October 28, 2001

A Peanuts cartoon had Lucy making New Year's Resolutions: Be nicer to people. Be less critical of others. Be more tolerant. Quit being petty. She hands the list to Charlie Brown and he is quite impressed. He asks Lucy, "Do you think you are going to be able to meet all those goals?" "Why should I?" she says. "The list is for you."

Far too many of us have the audacity of a Lucy and truly believe that there is fault to be found in everyone's life but our own.

Two green horns were building a garage. One began attaching the siding. The other watched as his co-worker would pick up the nail, look at it, and hamer it into the siding. Every so often, however, after he looked at the nail, he would toss it aside and reach for another. Puzzled, the other man asked him why he was tossing aside perfectly good nails. He replied: "Their points were facing the wrong way." The other greenhorn shook his head and hollered, "You fool! Those nails are for the other side of the garage!"

The self-righteous need to remember that before they point out the shortcomings of another and before they compose a New Year's list for someone else to follow, they need to check the ground upon which they stand. Their faults and their stupidity are not as absent or non-existent as they lead themselves to believe.

Today's Gospel is the familiar parable of the Pharisees who go to the Temple to pray and cannot help but bring to God's attention how much better a man he is compared to the tax collector praying nearby. Jesus alerts his hearers to the gact that in God's eyes that tax collector had it all over the self-righteous Pharisee.

Before we make any self-righteous claims about anything, we not only need to check the ground upon which we stand, we also need to check where we will stand in the eyes of God.

SO THE QUESTION: WHAT WOULD YOU DESCRIBE AS SOME OF THE MORE SUBTLE FORMS OF ARROGANCE AND SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS?

Click here to view the archive