“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men . . .”

Which of us can read today's passage without shaking our head in disapproval of the Pharisee's exalted sense of self? "Thank God, I'm not like that man," we might be tempted to mutter. But, in so saying, we'd be guilty of the very judgmental thinking that Jesus criticized.

We all have a natural tendency to categorize, label and compare our selves to other people. It's one of the ways in which we arrive at our own self-identity. Yet, in judging others, we can easily lose sight of the fact that we are all fundamentally the same. In fact, at the gene level, we are 99.9% identical to every other person on the planet. Our genetic code, or instruction manual, is 800 times as long as the Bible, the equivalent of 1,183,200 pages in length and only one-tenth of one percent distinguishes us physically from any other person, including the Pharisee and the tax collector. Genetically speaking, we are all flawed. There are no perfect specimens.

While we may perceive the obvious differences between people, such as the color of their skin and the texture of their hair, God sees every jot and tittle in our genetic code. He is also keenly aware of the circumstances of our birth and our upbringing and takes all these factors and many more into account before entering our name in the Book of Life.  

The Pharisee's pride led him to think that he was "not like other men," especially the disreputable tax collector in the rear of the temple. The Pharisee was so pleased with himself that he saw no need for repentance. He wanted to impress, not confess. He wasn't praying; he was posturing, acting as if his good deeds had earned him a special place in heaven. He put himself up by putting the tax collector down.

The tax collector, on the other hand, was truly contrite. Luke tells us the man stood off at a distance as though unworthy to approach the altar. He would not even raise his eyes to heaven. All he could do was beat his breast and pray, "O God, be merciful to me a sinner." It wasn't much of a prayer, but it was humble, heartfelt and honest, the precursor to changing his life for the better.

The Pharisee lost sight of the fact that he stood in the presence of God and focused, instead, on the presence of the tax collector. The tax collector never forgot that He was in the presence of the Lord and that alone kept him humble.

Thomas Merton once wrote that, "Humility is being precisely the person you actually are in the presence of God."

When we cultivate a mindfulness of the presence of God, we can't help but be at our humble best.