It is a frightening challenge to be humble and open to growth when it comes to contributing to social justice. At times, I would rather be like the self-righteous Pharisee in the Temple. He is confident that he believes and does the right things, and I am confident that I have the right ideas and praxis about the nature of oppression and the pathway to liberation. He has studied the Mosaic law day and night, and I have poured over the right books to inform myself about injustice in the world. He has faithfully listened to the Word of God proclaimed in the synagogue, and I have educated myself by listening to progressive podcasts and by attending progressive lectures. He is a good person. I, too, am a good person.

It is, of course, not wrong to want to be a good person. Neither is it wrong to seek to inform oneself about social justice. That said, Jesus tells us today that such an approach is insufficient. “We must be willing to allow ourselves to be touched and changed in unpredictable ways,” as Hartmut Rosa, a critical sociologist, writes in his book The Uncontrollability of the World. Indeed, the Pharisee’s error is considering that he possesses the exact formula to a just life – in which case he is just as long as he follows the formula. He tells God, “I fast twice a week. I pay tithes on everything I earn.” In other words, “I do the right thing. I do not need grace. I do not need to change.”

The tax collector, however, takes up the scary task of humility and openness to growth. One might imagine the circumstances that lead her to come to the Temple and say, “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Perhaps, the day prior, she took the last coin from a poor fisherman who needed it to buy something to eat. She saw the humiliation in his eyes and said to herself, “I have done a horrible thing. Tomorrow, I will go to the Temple and beg God for mercy.” Whatever the situation may have been, she allowed herself to be touched and changed. She let herself feel the pang of remorse. She recognized that she was imperfect.

The Greek word for conversion is metanoia, and it has two parts. Meta means “that which goes beyond,” and noia means “to perceive” or “to think.” Together, these two parts imply an openness to transcending our current way of thinking. Those who experience conversion, then, allow God and others to speak to them in such a way that their fundamental attitudes can be transformed. The Pharisee’s comportment is closed off from metanoia, while the tax collector’s is responsive to it.

I believe that we Christians who are committed to the liberation of oppressed peoples can often fall prey to the attitude of the Pharisee. We can adopt an unhelpful attitude of self-righteousness. It appears in different ways. Those of us who are well-educated in institutional academia do not take seriously the perspectives of those who have less formal intellectual training. Those of us who are white fail to be transformed by the interpellation of people of color. Those of us who are oppressed in one way ignore the experiences of those who are oppressed in other ways. As a result, we lock ourselves into our present beliefs and actions and assume that we are in the know. We even go so far as to judge others whose beliefs and actions do not match ours. We think, “I know, but they don’t. They need to change, but I don’t.”

We may be right, or we may be wrong. Or the truth might be somewhere in-between. However, we will never know unless we stop, think, and open ourselves up to the possibility that we are in need of conversion.

I propose the following meditative prayer exercise to assist us in embodying this Sunday’s message of humility and openness to growth:

1. I place myself in the presence of God and take a few deep breaths. I consider how God looks at me with loving affection.
2. I ask God for what I desire: to be open to growth, to allow myself to be challenged in my ways, to receive a call to conversion.
3. I return to a memory in which God, another person, a situation, or a moment of self-reflection challenged me to move from the self-righteousness of the Pharisee to the humility of the tax collector. I replay the memory in my imagination. How did I feel? How did I respond? What did I learn about the world and about myself? The point is not to be self-flagellating but rather to remember that I am a work in progress and that God is inviting me to be open to the grace of conversion.
4. I consider the present state of my heart. Am I excessively set in my mental and behavioral patterns, or am I supple to criticism? In what settings is my heart soft? In what settings is my heart hardened? What do I notice about my current trajectory? In what ways am I becoming more like the self-righteous Pharisee or more like the humble tax collector?
5. I bring the fruits of steps 3 and 4 into conversation with God. What do I want to say to God? What might God want to say to me? How might God be inviting me to move from fear of imperfection towards the dynamism of humble growth?
6. I thank God for this time of reflection and ask for the grace to turn what I have contemplated into action.