Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle C)

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Sirach 35: 12-14,16-18; 2 Timothy 4: 6-8,16-18; Luke 18: 1-14

Evidently, going to church can be a tricky business!

One person can enter this sanctuary thinking: "I feel good here. I’m doing okay God. Thank you that I have not fallen in temptation like some others I know. Bless me that I may keep up the good work."

Another person can slip into this place thinking: "I’ve got no right to be here, God. I really have screwed up and made a mess of life. If you can, have pity on me."

According to Jesus the first person may leave this church at odds with God, while the second one may leave very much okay with God.

This is just so typical of Jesus, isn’t it?. He keeps on upsetting our complacency, our self satisfaction, and how we justify ourselves before God. Like so many of Jesus’ stories, today’s parable unsettles us, maybe even confuses us a little. It hooks us into looking at someone else, only to discover, in the end, that we are examining our own life before God.

The Pharisee in today’s parable is presented as telling the truth. He does follow the commandments and has avoided the serious sins he list. He also goes beyond the Jewish requirements and customs for fasting. He said he fast twice a week, when fasting is only mandated for the Day of Atonement; not only does he follow the Scriptural command to tithe, he tithes on all his possessions, not merely on his earnings.

He is, by one measure, as good as he thinks he is. The Pharisees were thought of as very good people. They sought to instill a renewed and deep piety in the Jewish people.

Tax collectors, on the other hand, were despised because they were part of the economic system put in place by the Romans. They were not paid by their employers, so they added fees to the taxes collected. There was no standard scale governing this added charge, and so the tax collectors often exacted exorbitant amounts.

There was hardly anyone in Jewish society viewed as being lower than a tax collector. That Jesus would have told a story of a tax collector seeking mercy would have been shocking. The general attitude would have been that tax collectors were unworthy of mercy.

The Gospel of Luke is noted for what is called "divine reversal." Jesus’ listeners and Luke’s readers would have expected praise for the Pharisee who was as good as he said he was, and condemnation for the tax collector who was as low as he said he was. In fact, his prayer for mercy seems to be an admission of his guilt. His demeanor is radically different from that of the Pharisee. 

But it is the Pharisee with whom Jesus finds fault and the Tax Collector who wins God’s favor. He does not find fault with the Pharisee’s actions. After all, he is truly devout, he obeys the religious laws and is faithful and generous. But what he does find fault with is that the Pharisee’s prayer is not so much a prayer as it is a speech. His fault is that his knowledge of his goodness has caused him to become a judge of his fellow man. His problem lies in his point of reference. He is complacent, self-satisfied, and justifies himself before God by comparing himself with the attitudes and actions of others. However, Jesus has said, “Do not judge lest you yourself be judged. The starting point for the man’s comparison should not have been with the tax collector, but with God himself, for Jesus taught: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. He’s looking for recognition of his goodness, but instead of measuring his goodness against God Himself, he measures himself against another human who is in the mind of the Jews a true sinner. 

And to the utter surprise of everyone, is the tax collector who found favor with God. At least he knew he needed God. His prayer was a cry for mercy, not a request for recognition of a job well done. He, in his lowliness, stood humble before God.

Do we consider ourselves lowly? That is what Sirach in the first reading is asking of us. He wants to teach us that the prayer of a lowly person pierces the heavens in a way that the prayer of someone else cannot. And so often we confuse true lowliness with poor self-image. But lowliness is not poor self-image. It is a simple recognition of who I really am before God.

When we become lowly, we recognize that we cannot live by our own strength, but that we must rely totally on a power greater than ourselves. It is not that we cannot act, but that our actions truly become effective when we are living from this other power and not from our own.

Today’s parable is not about who is good and who is bad, or even who is better and who is worse. It is about who is open to God's love, grace and forgiveness and who allows that grace to transform them. The real question for the Pharisee, the Tax Collector and for us is this: are we humble enough to be open to God's grace? Are we able to see God's love for us and for others, and are we able to accept and share that love? God does not ask us to live better than someone else, but to live as best as we can according to our own faith, our own gifts, and our own sense of God's call.

And so, as we continue with our liturgy and prepare to offer at our altar, not only gifts of bread and wine, but ourselves: all that we are, all that we have and all that we do, let our prayer echo that of the great Jesuit theologian, Walter Burkhardt, who once wrote:

"O God, I thank you that I am like the rest of humankind. I thank you that, like everyone else, I too have been shaped in your image, with a mind to know and a heart to love, and that, like everyone else, I too was embraced by the crucified arms of your Son. I thank you that, for all our thousand differences, I am so remarkably like the people all around me and that you judge me, like everyone else, not by my brains or beauty, my skin tone or muscle power, my clothes, the size of my house or the roar of my car, but by the love that is your gift to me.

I thank you for letting me see that there is a little of the Pharisee in me, that I too have this very human yearning for something that sets me apart from the rest. If I am to thank you for making me different, let it be because, through your mercy, I am different from what I would have been without you. Thank you, Lord, for making me so splendidly the same as everyone else, because it means I am that much closer to your Son, who became what all of us are: wonderfully and fearfully human. Keep me that way, Lord, and always be merciful to me, sinner that I am."

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle C)

Pray, Constantly and Always

Readings: Exodus 17:8-13; 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2; Luke 11: 1-13

Well, we don't have to look very hard to find the theme of today's gospel, do we? Luke emphatically blurts it out at the very beginning of today’s gospel passage. It’s the only time, at least that I can recall, that any of the four evangelists explains a parable even before the parable is given. Apparently, the message of the parable was something Luke didn’t want his readers to miss. And so, he tells us: "Jesus told his disciples a parable on the necessity of praying always without becoming weary." Prayer is one of Luke’s favorite gospel themes. Luke, more than other gospel writers, emphasizes the importance of prayer. He portrays Jesus as a man of prayer and underscores the necessity of prayer for those who would choose to follow Jesus

Prayer is asking, prayer is wondering, prayer is bringing to God all of the feelings from the depths of our souls, so that we might lay them before his throne. So that we might cry out from the very inner longings of our soul all the concerns, all the problems, all the things that make us who we are, and what we are.

Prayer is a struggle, a tug of war between parts of our self, between our self and God, between our self and others.

But not only do we struggle to bring from the depths of our souls, our longings, our searchings, our inner feelings to God, not only do we struggle to lay bear before the throne of God our very self, but in prayer, we come in contact with God. Prayer is indeed an encounter with God, and encounter between our spirit and the spirit of God. God's spirit comes to us and mingles with our spirit so that we might be encouraged, so that we might be enabled, so that we might be strengthen to bring from the depth of our souls all those needs, doubts, struggles, joys, thanksgivings, celebrations, all those events of life into the realm of God.

But as wonderful as all that sounds, prayer is a problem for many people. If it wasn't a problem, then why are there so few people who seem to take prayer seriously? If it isn't a problem for us then why do we find it so hard to set time aside everyday to spend with God in prayer? If we took prayer seriously then we wouldn't hesitate to be persistent and consistent in the time we spend in conversation with God. And if you think that this is a particularly new problem, think again. Why would Jesus have told this parable and quite a number of others about prayer to his disciples? Why would he have given us the Lord's Prayer as a model prayer if everybody back then had perfect prayer lives? Prayer is a problem for anyone who desires a relationship with the all-present, yet unseen God.

But if we really believed in the power of prayer, if we really believed that prayer can effect world peace, if we were truly convinced that prayer changes things, changes us, heals broken lives and restores severed relationships, then we would be praying constantly. You couldn't keep us from praying. So what stops us? More often than not, we simply lose heart.

Yet clearly, the example of the widow in this morning’s gospel teaches us that what God requires is faithful perseverance, even when things seem hopeless. Luke tells us to pray persistently like the widow who nagged the dishonest judge "who neither feared God nor respected any human being." Persistence to get the just decision she wanted was her only strategy. Knowing she would not relent, the judge finally gave in.

We don’t know why life is cruel, but it is. We don’t know why some of our prayers seem to be answered so dramatically while others seem to fall on silent ears. But one thing is true. In today’s gospel, Jesus teaches us to pray constantly and always, and never give up offering our prayers to our Heavenly Father. Because when we pray, something happens - not only to what we want done in the prayer, but more importantly, something happens to us! Prayer is not so much getting God to do what we want done as it is drawing closer to God. As we pray constantly and always, we move closer to God, and something of God’s heart becomes ours.

Pray constantly and always! That’s sound advice. Even when things go wrong, even when we don’t seem to get any results, even when our world falls down upon us, pray, Jesus says, constantly and always. Because when we pray like that, our thoughts, our minds, our hearts are drawn closer to God. In prayer, we pour out our hearts to a loving God, to the God of all compassion and justice. In the gospel, Jesus contrasts God with the hard-hearted, unscrupulous, uncaring judge. If God were like that judge, who’d bother to pray at all? Who’d want to worship a tyrant like that? Rather, Jesus says, pray trusting in the goodness of God.

I don't know what you’ve been praying for. It might have been something as big or something small. It might have been world peace or peace in your family. It might have been food for the hungry or the health to eat what you have. It might have been for whole nations to find Christ or for one person to be saved. Whatever it is; keep praying, constantly and always. Don’t give up. Pray with faith that your prayers are heard. Pray with trust that God is loving. And let your prayers draw you closer to God. For often that nearness to God is the answer we seek and the blessing God has for us.

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle C)

Jesus, Master, Have Pity on Us

2 Kings 5:1-3, 9-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19 

Who knows how long they had suffered or the pain they had endured? Who knows the sweetness they left behind or the shattered dreams that marked their sleep?

They had been cursed by God; visited by a plague that didn’t kill, yet, never seemed to end. Their leprosy lingered for years, as limbs became twisted and deformed, skin became scarred, and memories of happier times began to fade. They were both pitied and feared; lamented and shunned. They were the lost ones — people whose families mourned them as dead, though their bodies lived on. The lepers who met Jesus on the road to Jerusalem lived out their lives as ghosts wandering in the shadows of the hills and along the brambly edges of the path. In the eyes of the world, they were fearful and unclean.

Where did they get the courage to raise their voices? What gave them the nerve to shout, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!” Had they heard of this healer? Did they know his reputation? Had they huddled together on edge of a crowd, straining to hear him preach? Did they dare to believe in life, even when the world saw them as dead?

Whatever drove them or inspired them, these ten lepers got it all. A new start, a clean bill of health, a chance to reclaim their lives. And in their joy, they ran out to embrace it. But one of them returned to give thanks. One of them saw beyond the gift to the giver.

It’s interesting that Luke, the author of today’s gospel and a physician by trade, presents the cure so matter-of-factly, almost in passing. There’s no discussion, no dramatics, no nothing. And so maybe in the very way he tells the story, Luke is trying to convey to us that what’s important isn’t that they were restored to health, but that the change in their bodies gave them an invitation, an opportunity to be changed in their minds and their hearts - an opportunity to see in Christ not just a healer, but a savior; to see in their cure not just their own good fortune, but rather the saving presence of God at work among His people.

The Samaritan-leper in today’s gospel returned to Jesus because he saw more than healed flesh; he saw new realities in his life. God had touched his life in an act of profound mercy, and life would never be the same for him again. Jesus had come to him, had touched him, had told him that he mattered to God, that he had a Father in heaven who cared for him. And, in that touch, this Samaritan, this outsider, now understood what it was like to come home and be embraced by his Father. So he turned, and he came back to the source of that greater healing which he - and he alone among the ten who were healed - received. He, who thought of himself as nothing more than a beggar before his God's throne, found a God who listened to him, who cared for him as a dear son!

It would be so easy to neutralize this powerful message by emphasizing the theme of the need to be polite or the value of saying, “Thanks.” It might be tempting to re-cast this dynamic encounter as little more than a morality tale designed to instill good manners and fine behavior. But that would be a mistake. This passage isn’t about courtesy, or civility, or the importance of being nice. There’s so much more that’s going on in this passage than a lesson in gracious living. In this passage, in the changes that come over one grateful leper, Luke gives us an insight into our own spiritual development. You see, besides being a loathsome and deadly physical disease, the Bible often uses leprosy as a symbol of emotional, psychological, social and spiritual dis-ease, a lack of wholeness, that keeps us alienated from God, from others, and even from ourselves. For like leprosy, these things are highly contagious and destructive. They can disfigure us, deteriorate us, distance us, and if not addressed, can ultimately lead to a different but equally costly death.

Let me look around here. No, I don’t see any lepers with us this morning. No ulcerating skin, no nodules with foul discharges, some loss of hair, but I’ll write that off as natural. Physically, we all look to be leprosy-free. But of course looks can be deceiving. What looks on the outside like a normal, healthy person could be someone suffering from emotional or spiritual leprosy.

What about you? Is there something that makes you feel like a leper? Something that alienates you from others? Something that you feel you have to keep hidden, fearful that if others became aware of it they would see you differently, treat you differently? Or are you cut off from others because of past history, false allegations, rumors, gossip, innuendo?

What are the oozing sores that you bare - physical, emotional, psychological, social, spiritual - that perhaps cause you to see yourself as different or unattractive, if not to others then to yourself? Or maybe you still bear the scars of a failed relationship or the wound of the loss of someone you love.

What are the areas in your life where you need healing? Physical pain, disease, chronic illness; problems with an addiction; anxieties about school or the job; concerns about others – their health or the choices they’ve made; confusion about who you are or what the future holds for you; hurt feelings over what someone you care about said or did; depression because no matter what you do, it never seems to turn out the way you want. Or maybe a deep sense of guilt fills you because of things you’ve done, and you don’t know how in heaven God will forgive you, or how on earth anyone else can forgive you, because you can’t even forgive yourself.

The truth is, to one extent or another, we all suffer from leprosy. We all have those discolored patches, the ones that emit a foulness that seeps into and infects the rest of our lives. There’s something in our life that keeps us from being whole before God. There’s someplace where we’re incomplete.

But part of being human is admitting that we’re less than perfect and that we need healing. And that’s what we’ve been offered. Through his death and resurrection, through the gift of bread and cup, through the gathering of his body that’s called the Church, Christ has reached out his hand to us and offered a healing touch. When Christ’s divinity meets our humanity, healing begins again. All it takes is for us to echo the words of the leper in today’s gospel and cry out, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on me!” And when we do, regardless of the afflictions and the seriousness of the symptoms, each week we’re told over and over again, “Go in peace; your faith has saved you.”

So go ahead. Say those words in prayer, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on me.” Say them at Communion time. Say those words directly to our Lord, conscious of your need for healing – spiritual healing, along the lines perhaps of forgiveness and reconciliation; or healing of a broken spirit, spiritual healing needed to overcome discouragement, confusion, disappointment, sadness. Your spiritual leprosy may stand in need of the healing of hope, the healing that only hope can bring, and the hope that can bring that healing can be found only in the Lord. Here you are, face-to-face with him in prayer today. Seize the moment as best you can.

Got a problem? Call out to Jesus. Oppressed with a concern? Take it to God in prayer. Our gospel today shows us that God cares for us. God hears our prayers and responds, not because we’ve earned that respect nor done anything to deserve it. But just because that’s who God is. And a sincere, humble and contrite heart God will not spurn.