Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Lk 14:11 & 18:14). St. Benedict quotes this sentence at the beginning of his Chapter 7 on Humility. It’s a centrally important teaching for the monastic life, and for the Christian life. St. Luke reports it twice: doubtless the Lord would have said it quite a few times. In St. Luke it follows the parable of the banquet, with everyone jostling for the highest place; then after the parable of the Pharisee and Publican. We are rather used to hearing it, so we can maybe cease to notice just how remarkable it is. If anyone apart from our Lord were to say it, it would not be true. But Jesus is able to say it, and in his mouth these are words of saving Truth. Jesus can say this so on the authority of his divine nature, and on the authority of his saving death, and on the authority of his life-giving resurrection from the dead.
We need to be clear from the start about what our aim as Christians is. Our aim is to be exalted. This life of ours here on earth is too restricted, too full of trouble and pain, too unsatisfactory for us to be perfectly content with it. We are all somehow hard-wired to want something better, something more. Jesus came to give us that: to fulfil all our best aspirations; to exalt us. By his redeeming blood, Jesus has pulled us up from the morass into which our sins had sunk us. By the gift of the Holy Spirit, he has made us in principle an entirely new creation. But this is only work begun. On the last day we are to be lifted up very high indeed; higher than our limited minds can ever comprehend. Our lifting up is to be the difference between death and life; its model is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The exaltation of which Jesus speaks - the exaltation he came freely to bestow - is to be then all the way up to his own heights; to his own divine Sonship; to his own eternal union with his Father, in the Holy Spirit, in endless glory. This is our destiny, our fulfilment, and the goal of all our lives. But the way to get there, to be able to receive this great gift, is the way of humility.
There’s an alternative way, always open to all of us, which is the way of pride. That’s the way taken by the devil, and by Adam. The trouble with pride though is that it leads not up but down: down to human abasement; down to separation from God, down to eternal death, and ultimately down to the bottom pit of hell. Pride is anyway not a good way to go, because it’s all based on nothing: it’s an empty, puffed up balloon. Pride is folly, lies, and deceit; and self deceit is even greater folly than telling lies to deceive other people. The proud person sets himself up in place of God, to be the object of his own veneration. He worships himself as his own idol: as if all he had were not from God anyway. Pride is the capital sin; the root of all sins; and we’ve all got it. Pride is our number one enemy, and we need to get rid of it.
In today’s parable our Lord gives us such a marvellous lesson about all this! His little story is so simple, so clear, so memorable, so economic with words! The Pharisee and the Publican well complements the earlier story of the Prodigal Son and his Elder Brother. The moral of both stories is shocking, counter-intuitive, unsettling: because in these parables it seems to be the good one who is rejected, and the bad one welcomed. But in both stories the apparently good one is actually hard-hearted, contemptuous of others, self regarding, self congratulating, self pitying. And the apparently bad one does what we all have to do - he comes to his Father, and asks for forgiveness. Yes: as Christians we all definitely should be virtuous, and we definitely shouldn’t be criminals, as we must assume this Publican was. But more than that: we all need humility, and we all need to reject pride: or we cannot belong to Jesus, and so we cannot follow him to glory.
The good news of our faith - the Gospel we preach - is this: that because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, there is forgiveness of sins for anyone who repents (24:47). And part of the Gospel preaching is the truth that all of us without exception are sinners: all of us need to be forgiven: all of us need the grace of repentance and conversion.
That is why St. Benedict, with the whole Christian tradition, puts such enormous emphasis on humility as the foundation for the spiritual life. St. Augustine once memorably said that of all the ways that lead to God, the 1st is humility, the 2nd humility, the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th humility. And as the Saints teach us, Christian humility is no static virtue: rather it’s a long climb, a journey, an adventure, a life-time’s project: something in which we have to grow daily.
So we often say the prayer of the publican: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to me a sinner. Or more simply: Kyrie eleison. The Eastern tradition of prayer makes this the fundamental prayer, to be repeated constantly with every breath taken and exhaled. Whether we do that or not, we have to have the attitude expressed by this prayer in our heart. Lord, I am not worthy, I a sinner, to lift up my eyes to heaven. Paradoxically, this prayer is not demeaning, or craven, but ennobling, and bold. Even as we say the words, we know the prayer is heard by the one whose name is Mercy. He is waiting for us: he came only to save sinners; his invitation to come to him remains always open. So even as we ask, we get. Even as we humble ourselves, we are lifted up. Even as we weep in sorrow, we rejoice in sure hope. Even as we express our distance from God, we are united with him: through his free and abundant mercy, made manifest in the blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, and our only Saviour.