Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Illusion and Reality

Very Reverend Ihor Kutash kutash@unicorne.org

(Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee)

"God, I thank Thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector". It is strange to think that, according to the Lord's parable that we hear in today's Gospel (Luke 18:10-14), these proud words are part of a prayer!

As the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity our Lord has heard millions of prayers since the creation of human beings. No prayers are strange to Him. He has heard similar ones many, many times. He knows very well the illusions that people build and strive to maintain. How common it is for people to compare themselves to others and congratulate themselves for not being as bad! Yet this is an illusion, since we can not really know what is in other people's hearts and minds, and most of their deeds remain unknown to us. The Lord alone knows all these things. Yet we continue to judge and compare.

This illusion is very dangerous to us. How can we become the very best that we can be, if we are always trying with all our might to persuade ourselves that we are fine just as we are - in fact better than most? We can never grow if we insist on remaining at our present level of knowledge, or ability, or awareness, or morality. And if we do not grow than we deteriorate. This is the inescapable law of life in this universe. Stagnation is not tolerated. In the spiritual and moral sense, we can keep on growing to become saints, or we shall degenerate to become monsters.

If we are honest with ourselves, from time to time we can find traces of both of these within ourselves. It is true: we can indeed be kind, compassionate, forgiving and loving. We can also be cruel, thoughtless, cold and brutal. Each one of us has this within us to a greater or lesser degree! The pharisee's error was that he wanted to see only the good things in himself. He wanted to see bad things only in other people, not in himself. So he persuaded himself that they were not there - that he was only good, and only others were bad.

The tax-collector, on the other hand, was open to seeing the dark things within himself. He did not try to make alibis for himself by pointing out how much worse other people were. He simply asked God to be merciful to him. His prayer was humble and realistic: "God be merciful to me a sinner". It is a good prayer. It is the kind that opens the door to God's treasury of grace - His help which makes us grow. Can we learn to pray like that? We can if we want to. Or we can go on living the boring, phoney life of the pharisee. It is hard keeping up an illusion. It is easier to live in reality.

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