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.
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."
