All About Me

"Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. ' Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -- greedy, dishonest, and adulterous -- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.'  But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, 'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.' I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will he exalted.' " --[Luke 18: 9-14].


I grew up in a family, whose nightly dinner table conversation mirrored that of the Pharisee. -- "We are NOT like the other families, we are so much better than they are."

My father would say, " Our race [ethnicity] is far superior than any other on earth." When my sibling and I laughed out loud at him, our dad would chide us, "I am deadly serious! Why are you laughing?"

The nightly conversation would go on and on. . . " great unwashed immigrants, who cannot afford the meat such as we have on our table." -- "The immense amount of taxes we pay, enough alone to raise a family." -- "They cannot even afford to send their kids to better schools."

You notice that in this Scripture, the Pharisee speaks his prayer to himself. My family certainly preached at the altar of Human Achievement. It was "All About Me"-- "my" achievements, "my" material wealth, "my" position in society.

A lot of this kind of talk has been dominating the 2016 Presidential Election -- and not to the betterment of our country.

One candidate speaks as if only HE can fix our Nation's ills. When confronted with accusations of adultery, he protests, "But it was never as bad as THAT guy!"

The other candidate speaks highly disparagingly of Christians in general, and of Catholics in particular. She hints that Christians must not be very bright to believe all that stuff. She calls those who disagree with her values, "a basket of deplorables."

We have gone through decades of history in which the character of a man did not seem to matter, as long as he possessed the technical skills for the job. Now, we have reaped what we have sown, with leaders who build themselves up by tearing others down. . .

This Scripture hammers home that character DOES count.  Our society will not be a better place if we simply pay lip service to the rules, all the while narcissistically offering up the Religion of Self.

Specifically, Humility counts.

Humility means that we are ALL Sinners. In secular terms, if you will, we ALL make mistakes and we are all flawed. We ALL need to learn to make apologies, not excuses.. .

Even more, Humility means that all that we have and all that we are-- are dependent on God.
I am not superior, if I have more money than you, a nicer car, more votes, more Facebook likes, a tonier zip code, more fabulous vacations or a higher tax bracket.

All of these pluses on my side of Life's Ledger do not make me a more valuable person, and certainly do not mean that I have all of Life's answers.

Because, as with my life-- at one moment, one can have nothing to eat, at another moment, one can have plenty to eat. At one moment, one can worry about how to be able to pay all the bills, at another moment, one can have enough money to be generous to others.

I have had Everything in Life. I have had Everything taken away. I have gone from top of the world, to the lowest low.

The one constant in life is God, our Creator, our Nurturer, Our Redeemer. If we are humble enough to cry out, 'God! Be merciful to me for I am faulty and weak.' -- then we earn a place in His Heart.

[Related Posting: "Way Better Than You", 10/27/13.]

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