When the Homily is about Immunology

Extremist Humility

Yesterday was the sunday of the Prodigal Son, another preparatory step toward setting sail on the sea of the Great Lenten Fast. It is a call for us all to come to ourselves.

Coming to ourselves requires that we escape our self deluded state, our falses images and impressions about ourselves. Often, as was the case in our Lord's Parable, we must watch the stilts upon which we have built our altar of idolatry collapse before we can begin to see the reality.

The Pharisee of the previous sunday's parable had a huge problem. Not unlike mine, perhaps not unlike yours. He believed he had the game DOWN. He was following the rules, he was doing all the right things. But, as we all know, he openly showed us the error of his way in the words of his prayer. The error of OUR way is likely much more effectively hidden and subversive.

Usually we asscoate the pharisee with extreme conservatives who love to shove their morality down the throats of others, all the while being completely devoide of love. But, we might be comfortably deluding ourselves in thinking this.

Mother Theresa might have been a Pharisee. Bono might be Pharisee. Billy Grahm might be a Pharisee. Surely Pat Robertson might be a Pharisee. The Ecumenical Patriarch might be a Pharisee. Ron Sider might be a pharisee. Thomas Merton might have been a pharisee. Your priest or pastor or "whoever feels led to speak a particularly good word of encouragement on any given tuesday eveing" might be a pharisee. The gay alcoholic epsicopal bishop might be a pharisee. Truth be told, while we love to pick out pharisees - oh what fun it is to pick on TV evangelists, the "religious right", the "left-wing socialist christians", or _____________ (fill in the blank) - how much harder is it to root out the pharisee in your own heart.

I think we begin to come to ourselves when we truly seek the pharisee in ourselves rather than in others. You wanna see a whitewashed tomb full of dead men's bones? Start looking within.

It takes humility to come home. But far less humility than it took for God to rescue us - given all that that entails (see icon above). I write all of this, knowing full well, that I need to hear it as much , if not more, than all others.