The other day, I wrote a post about our attitude needing to be that we are the worst of all sinners. Let me follow up on that by commenting on what appears to many to be an oddity in the New Testament. Many have noticed that over and over again, it is the “good” people who do not respond to Our Lord Jesus Christ, while it is those whom society considers “unclean” that consistently come running into the Kingdom of God.
There are exceptions on both sides, for instance Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Barabbas, and the other thief on the cross. But, on the main, the “better” the person, the harder it is to bring them to repentance. Why is this so? Following up on the post from the other day, let me again quote one of the church fathers. In that post I said:
Saint John Cassian said of pride that, “it rightly has no angel, nor other virtues opposed to it, but God Himself as its adversary.”
Since pride is the worst of all sins, it makes perfect sense that those whom we consider as “unclean” often come to Our Lord Jesus Christ running. After all, many whom we consider unclean know how bad they are. Their conscience certainly accuses them, but they can also see and feel our accusation and rejection. Their pride levels are certainly not at the highest possible place. Are there exceptions? Of course, but not as many as we might think. You see, we not only shun the “unclean,” but we have also convinced ourselves that they will not change, and so we either make little effort to go after them, or we go after them in such a condescending manner that they quickly reject us and the “gospel” that we preach to them.
In contrast to that, Our Lord Jesus Christ came to them, and showed that he highly respected them as persons, and just plain loved them, while making it clear that he knew that their behavior was sinful. It is no wonder that they responded to him. Many wanted God, but had already decided that there was no hope. And that lack of hope was fed by the “good” people of Israel.
The problem with those who are “good” is that all too often they have begun to hope and trust in their behavior rather than on God. As the comic above shows, we priests are most prone to that. The good sermon, the sermon that wins adulation, why that can be our meat and drink. We can begin to live for rightly performing (rather than celebrating) the Divine Liturgy. We can cultivate that righteous voice that preaches in pleasing tones to the choir while using our harsh voice while we speak of those who refuse Christ (meanwhile shaking our heads ever so sorrowfully). Yes, many time we priests probably should hang a millstone around our necks and throw ourselves into the sea.
One priest even commented sarcastically about our pride that, “If you’re really good you can pat yourself on the back with one hand and make the other available for kissing…” Not surprisingly, there have been many times when we priests have been the last to respond correctly to God. You can see that for yourself over and over again in the pages of the New Testament.
And, yes, I suspect that all too often I miss the pride in myself that keeps me from responding correctly to God and to my neighbor. So, pray for me this Lent, not that the Lord would humble me (for I dread his ideas on how to humble someone), but rather that I might correctly see my pride and humble myself before God so that he might not feel the need to humble me.
There is this fantastic scene in the first book of David Drake’s Belisarius series that features a byzantine priest and an ascetic monk. The monk thinks their mission is of the highest importance, and is upset they are a approaching a soldier. He demands of the priest to know the spiritual credentials of the soldier they are handing off the mission to, and the priest responds something to the order of: “He’ll be fine, he even married a prostitute.”