A parable addressed to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else (Luke 18:9-14). Seems like that could be quite relevant for us. Perhaps one of the few common, shared attitudes at this time, between people who agree on nothing else, is being convinced of our own righteousness and despising everyone else.
What does Jesus draw out of this situation? Don’t be self-righteous, don’t look down on others… That’s not where he goes. He doesn’t say anything about how we should behave towards others. His focus is on how we treat ourselves – whether you exalt or humble yourself.
For sure Jesus wants to tell us that we should care for others, notably in parables like the Good Samaritan, but he generally doesn’t get into how we feel about other people. Our relationships are based on something deeper than how we feel about others, whether we like them, or appreciate them, or despise them. Our relationships with other people are founded on our relationship with God, or should be. For Jesus everything is based on that relationship, everything else follows from that one primary relationship.
So what Jesus tells the self-righteous is not to change your attitude towards others, but to change your attitude towards yourself. If you set out to make yourself more important you will fail. You might succeed for a time in this life, but in the end you will fail. This is a loosing strategy. Jesus isn’t telling us to play the game of pretending we are inferior or apologizing for our achievements. He is telling us that our standing with God is not based on those things.
Recognizing our inadequacy relative to God is at one level so obvious and self evident that it can hardly be an issue. But as soon as we get on the slippery slope of comparing ourselves with other people then we can easily go astray. If we focus on our relationship with God then right relationships with other people will fall into place. Those relationships may not be easy, they may even involve conflict, but they will not be founded on the belief that we are superior.