Pentecost+20/Proper 25C (Joel 2:23-32; Ps 65; Lk 18:9-14; 2 Tim 4:6-8,16-18)

In today’s gospel lesson, the puzzling piece is why the tax collector went home justified rather than the Pharisee. Why is the tax collector rather than the Pharisee justified or made righteous or exalted before God? Jesus says it’s because of the tax collector’s humility. But what really is the humility that Jesus is talking about? Let’s do some comparative work between the Pharisee and the tax collector. 

The Pharisee is a religiously perfect person. He does everything religiously right and correct. There’s nothing wrong with him. No one can find any flaw in his religious life. So, he prays, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” This is actually a prayer of thanksgiving. 

Before we quickly judge him to be arrogant, is he really arrogant? I’ll be his defender for now. He is thanking God that his life is not like thieves, rogues, adulterers, or the tax collector. What he’s saying is that he is faithfully keeping the Ten Commandments: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet. Not only does he fulfill the Ten Commandments but also he really practices his religion. He fasts twice a week. He is financially responsible and honest before God that he tithes. What a great role model for stewardship! 

At this point, it is really hard to understand why Jesus thinks more highly of the tax collector than the Pharisee. Let’s look at the tax collector. He is standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” He does have a reason to ask for God’s mercy. He has an understandable reason to stand far off in the distance and not even look up to heaven. He excessively taxes his fellow Jews and makes a profit out of it. He takes advantage of his occupation and is seen as a traitor who collaborates with the Roman colonizers. He is guilty for not keeping the Ten Commandments, at least for violating “You shall not covet” and for working for the Roman Empire, which may be considered as violating the First Commandment that there’s only one God and no idols. 

Then it gets much more complicated to see anything wrong in the Pharisee who is religiously and morally perfect and way better than the tax collector. It is very confusing why Jesus considers the tax collector more justifiable than the Pharisee and how he is humble. Is Jesus envious of the Pharisee? We do not know. But one thing that should be clear is Jesus does not say that the Pharisee has done things wrong. What the Pharisee is doing is what every faithful Jew ought to do. Jesus doesn’t deny or abolish the importance of the Ten Commandments. Rather, he says he has come to this world to complete the Law. The tax collector still has to keep the Ten Commandments after his metanoia, his repentance, or his conversion. 

The only key to this puzzle of why Jesus reckons the tax collector more justified and humbler than the Pharisee seems to be in the two prayers each one says. These two prayers uttered by the Pharisee and the tax collector show us the two worlds that they are living in. The world of the Pharisee is filled with many characters: the Pharisee himself, thieves, rogues, adulterers, the tax collector, and God. It is actually him against others while having God on his side. It is the world of division, him and others, you and me, subject and object. It is the world of an explicit duality. In his prayer, we can see how strong his ego is. His ego is striving to be perfect, fulfilling all the religious and social requirements. Even his act of thanking God only comes out of his comparison with others. That act in and of itself is the ego trying to be justified by God that he is perfect. It’s like I gotta thank God because it is what a religiously perfect person ought to do. In this way, his ego gets stronger and firmer while he steps further from his true self. If his true self is the innermost depth of his very being that is the closest to God, his ego desires to be a god of his own, walking away further from the true God and the true self.

On the other hand, the world of the tax collector is much simpler. There are the tax collector and God alone. No one else comes in between this relationship. In the tax collector’s prayer, we can see how weak his ego has become. He is struggling that he is not right with God. His ego senses how imperfect he is. Keeping the Commandments is an impossible task for his ego. The tax collector’s ego is not any better than the Pharisee’s ego. Yet, the difference is that he’s able to face his reality as it is that his ego can never be perfect. He can never be right with God on his own. As his ego weakens, he gets closer to the true self, to the core of his existence. As he sees more clearly how the ego always feels so deficit, he seeks something that is true, real, permanent, and perhaps eternal. So he searches for God and his mercy as well as who he desires to be in God’s eyes, his true self, the restored image of God in him. 

The word “humility” has an interesting etymology. It originates from the Latin word, “humus,” (not hummus!) meaning “earth” or “soil.” The word like “human” also has the same root. This Latin root is shared with the Hebrew term, “adamah” meaning the same thing. Then it’s not surprising that the very first human being “Adam” in the Book of Genesis is named after “adamah.” So when one says one is humble, one is closer to the very source of one’s being. One is aware of one’s origin, the earth and the soil breathend by the very breath of God. If you are humble, you are close to being human and being humus. 

It’s like I know that I’m made out of earth. It’s to remember that I am dust, and to dust I shall return. This dust, this earth of which I am created is sustained by the divine breath of God, the Holy Spirit. I have in me the divine nature which does not come from myself yet which makes me who I am and that I am. Then, the difference between the Pharisee and the tax collector is about who is closer to the very source of their existence, who is more human. That the tax collector is humble and the Pharisee is not in the eyes of Jesus means that the tax collector is closer to his being “humus” than the Pharisee, that the tax collector is closer to his true self in which he sees the One who gives life than the Pharisee. This is a total overturning of self, looking at his ego with the hope of discovering his true self, restoring God’s image in him, the resurrection of self into the new creation, the new being in Christ. 

Once I can see myself as humus, I can see other human beings as the same. Is there such a thing called “righteous” soil? Is there anyone of us who is not made of humus? Is there anyone of us whose life is not breathed by God? From this perspective of humus, which is to see things from the perspective of the true self, there’s no duality. If I am not keeping the law of Jesus, if I am not living my life as Jesus has told me, then my prayer to God will be the same as the tax collector, “God, have mercy on me a sinner!” If I am, by the grace of God, keeping the law of Jesus, loving others wholeheartedly as myself, then my prayer will be similar, not identical, to the Pharisee’s, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I’m humus just like them. So, have mercy on me and us sinners, for we are not separate.” 

Let us remember that we are made of humus, breathed by the divine breath of God. Remembering how we have come to be is the first step to humility. When we look at others, we are but one big humus. And God himself became humus to reveal our oneness with him. Our receiving of the body and blood of Jesus is then not only a reminder of God coming to be in union with us but also God’s way of strengthening this divine bond between him and us, you and me in our very human nature. From this place of humility, we go out to the world with love and compassion to make this world beautiful in the eyes of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 
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