Scientific Support for Humility:
in this parable, God describes how humility is blessed and how pride is not.
Before I was a priest, I was a social scientist. I love comparisons. Scientists use comparisons to isolate the effects of the variables they are interested in. For example, if you want to know what the effect of sleep deprivation is on intellectual performance, you have two groups of similar subjects take the very same exam; but you let one group get a good night’s sleep the night before, while forcing the other to stay up most of the night. Then you compare how well they did on the exam. Because nothing else was allowed to vary, the difference in performance is ascribed to sleep [FWIW, this kind of study has conclusively shown that sleep improves performance on tests, and that a lack of sleep leads to lower grades. This despite a college culture that encourages cramming!].
The kind of work that I did as a social scientist and intelligence analyst was a bit messier because I could not run controlled experiments to isolate the effects of each variable. For example, if I wanted to understand the effect of theology on the Taliban insurgency, I could not run i he insurgency twice; once with radical Islam and the next without. Rather, I would have to compare radical Islamist insurgencies with ones that used other religions and ideologies; trying to find the kinds of cases that allowed me to draw out the independent effect of religion. While this kind of work is important, it is messy and full of nuance. And frankly, after a while, the ambiguity gave me a bit of a headache.
Which is why I am so thankful that God gave us such a clear comparison in the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. He tells us of two men, describes what it is that makes them different, and how those differences lead them to different outcomes. Scientifically speaking, there is nothing clearer.
•The Pharisee exalted himself and received no grace (i.e. he was not “justified”)
•The Publican humbled himself and received grace (i.e. he was “justified” and “exalted”)
The Lord is teaching us in no uncertain terms that if we want to receive grace (if we want to be exalted), then we must humble ourselves and repent. (“God be merciful to me a sinner”). The publican in this parable is like Zacchaeus in last week’s Gospel, and like Matthew before him: they lived sinful lives but repented of these sins. The Pharisee judges and mocks the publican and his encounter with Our Lord, just as the onlookers mocked Zaccheaus and Matthew in their encounters with Christ. The Pharisee thought that his deeds; his righteous fasting, tithing, and obedience to the Law; would raise Him up to the presence of God. It did not: it only increased the gulf between them [i.e. him and God]. He thought that the publican’s sin would completely remove the publican from holiness; and he was right. This is what sin does. But what he was blind to was how the publican’s repentance and humility allowed God to reach down to and into the publican and raise him up to glory (i.e. “exalt” him).
Do you remember the history of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 4-9)? Men thought that their skills would allow them to reach God. This is impossible and spiritually harmful (which is another way of saying; “sinful”). God attempted to teach men humility by confusing their tongues; but the lesson did not stick. Like these men, and like the Pharisee in the parable, we still act as if we were “good enough” on our own. That we have plenty to be proud of, that we have no real sins to hold us back, that humility and repentance are for real sins; sins like “extortion”, “adultery”, murder, and the like. If we continue acting this way after hearing this Gospel, then we do so only out of hard-headedness and pride; because God couldn’t be clearer. [FWIW, the architecture of our churches reinforce this lesson: we do not build towers in an attempt to reach God; we build domes that describe how God reaches down to us, and make them beautiful to show how this unites us with heaven].
We must develop habits of humility and repentance. Even though you believe it with all our heart, the logic of the Gospel may not be enough to move you in this direction. All the disciplines of Orthodoxy are designed to make us spiritually less like the Pharisee and more like the Publican, but let me pull out two examples of Orthodox spiritual disciplines that, if followed, will help us become better, more humble, people:
•Prayer. Make the Morning and Evening prayers in your Prayer Book part of your life. The lessons they teach will, over years of repetition, make repentance and humility seem natural. Read or listen to the Prayers before Communion on Sunday morning as you prepare to come to Divine Liturgy. These, too, are excellent teachers. Augment these with the regular recitation of the full version of the publican’s prayer; “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Jesus Prayer). A disciplined Orthodox prayer life will do wonders for your sanity and your spirituality.
•Love one another. God exhibited His great love for us by humbling Himself to our level; by focusing His salvific attention on each and every one of us; and by dying on the Cross to atone for the sins of every single one of us. It is rare that we are given the opportunity to actually suffer and die to save someone; but every day you have the opportunity to what Christ did: love the person standing before you. This requires real humility. This person may not deserve your attention in any objective sense; in fact, he may be petty, or slow of speech, or offensive, or simply irrelevant and incoherent. But love him despite his nonsense the way Christ loves you despite yours. While he is before you, make him the center of your world, the focus of your attention, the object of your love; and his reception of this love the goal of your interaction. This will not only teach you humility, it will make you a powerful instrument for spreading peace and salvation. And you can work on this even while you are along: praying for individual persons is wonderful way to reinforce this habit.
Let me conclude with a paradox: humility will make you more confident. Humility will give you the backbone to be strong. Humility will remove all fear and anxiety from your life. Christ Himself was humble, and He was no pushover. The humble man is able to perform every good deed without hesitation or remorse; to love without fear of pain or reprisal; and to enjoy the constant reassurance of God’s grace.
As St. Paul taught (Philippians 2: 3-11):
Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be [proud of], but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Let us imitate Christ in His humility; let us imitate Christ in His love; so that we too, might follow Him to Glory. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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