One of the amazing things about Scripture is that when I take the time to pray with it quietly and calmly, something always jumps out at me. Even when I know the passage by heart, because it’s the Word of God, it’s always new and full of surprises.
This week, the opening sentence of the first reading caught my attention: “The LORD is a God of justice, who knows no favorites.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds completely opposite of how I live! I have all kinds of favorites. When I get into my truck, there’s a favorite seat setting. When I like a song, I hit “thumbs up” and it goes into my favorites. My phone has a list of favorites to call and bookmarks of favorite sites. Even my water filter remembers my favorite number of ounces! The list goes on and on. And don’t even ask me about favorites when it comes to friends, family, or parishioners…I’m not sure I could live up to God’s standard of having no favorites.
When we think about praying to God, don’t we sometimes assume He loves us the way we love others; …..conditionally, …..with a ranking based on how well we behave or how faithful we are? Don’t we sometimes try to earn His love, as if we could somehow become one of His “favorites”? The first reading challenges that idea. As hard as it is to believe, God loves each and every one of us completely the same. In a non-cheesy sense, we are all God’s favorites!
So why does Scripture also seem to say that God favors the poor, the humble, and the oppressed? It’s not because He loves them more, but because they are often the ones most disposed to receive His love and help. God hears every prayer equally, without prejudice, with the same love, concern, and mercy, but the difference happens within us. When we’re surrounded by wealth, power, health, or comfort, we start to believe we can manage just fine without God. We begin to see Him as supplemental instead of essential; someone we go to when we’ve run out of options, instead of our first option.
When someone is stripped of those illusions, when they have no power or resources to rely on, they are able to turn to God in complete dependence. That kind of helplessness puts a person in the perfect place to recognize their need for God. And that’s where grace begins.
That’s the lesson of today’s Gospel. Jesus teaches that we must be utterly humble and aware of our total dependence on God. Whether we’re praying for food, money, health, or mercy, our prayer should come from the perspective of someone who has nothing to prove, someone who simply says, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” We don’t have to impress God with our accomplishments or our reasoning. He knows what we need and already loves us more than we can imagine. He plays no favorites.
I think it’s also interesting to see how the parable doesn’t deny the Pharisee’s goodness. He actually is a moral man. He fasts, he tithes, and he gives credit to God for his virtues. All things we should do too! But something’s still off. What’s wrong with this Pharisee?
Eleanor Stump, a philosophy professor at St. Louis University, points to St. Thomas Aquinas, who wrote about four types of pride, the vice that destroys the Pharisee’s prayer and renders it unworthy.
Foolish pride: thinking you have an excellence you don’t have, like a child who thinks he’s the best basketball player in the world.
Self-made pride: thinking you have an excellence you do have, but that you achieved it all by yourself.
Self-congratulatory pride: recognizing your gifts come from God, but believing He gave them to you because you’d make better use of them than anyone else.
Superior pride: acknowledging that God gave you your gifts because He’s good, but secretly being glad others don’t have them—because it makes you feel special.
That last kind is the Pharisee’s problem. He’s not lying about his virtue; he’s just using it as a mirror to admire himself. He thanks God for his goodness but boasts of being better than others. He compares himself to the tax collector instead of comparing himself to the holiness of God. As long as he’s “better than that guy,” he feels fine. And that’s a deadly kind of pride, a poison to the soul.
So how do we avoid that trap? The antidote is the virtue of humility. True humility recognizes that every good thing we have is an undeserved gift from the Lord. It doesn’t deny our gifts or talents; it sees them clearly and gratefully. Humility leads us to develop those gifts, deepen them, and then share them freely, just as God freely shared them with us. It rejoices in the gifts of others, even when they surpass ours, because all goodness glorifies God.
We also need to watch out for false humility, which can masquerade as virtue. Humility isn’t putting ourselves down, denying our talents, or pretending we’re worthless. Humility isn’t low self-esteem or self-hatred. It’s seeing ourselves truthfully, as we really are before God, both the good and the bad.
Which brings us to the final point: no matter how good, holy, or gifted we are, every one of us is the tax collector when we stand before the Lord. We all have room to grow in holiness. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of! God already knows our weaknesses, our sins, our failures, and He loves us anyway. He delights in the prayer that comes from a humble, trusting heart. God has no favorites!
As we continue with the perfect prayer of the Mass, let’s make the words of the tax collector our own: “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” If we pray that sincerely, we can be sure God will shower us with mercy, grace, and countless blessings.
