Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

“Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

As with so many Gospel stories, it is tempting to hear the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector and react in exactly the way the story tells us not to do. The Pharisee stands there and prays to God, “I thank you that I am not like this tax collector.” And if our reaction is to say, “Thank God I am not like that arrogant Pharisee,” I think it’s safe to say we’re missing the point.

It’s easy to read the Gospels and make the Pharisees into villains. But, historically speaking, they were really the good guys. We wouldn’t have the Bible we have today without them. They were devoted teachers and leaders. The one in our Gospel today, despite his haughty tone, is quite the model of good religious behavior: he fasts, he prays, he gives ten percent of his income to the Temple. And we shouldn’t read from this parable that fasting and prayer are bad, or that obtaining dishonest wealth like the tax collector is good.

How, then, should we understand it? John Bergsma summarizes: “[If] we have attained all other human virtues but retained pride in ourselves, we are like someone who has not even begun the spiritual life.”

Allow me to give a personal illustration.

When I started college, I was a very good kid. I don’t know if they even do this anymore, but I chose to live in the “substance free” dorm. I think what it meant practically was that even the older students living there were not allowed to have any kind of alcohol or tobacco, much less anything illegal. It was a sort of safe space for those of us who knew we didn’t want to get involved in the college party scene.

I fit right in. And I found pretty quickly a kind of well-worn track for someone from a conservative, evangelical Christian background. For example, you sit on the left side of the dining hall. You do not sit on the right side—that is for potheads, frat boys, and smokers. (In fact, hard as it may be to believe, we did still have a smoking section of our college dining hall in the early 2000s.) You do not sit in the center section; that is for athletes. You sit on the left side; that is for the Christians and the nerds. We needn’t go into the politics of when these groups might all acceptably intermingle.

Anyway, like all of us, I was never really just one thing. I got involved in a writing group, where I met people who, I was pretty sure, were involved in a lot of that stuff I was trying to avoid. I was pretty uncomfortable about this. Should I hang out with these people? Would they corrupt me? And I remember one night when that sort of came to a head, pretty early on in my first year. I was at a meeting for the literary magazine, and I had hit it off with this one kid, Terry, who was I think a sophomore, so a little older, and it was one of those times when you have this moment of just knowing, hey, this person could be a good friend. And so we were walking into the dining hall together, and after we get our food, he invites me to sit with him over on (wait for it) the right side. And what did I do? I made some vague response about people expecting me on the left side, and we parted ways. I went to the left side; I didn’t see anyone I knew. I sat alone.

The story of my college career does get better, but I still think back on that moment with real regret. I’m sure that the Lord somehow made it all turn out for the best. But in hindsight, I think I was acting something like the Pharisee of today’s Gospel. I was a good kid. I wanted the right things. I was doing the right things. But at the moment, that wasn’t good enough; I had to set myself up as better than somebody else. I felt compelled to say, thank God I’m not like Terry, sitting on the right side of the dining hall, probably going out and doing all kinds of immoral stuff.

This is not a story saying that you shouldn’t think carefully about who your friends are. You should. But there’s a difference between being careful about your own integrity and needing to define yourself as better than somebody else.

I think we do this all the time. A huge portion of our political energy these days is spent on such things. But for simplicity, let’s just keep it personal. Has anybody ever thought: I’m not the world’s greatest parent, but at least I’m better than her. I’m out of shape, but at least I’m not as fat as him. Or maybe more pointedly: I’m not the best Catholic, but at least I’m not that guy who clearly doesn’t know how to keep the Friday discipline, or at least I’m better than that priest, or that bishop, or that pro-abortion politician. At times in history, it might even be tempting to think, “Well, at least I’m a better Catholic than the pope!”

It’s so easy to do this—to make ourselves feel good not by doing good, but by putting other people down.

What’s the solution?

We should stop, but that’s not as easy as turning it off with a switch. The solution, as Jesus says, is not to exalt ourselves, but to humble ourselves. What does this mean? Surely it means being so focused on doing good that we do not even worry about how good or bad other people are. To humble yourself doesn’t mean you have to think less of yourself. It would be no more humble to sit around thinking about how much worse we are than everybody else.

By contrast, true humility means you’re so focused on the good that you’re doing, the good of God’s gifts, the good of others, that you don’t have time to stop and wonder how you measure up with everyone else. That’s the call of Jesus in this story: to step beyond the game of comparisons and focus on the task at hand. You think you’re good at fasting? Great! Fast more. You think you’re good at praying? Great! Pray more. You think you’re very generous? Great! Give more.

And if you fail in these things, good. There’s the tax collector in the story, beating his breast and acknowledging his failure: “Be merciful to me, a sinner.” But there it’s just between you and God, not between you and your rival—and God, not the other guy, is the one who can and will judge; God is the one who will be just, and merciful, and good.