Hi, my name is Eric, and I am an addict.

Dear Friend,

I stood up today in front of a bunch of nice folks inside a nice warm building on a Sunday morning that said church on the door.. And opened with, "Hi. my name is Eric. I am an addict. And I am addict. I am addicted to being an asshole." I did actually say "asshole", because that would, it struck me, be an asshole thing to do. But, my addiction is just that, a life long battle with an incurable appetite that will not be changed save the radical power of a Gracious God.

I thought of this as I read the prayer commonly referred to as the parable of the Pharisee of the Tax Collector:

“Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’ Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’” Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”

Here's the problem: it's easy to dismiss that prayer, because I don't know any first century Jewish religious leaders, and I don't have any friends that work for the IRS. But put it in it's proper context. Go back. Read it again. Replace Pharisee with "person who attends worship on a regular basis."; in other words, the person I see in the mirror. And replace "tax collector with "the person I find most objectionable right now." Now read the parable again.

Clive Staple Lewis wrote, "I cannot look down my nose at others and at the same time look up to heaven." Here's the great problem friend. In Jesus story, there is no third party option. I am either the Pharisee or the Tax Collector. I either pray a prayer of derision or desperation. There is no middle ground. And what is most amazing, at the end of the day, is that if I truly see things clearly-- if for example I open 1 Corinthians 13 and read about the character of a Love that I do not fully yet have but surely would wish to embrace-- then I know that there is a bigger mystery at work in the temple. It is not derision that is the biggest problem, but delusion. For we are tax collectors, one and all.

thus spake,

me.