• Oddly enough, Jesus sometimes uses the word “sinner” to mean something other than a sinner. Often he is not referring to a person’s moral condition at all, but almost entirely to a person’s awareness of his moral condition, as in Luke 5:32 “ I came not to call the righteous but sinners.” Technically, of course, there are no non-sinners in Jesus’ audience. He’s using the word as a kind of bait, attracting the person who readily self-identifies as offensive to God, namely the Humble.
• The two categories (“righteous” and “sinners”) are especially clear in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18, where the person who is “justified” — this is remarkable — is not the person whose conduct echoes the law, but the person who despises himself in God’s presence. So the “sinner” is counted as righteous, even before he has addressed his sins in any significant way (hence the man can still be described by Jesus as a tax collector, a kind of extortionist).
• The problem we face is the categories are not so fixed as they appear; we don’t move from one category to another and stay there. Humility is a liquid. It ebbs and flows and sometimes evaporates entirely. The person who was “sinful” (self-aware) yesterday, filled with joy in the grace of God, is sitting in judgment on his “ legalistic” peers today. He thinks his constant chatter about grace keeps him from being a Pharisee, but in fact his heart is filled with judgement of those on whom he now looks down.
• In other words, all of us are Toad of Toad Hall. (If you haven’t read The Wind in the Willows you’ve missed some of the best writing on pride and humility in the English language.) Humility is a rare and elusive state, and few of us remain within its blessed boundaries for any length of time. “ Repentance unto life” is a phrase we use to describe a person’s conversion, but that moment must necessarily begin a lifetime of repentance.
• In Scripture there is no offense so grave, so remarkably foolish, as human pride. Likewise, there is nothing so sweet in a Christian as humility. I say this with all affection, and knowing myself a kindred spirit: it’s time for you to get over yourself. If you cannot be corrected, slighted, criticized, or dismissed by others, especially those you consider “beneath” you, your pride still rules you. Go to your knees and say with our friend in the Temple: “ God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”