Liz Wood
Dear friends,
Over the past year or more, being under “lockdown” at home, I found myself watching more television than usual. There is some outstanding stuff on these days and, with the streaming platforms, you can now watch top-notch documentaries from around the world, indulge in nostalgic shows from childhood, see all the movies you missed, and binge entire seasons of your favorite programs in a weekend.
While channel-surfing a few weeks ago, however, one thing struck me – somewhere along the way almost every show that could possibly be made into a contest has been re-designed to incorporate some element of competition. The Great British Baking Show, America’s Next Top Model, Master Chef and all its spin-offs. Competitions to design furniture, to flip or sell houses --there is even a show with competitive glass-blowing! (Blown Away, now on Netflix, curiously fascinating!). It seems as if we are no longer able to watch people do anything unless they are somehow pitched against other participants or being judged by some sort of panel. There must be winners and losers and people being “voted off the island” to compel us to watch. We want to see not just what people are doing, but how they are doing in relation to other participants.
It seems to me as if this tendency toward competition and comparison increasingly seeps into many aspects of our discourse--the first reaction of almost any public figure to any sort of criticism is to point the finger at others, to switch the blame to their predecessor or call out the transgression of someone on the other side of the issue--“maybe I messed up but look over here! What about this guy?” (It reminds me of catching my two children doing something they shouldn’t--“it was Olivia’s idea!” “Charlie started it!”)
In today’s Gospel, Jesus relates the story of two sinners in the temple – one a Pharisee and one a tax collector--they show up very differently. The Pharisee looks on it as a competition, an opportunity for comparison – thank goodness I am not like other people! I may have my moments, but I fast and tithe and don’t steal or cheat. Not like that guy over there. The tax collector, meanwhile, hangs his head and admits his unworthiness.
It is so easy for us to fall into the same trap as the Pharisee. We come to confess our sins and our first instinct is to view them through a relative, not an absolute, lens. We indulge in comparison and “whataboutism”--I may have sinned, but there are people out there doing terrible things and at least I’m not one of them. My bad stuff looks so much better when I put it side-by-side with other peoples’! When in fact, the only true comparison we can make, the only relative measurement that matters, is the extent to which we are living a Christ-like life. Suddenly, we aren’t so eager to make comparisons!
As we come to worship and pray and confess our sins, may we all find the courage to look only at ourselves, at our own lapses and shortcomings and to resist the temptation to deflect and compare. As the saying goes: “Worry about your own sins, you will not be asked about mine”!
Elizabeth Wood