What primarily separates us from Christ is our self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is the defining trait of the Pharisee, whose love for wealth can be explained by the fact that wealth further increases his self-sufficiency.
The Pharisee may allocate a fraction of his wealth to the poor, but he makes sure that he always keeps the largest share of his income for himself, so that his property and, most importantly, the self-sufficiency he derives from it are never endangered.
By strictly observing to the letter of the Law, the Pharisee believes he has earned the right to Eternal Life. His self-sufficiency is so great that he believes he can almost purchase it through his actions. As a result his relationship with God has become entirely impersonal because it has been replaced by the mechanical fulfillment of the Law.
The Law was given to help him examine his conscience, but instead he uses it to silence it. The Law was given to prepare him for Christ, but the Pharisee prefers the Law over Christ; he adheres to the Law and crucifies Christ.
For the Pharisee, it is easy to manage the Law so that, under the pretence of adhering to it, his power increases more and more. However, when the Pharisee is forced to confront the Divine Humility of the Almighty God—who claims the whole of man in order to renew him—the Pharisee perceives God as a threat and hastens to kill Him.
The Pharisee, like his spiritual father, the Devil, sees God’s Love as weakness and prefers his own kingdom to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Pharisee represents the man who rejects Christ as his Saviour, thereby repeating Adam's fall, believing that he can become god without God.
The wealthy Pharisee who entered into dialogue with Christ about Eternal Life risked his earthly power. When engaging in dialogue with the Living God, you must be prepared to lose everything if you wish to enter into a relationship of Eternal Life with Him. Christ wants to give us back everything, but for Him to do so, we must first surrender ourselves entirely to Him.
The passions we cannot overcome on our own are our great opportunity to turn to Christ with ‘great tears’, so that He can redeem us. The passion for wealth that Christ identifies in the wealthy Pharisee is a double-edged sword. Either he will despair and distance himself forever from Christ, or he will fall to his knees and ask Christ to heal him of this passion.
When entering into dialogue with the Living God, who is Christ, it is inevitable that our self-sufficiency —like that of the wealthy Pharisee—will be shattered into pieces. However, this is the greatest opportunity of our lives to enter into a relationship with Christ so intimate that He lives within us, and we are united with Him.
13th Sunday of Luke, 24 November 2024
Fr Georgios Lekkas, PhD is a priest of the Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Belgium.
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