LIFTING OUR EYES TO HEAVEN

 A SERMON FOR THE 10TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Today’s Gospel is about contrast.  Our Lord wants to show us two extremes, the Pharisee with his prideful arrogance, and the Publican with his abject humility.  We usually don’t like extremes.  The term “extremist” is not something we’d like to be called, is it?  In politics, the extremists are, on one hand, the far left communists who are now rioting and looting their way to a revolution; and on the other hand, a thankfully dying breed of far right racists who, not so very long ago, made black people ride at the back of the bus and drink from separate water fountains so we whites wouldn’t be “contaminated.”  Neither far left nor far right is a good place to be, and as I said, the truth is somewhere in between, but a long way from both.

In our religion, we often see extremes.  Take the virtue of hope, for example.  We practice Hope when we look forward to being rewarded for cooperating with God’s graces by going to heaven when we die and living in the eternal presence of our God.  It’s one of the three theological virtues, and one we must practice as perfectly as we can.  But it is possible to have too much hope.  We can have so much “hope” that we exceed the bounds of real hope, and presume on God’s mercy, vainly “hoping” he’ll forgive us all our sins, no matter how bad they are, how many times we carelessly commit them, no matter how imperfect our contrition, how weak our resolution to avoid them in the future.  The result?  We keep on sinning, with smug thoughts about the mercy of God being infinite, and a complete failure to realize the danger we are in.  “Don’t worry, I can go to confession again on Sunday.”  Too much hope.  Presumption.

On the other hand, with some people, the self-loathing of our sins becomes so much to bear that they lose hope, despairing altogether of their ultimate salvation.  This despair is the opposite of presumption.  We despair of ever being able to save our souls, and wallow in self-pity, depression.  Ultimately, we lose not only our hope, but our faith and our love of God, those two other theological virtues that are necessary for salvation.  The result of not enough hope, in other words, is the same as having too much hope.  We simply fall into the self-induced quagmire of a life of sin.

Presumption and despair.  Two extremes.  Both of them extreme distortions of the virtue of hope.  In the Gospel today, we have two extremes, but not these extremes of presumption and despair.  So in this particular case we shouldn’t be looking for the truth to be somewhere between the arrogant Pharisee and the humble Publican.  Certainly, the Pharisee’s pride is caused by the sin of presumption.  But the Publican’s humility is not the result of despair.  Humility is not a distortion of the virtue of hope.  On the contrary, it is a sign of the true practice of the virtue of hope.  Conscious of his many sins, the Publican still trusts in God and with true repentance and a firm purpose of amendment continues to hope in his salvation.

Take a look at the Pharisee as he falls into the first category of presumption.  He presumes that because he fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of his income to the temple, he’s a better man than the sinful Publican.  He presumes on God’s mercy, even thanking God for making him such a wonderful person.  Certainly, this man is extreme in his presumption, and with it, falls headlong into the deadly sin of Pride.  The Publican, on the other hand, counters the Pharisee’s excessive over-abundance of hope, not with a shortage of hope, but with just the right amount of hope.  He counters vice with virtue.  It is this true hope that leads him into the virtue of humility.

This is the lesson our Lord is giving us here, not that we have to pick between two opposites that are both bad, presumption or despair, but that we must reject extreme vice with extreme virtue, replacing our evil tendencies through the practice of the opposing virtues.  When we hope in God’s mercy, we must first seek the happy medium, falling neither into despair nor presumption.  These are the two real and undesirable extremes between which lies the truth.  Find that happy medium and your trust in God will be sound and well-founded.  Your ensuing humility will be to your credit.

Nor should you fear to be “extremely humble.”  Just beware the age-old trap of humility, which is probably the most dangerous of all the virtues.  It’s a virtue that, when you think of have it, that very thought means that you don’t.  Look at the Pharisee standing at the front of the temple: he dares to boast to Almighty God that he’s not a sinner, a perfect example of straightforward pride. The Publican, on the other hand, stands at the back of the temple, hiding himself from view, and confessing his sins with repentance and begging for mercy.  Note that he “would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven.”   He’s not calling upon God to look down on him and witness what a humble man he is.  No, his humility is genuine.  Instead of falling into the trap of taking pride in his humility, his prayer is based firmly on true hope—it’s utterly devoid of pride, merely the acknowledgment of his sins, sorrow and repentance for those sins, and finally, a heartfelt plea for mercy in the God in whom he puts his hope and trust.

When we pray our Act of Contrition, it must be with this same humility.  When we go to Confession, we rattle off our sins and expect the priest to absolve them with a few words in Latin.  Let’s not forget that if the confession of the sins is not done with repentance and firm purpose of amendment, the priest can spout all the Latin he wants over you, but it will have no effect.  You’re not there to just give the priest a laundry list of things you shouldn’t have done.  You must be humble and acknowledge that you have offended God, you must be sorry you did so, and you must have that intention to avoid any future occurrence.  The temptation to pride is always lurking in the background, luring us into a sense of complacency that we have “done our duty”, confessed our sins, and that we’re now back “in the state of grace,” our souls glowing white once again in the sight of God and his angels, better, undoubtedly, than the person next to us who hasn’t been to confession.  How wonderful we are!  Be careful. The devil is in the details.

It’s not far from the back of the church to the front, from your pew to the confessional.  It’s a short trip that you should make often.  Make sure though that when you venture forth to bare your soul before God, and again, even more so, when you go back to your pew with your nice newly-washed soul, it is with the humility of the Publican and not the presumption of the Pharisee.  Let God do the exalting of the humble, it’s not for us to do it ourselves.  If we do, our presumption leads us automatically into the sin of presumption and pride and become the Pharisee of today’s story, with all his extremism.  Let’s heed the words of our Lord, that “every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled.”  We need to know our place!