Judas and Peter

Two such instances appear here.  The first becomes apparent in the figure of Judas:  There is the No stemming from greed and lust, from vainglory, which refuses to accept God.  This is the No given because we want to make the world for ourselves and are not ready to accept it as a gift from God.  "Sooner remain in debt than pay with a coin that does not bear our own portrait — that is what our sovereignty demands," as Nietzsche once said.  The camel will not go through the eye of the needle; it sticks its proud hump up, so to speak, and is thus unable to get through the gate of merciful kindness.

I think we all ought to ask ourselves, right now, whether we are not just like those people whose pride and vainglory will not let them be cleansed, let them accept the gift of Jesus Christ's healing love.

Besides this refusal, which arises from the greed and the pride of man, there is, however, also the danger of piety, represented by Peter:  the false humility that does not want anything so great as God bending down to us;  the false humility in which pride is concealed, which dislikes forgiveness and would rather achieve its own purity;  the false pride and the false modesty that will not accept God's mercy.  But God does not wish for false modesty that refuses his kindness;  rather, he desires that humility which allows itself to be cleansed and thus becomes pure.  This is the manner in which he gives himself to us.