· Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32
· Psalm 25:1-9 (6)
· Philippians 2:1-13
· Matthew 21:23-32
Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."
Jesus never liked self-righteousness. Neither do the rest of us; at least we don't like it in other people. If they are self-righteous, it challenges our self-righteousness. And of course we are right and they are wrong. Not even because we're bad people, but because certainty is a physical process in the brain. It has nothing to do with the validity of our ideas, or with the amount of evidence for or against us. It simply comes from physical processes in the brain, stronger in some people than in others. Indeed our will is literally in bondage to our sinful nature, because our physical brain strengthens us in our certainties, whether we are right or wrong.
Questioning our own thoughts is a cognitive skill that many of us don't practice. And the more we're successful and respected by the world, the less we tend to question our certainties. We have respectable jobs that we've held for years; we have big houses with big mortgages based on our respectable jobs; we have big cars with big loans also financed by our respectable jobs; we have RRSPs; we donate a few hundred bucks here and there and sometimes volunteer a little. We're pillars of society. We're respected. We're righteous. Plus we go to church! Even God says we're righteous!
No he doesn't. God tells us we're sinners. Saints, too. What's a saint? It's a sinner who knows he's a sinner. A saint is not self-righteous, but contrite. He knows he's a sinner. That's why he's a saint: because he questions his own certainties. We act and talk out of our certainties. We send money to the Third World because we're certain it helps. We judge those who don't come to church because we're certain they're doomed.
A saint is a sinner who questions his certainties. This is difficult cognitively and physically, because we are fighting against the processes of our brain. Indeed guilt, the knowledge that we have done wrong, is physically painful. We hate this feeling, so we cling to our certainties all the more. The self-righteous man makes excuses to get rid of the guilt without changing his actions; the saint accepts his guilt, despite the emotional and physical pain, and changes his actions.
Why are the prostitutes and tax collectors going into the kingdom of God ahead of the Pharisees? Because they have no certainty. They know they are wrong. They know they are sinners. Not because we tell them, but because in their own minds, they accept the guilt. They cannot cling to certainty anymore. Criminals, addicts, saints, they know they are wrong. They overcome their brains' need to be certain and endure the pain of guilt. And so they are saved. We know we are saved by faith, but what is faith? It is not the certainty that we are right about God. For as Paul said, "hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it." Faith is the opposite of certainty. Faith is rejecting our certainty and facing our guilt, and hoping without certainty, that through Christ Jesus and his sacrifice, we are saved anyway.
So you who are certain, start questioning yourselves. Is your big house with the big mortgage righteous? Is your faithful church attendance righteous? Is your respectability righteous? Is your mealy-mouthed pious talk righteous? Is any of this righteous in the eyes of God? Or are the criminals, the addicts, the homeless, the mentally ill, going into the kingdom of God ahead of you? Did not the Master tell us that it is more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle? Therefore question your certainties, your righteousness, your respectability, and be more like the sinners and the outcasts, so that you may go with them into the kingdom of God.
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