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Perfection, Humility and the Pharisee Within

March 18, 2023

 
Dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees – Gustave Doré

Hosea 6:1–6  |  Psalm 51:15–20  |  Luke 18:9–14

In the parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector, Jesus rebukes the grandiose, self-congratulatory Pharisee who is essentially putting himself out there as the “perfect” example and adherent to his notion of God’s expectations of a righteous man. He believes he has gotten it right and that all these “others” are inferior because they are not perfect and flawless. Yet, Jesus indicates the opposite is true.  His response to the Tax Collector’s humility is clear. Each of us, including our warts and flaws are exactly what God welcomes and will exalt.

As I reflected more deeply, I’m remembered what I learned from the late Reverend James Knudson. He said that the Hebrew word for perfection is not about being flawless. Rather it is about being a whole, complete, fully developed person. Since only God is perfect anyone who thinks and acts as though he is flawless and special is playing God when in judging another human being.

In my professional life I have come to realize that for many of the troubled people I serve, it is an invader Pharisee, the one that self-denigrates and stigmatizes us, who is the problem. It became that person’s belief that he must be flawless in order to be a worthwhile and acceptable person. This is clearly not what God expects. Rather, God welcomes our wholeness, for example when with sincere humility we recite the Kyrie. 

In occasionally relating this parable to my patients, I have seen that the process of healing can begin. And when my use of this parable is not consistent with their current spiritual perspective, I sometimes share these words in the novel, East of Eden, by John Steinbeck, a life-long Episcopalian and Nobel Prize winner.

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good”.

Perhaps you will agree that Steinbeck’s words resonate well with Jesus’ parable.

Mike Cerullo