hate others and
call it zeal;
·
Flatter others
because of what they can do for us;
·
Lie to others
and call it tact;
·
Pretend that it
is prudent to be slow to defend God in public;
·
Selfishly push
others aside and call it “getting our rights”;
·
Judge others
and call it facing facts;
·
Refuse to give
up the life of sin and call anyone who renounces sin an
escapist;
·
Accumulate
wealth and call it security;
·
Feel resentment
towards the wealth of others and claim to be “defenders of the
downtrodden’;
·
Deny the
inviolable principles of law and claim to be “liberal”;
·
Begin sentences
with “I” and condemn one’s neighbour for wanting to talk about
himself;
·
Ruin family
life by divorce by claiming to “want to live our own
lives”;
·
Criticize
others unjustly;
·
Judge virtues
by the vices from which we abstain.
The Pharisee in the parable was
self-righteous. He considered that all he had to do for salvation was to follow
his own set of rules by keeping up his outward appearances; he considered
himself to be superior to the tax collector because he paid his tithes and
fasted twice a week. The behaviour that he exhibited was that of one who is full
of self-pride. The tax collector, on the other hand, acknowledged his sins
before God, and asking for His mercy. The tax collector was justified in the
sight of God because of his humility, but the Pharisee was
not.
The challenge therefore is to see how we rate
against the characteristics of the egocentric. The question to be asked is: Am I self-centred like the
Pharisee? Do I consider myself to
be superior to others? Do I judge others according to my own standards? Do I
push the rights of others aside with my boorish attitudes? Do I resent others
who have more than myself? Do I refuse to acknowledge the sins in my life and
therefore refuse to make necessary reforms to my behaviour? Do I act like the
hypocrite – say one thing and do something else?
“Well then sin entered the world
through one man, and through sin, death, and thus death has spread through the
whole human race because everyone has sinned. Sin existed in the world long
before the Law was given.” (Rom
5:12)
What was the sin the entered the world
through one man? The root of the
sin of Adam was that of self-pride.
“Then the serpent said to the
woman, “No! You will not die! God knows in fact that on the day that you eat it
your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. The
woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and it was
desirable for the knowledge that it could give. She took some of its fruit and
ate it.” (Gen
3:4-6)
The lesson from the Fall of Adam of Eve is
that it was the desire of Adam and Eve to be like God that caused them to give
into the temptation of Satan. Through a desire for power, Eve took of the fruit
and then gave some to her husband.
This desire to be like God, which is the cause of the sin of Adam and
Eve, is at the very root of egocentric behaviour. It is the inherent
characteristic that leads a person further and further into a life of
selfishness, and away from God.
When a person fails to exercise
self-discipline, and the ego is allowed to take over, there is a decline into
egotism through seven stages:
(1)
Solicitation to
do what is evil. Fulton Sheen writes:
“Evil is always willed because of the good elements, real or imagined,
that accompany it. ” [1] Since our minds are aware of the fact
that certain acts lead to sin, our task remains to resist the temptation or
solicitation to sin. However, to be
a sin there must be consent of the will. Yet, like Adam and Eve, when we yield
to sin, we try to blame other factors, such as “temperament” or call it a “human
need”. Just like the Pharisee in
the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, “we tend to claim full credit
for our virtues, while our faults we blame on the environment or on some
provocation beyond human endurance. Yet, yet in more honest moments, we know
that it is a superficial view that we take of ourselves, that we are not all we
should like to be. It is then that we ask: “Why am I not better”? “ [2]
The first downward step comes when we deceive ourselves accepting a lying label
that makes an evil thing seem good to us.
(2)
Excitation of
the passions; there is a feeling of pleasure, of wellbeing, or enchantment. “No sooner is a solicitation to evil
made welcome in the mind than there is a physical response – a stirring of
passion or a thrill.” [3]
However, at this stage there is no sin involved. One sins only through the
consent of the will.
(3)
Consent of the
will: The will always has, in
itself and in cooperation with God’s help, the power to repel the evil that
attracts, thus turning the experience into merit. In the case of the egotist,
that consent is full and entire. “This happens when the will lets itself be
drawn to taste wilfully of evil, despite the protests of conscience that
recognize its true nature.” [4]
(4)
Action: the
evil passes from the will to the deed, from the desire to the execution, from
the wish to the transaction, from the passion to its exploitation; [5]
(5)
Habit: is
reached when there is a repetition of the sinful acts, so that the rebellion
becomes habitual. The evil action is now routine, a kind of second nature, and
becomes an accepted part of the egotist’s life, that it almost stifles the
summons of Divine Love in the conscience. At this stage the will has become so
weak that it allows the body to seek to satisfy itself. The egotist has become
bound up in his sin.
(6)
Necessity: the egotist becomes determined to
indulge in his excesses over and over again. He may justify his weakness by
denying that he has free will. The determination to evil can be likened to the
hardening of the heart.
(7)
Eternal death:
the final stage of decline is that of eternal death of the mind and soul. At
this point the egotist has declined into a life of alcoholism, drug addiction,
prostitution, and mental disorder.
Despite the fact that the egotist rejects God
in favour of self, God remains faithful, and he stands in the wings waiting for
the opportunity for grace to penetrate the soul that has set itself upon the
path of destruction. A troubled and remorseful conscience that has not yet
killed the inner voice has always in it a token of life. There is hope for
anyone, even the most wicked, so long as the wicked man still hates his evil:
“The unforgivable sin is the denial of sin by the conscience.” [6]
The egotist has at his/her centre, the ego,
but the humble person has as his/her centre the Divine. The tax collector knew
that he was a sinner and he dared not raise his eyes heavenward because he
understood that he was responsible for his sins. The Pharisee, on the other
hand, refused to acknowledge responsibility for any sin. By asking God’s
forgiveness for his sins, the tax collector became justified in the sight of
God, showing that despite his sinfulness, he was God-centred. On the other hand
the Pharisee remained self-centred in his existence and was not justified in the
sight of God.
Even though the egotist rejects God in favour
of self, God is always looking for the trapdoor, which will allow the outpouring
of grace, and a change of heart in the egotist. For just as a person will wait
for a trapped bird to stop flapping around so that it can be released again into
the open, God waits patiently for the egotist to stop flapping around and accept
some self discipline. The words of Jesus say: “Come to me all you are weary and
heavy burdened and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28). These words are God’s invitation to
those who are in need of self-discipline to come and surrender to the healing
grace of God. There has to be a point when a person who is leading a life of sin
reaches rock bottom, and through remorse begins to make a change in
lifestyle. The point at which this
occurs is the point when remorse for the wicked lifestyle begins to set in. The
addict, for example, suddenly realises that he/she cannot continue the same
lifestyle and that permanent changes are necessary. The wake up call, when it comes could be
an arrest for possession of drugs or for theft, or it could be the slide into
mental illness (not all mental illness has as its root cause, wrong-doing) and
hospitalisation as a result of an attempt at suicide. It is the point at which God’s gift of
grace begins to penetrate into the soul and at last, the soul begins to
acknowledge the existence of God.
How can the egotist change from having ego as
the centre of its existence to having God as the centre of existence? The road to change is not an easy one,
for it requires placing oneself into the hands of God, and surrendering “self”
to do His Will and not our own.
How can this be achieved? A
person, who is on the road to recovery, does not have to rely on his/her own
resources, to achieve the essential change that will bring about a growth to
maturity. There is help available for those who want to make permanent changes
to their lives. There are self-help groups such as AA and GROW that teach people
how to grow to maturity by surrendering themselves to the healing power of God.
Just as the tax collector humbled himself by asking God for forgiveness, so the
one recovering from mental breakdown humbles him/herself to God. It is through
this surrender that the egotist begins to walk the path that leads to a reformed
personality.
What does it take to humble oneself before
the Lord? How do we learn to let go
of our self-pride and give ourselves totally to God, doing His Will alone? The first step is the examination of
conscience. It is the realisation that our behaviour is self-centred and taking
responsibility for that self-centredness. The tax collector left the Temple
justified because he had recognised that he was responsible for his sins.
Acceptance of responsibility for one’s own actions is a necessary part of
growing to maturity. Once the responsibility for one’s sins has been accepted,
the next step is reconciling oneself to God, by repenting of those sins and
where necessary making reparation for them.
[1] Fulton Sheen “Lift Up Your Hearts” p 42
[2] op. cit. p.42
[3] op. cit. p.43
[4] op cit. p 44
[5] ibid
[6] ibid p 19