topleft05.jpg (18208 bytes)HOMILY
The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
24 October 04


 

On Friday afternoon, I attended a meeting that included about 50 people, including senior administrators, middle-managers, and representatives of the organization’s professional divisions and support staff.  As the meeting wore on, the room in which the meeting was being held grew increasingly cold.  While I prefer the temperature to be colder than warmer, I did notice that the room was getting pretty cold because the tips of my fingers felt like they were freezing.

As I surveyed the room, I noticed a few participants getting up from their chairs to fetch their jackets and coats.  One participant, the woman seated immediately to my right, had already put on her coat.  She began to complain under her breath how cold it was getting and stated her hope that the meeting would end soon, before she froze to death.  I didn’t offer her much hope because, although we were about half way through the published agenda, the meeting was only about one third completed.  I knew one of the items yet to be discussed would take a lot of time.

As I refocused upon the discussion, another participant―one of the senior managers―interrupted to ask the Chair if something could be done to turn up the heat.  While the Chair was processing the question―this couldn’t have taken more than one split second―the Senior Vice President of Administration leaned forward in his seat, craned his neck to the left, looked directly at the senior manager who was seated at the far end of the long conference table, and said, “Sure, why don’t you just keep talking.”

Everyone in the room burst out in laughter.  Everyone except, of course, the senior manager, who I could tell from the stunned look on her face was busy trying to craft a clever retort.  Unable to come up with one, she said in a somewhat sarcastic tone: “That was good.  Re---al----ly good.”

That’s was it.  That’s all she said.

In think that was all she could say in response to the joke made at her expense.  She simply was had.  That’s all there was to it.  There was no suitable self-defense now that the missile the Senior Vice President of Administration fired across her port bow had obliterated its intended target.  The best thing she could do was simply to laugh at herself along with the rest of group.  Which she did.

I’m sure that many of us have found ourselves seated in that senior manager’s chair.  And, when someone has made a joke at our expense, perhaps laughing at ourselves along with the rest of the group is about the best we could do, too.  However, unlike this senior manager, although we may laugh at ourselves, we also grow resentful and angry toward those who make an embarrassing joke or comment at our expense.  And, then, as hostility takes root in and extends its sinews around our hearts squeezing out any humility that might be present, we become convinced of our self-righteousness.  We actually believe that we are justified to hold those other people in contempt, no matter what the reason.

The Russian writer, Anton Chekhov, once noted, “You don’t become a saint by naming other people’s sins.”  Now, there’s an insight into self-righteousness because we’ve all been told “When you point the finger of blame at others, you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.”  There is perhaps no other more destructive attitude than self-righteousness because it enables us to act out our resentment and anger under the arrogant disguise of holiness.

That’s what Jesus was talking about in today’s gospel when he told his disciples the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector.

Both men are honest men.  They are who they claim to be.

The tax collector knew himself to be a traitorous Jew who worked on behalf of a foreign occupying government.  Furthermore, he knew what his fellow Jews thought about him and how they’ve judged him.  The Jews viewed the tax collector in much the same way that Bathist Iraqis today look upon their fellow Iraqis who collaborate with members of the Coalition and the Iraqi Provisional Government.  Think about those hundreds of Iraqi men who have been assassinated because they just wanted to make a decent salary as policemen so, in turn, they could provide for the needs of their families.  The Jews reviled the tax collector equally; but, the only reason they didn’t attack, beat, punish, or even put the tax collector to death is that the occupiers provided him protection.  The Romans knew that without his services, they wouldn’t be able to extort taxes out of the Jewish populace.

The Pharisee also is the person he claims himself to be.  He was a good man; in fact, he really was  superior to many of his fellow Jews in terms of his religion.  He kept laws of the Torah faithfully and fulfilled its every precept, sometimes even going beyond what the law required.  The Pharisee also knew that his fellow Jews viewed him in much the same way that the followers of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s in Najaf, Iraq, view him today.  Al-Sadr’s followers believe him to be a wise and holy man, one whose advice is trustworthy not only because he knows and understands the laws of the Koran but also because he lives them each and every day and exhorts his fellow co-religionists to do the same.

Yet, while each of these two men knew and was the person he claimed to be, there was a big difference between the two, spiritually speaking.  The tax collector clearly understood where he stood in relation to God as this can be gleaned from his prayer, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.  In contrast, the Pharisee told God where he stood in relation to other people as can be gleaned from his prayer, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity….”

The tax collector understood that if he was to have any hope whatsoever, it would only be at the hands of a God who was just, yet merciful .  As we heard in today’s reading from Sirach: “The Lord is a God of justice, who knows no favorites.”  So, using as the standard of comparison where he stood in relation to God, the tax collector’s prayer revealed the distance this man knew he had wandered from God.  And, in all honesty, the tax collector portrayed himself in his prayer exactly as what he knew himself to be, namely, “scum of the earth.”

Is this how we approach God in prayer?  Are we honest, identifying the divide we’ve created between ourselves and God?  Do we “break open our hearts” as we said in today’s Psalm response, so that by honestly admitting how far we’ve wandered from God, we might not incur further guilt by taking refuge instead in God?

Contrast the prayer of tax collector with that of the Pharisee.  This fellow was so proud of himself and all of his accomplishments that the Pharisee actually believed God was required to take pride in the Pharisee and his accomplishments.  In the Pharisee’s mind, he was fully and completely justified; he had no need for God’s mercy.  So, using as the standard of comparison where the Pharisee stood in relation to his fellow Jews, the Pharisee believed himself completely justified in telling God how God should look upon him, quite literally, as a “poster child” for Jewish holiness.

Is this how we approach God in prayer?  Do we tell God about all of the ways in which we’ve fulfilled our religious obligations, how justified we are because we’ve gone to Church, contributed to the support of the Church, participated in the sacraments, provided assistance to the needy, and the like?  (Well, maybe not “told” God.  How about believed that God owes us or that God couldn’t possibly judge us harshly because so many other people are worse than we are?)

From God’s perspective, however, the difference between the prayers of the two men couldn’t have been more obvious.  The tax collector exuded humility, a man who realized the truth about himself and his wicked choices, to the point that the tax collector feared even to walk into the Temple and to place himself in God’s presence.  But, the Pharisee, puffed up by pride, believed himself wholly justified not only to enter the Temple but also to take the first seat and in the first pew, for all to behold.

As this parable indicates, the temptation to self-righteousness is one of if not perhaps the primary temptation confronting people who strive to walk the pathway of holiness.  Self-righteousness begins with a simple decision, that is, the decision to make a positive comparison of oneself in relation to another person or other persons rather than in relation to God.

We do this, for example, when we decide to talk, gossip, or complain about other people.  They could be co-workers, a boss, classmates, family members, a brother or sister, or even a spouse.  No matter who these people are, we speak about them in a way that makes these other people look worse in comparison to ourselves.  After a long day at work, in school, or a tense situation at home, we might say, “Well, at least I’m as bad as…(fill in the blank).”  We do this when we come to church on Sunday and compare ourselves to the people seated beside, in front of, behind us, or even outside church in all of those other places of our daily lives.  And, judging from what our feelings betray about all of those people, we justify our self-righteousness and grow increasingly indignant and harsh in our judgments about them and arrogant in our assessment of ourselves.

It’s much harder to compare ourselves to God.  In a homily Pope John Paul II delivered in 1986, he noted:

The Word of God returns insistently…to the value and necessity of humility. It is a very important lesson, which we must learn well if we truly desire to walk on the way of truth. In fact, humility is truth. The first fundamental truth is the absolute transcendence of God the Creator, manifested in the infinite goodness of Christ the Redeemer: this is the supreme and decisive reality, in the face of which the person feels both exalted as a [child] and abased as a lowly creature who can boast of nothing.

So, in light of today’s readings, it is important that all of us ask ourselves some pretty challenging questions: Am I really as perfect as I believe I am?  If so, why is it that I don’t read and study the Bible as I ought? that I don’t pray as I ought? that I don’t celebrate the Sacrament of Penance as I ought? that I don’t give from my abundance to the Church, the poor, the needy, and the destitute  as I ought? that I don’t believe that prohibitions concerning immoral and illegal behavior apply in my case? that I think I can do whatever I want and whenever I want to do it? And, most importantly: that I don’t love God as I ought?

When we compare ourselves to the standard of perfection that is God, as Pope John Paul II reminds us, the fig leaves of prideful self-righteousness are peeled away and we suddenly realize that our choices have made us look a lot more like the Pharisee than the tax collector.

That’s the spiritual problem Jesus addresses in today’s gospel.  While many of us probably think the message of today’s gospel can be formulated in the prayer, “Lord, I thank You that I am not like the Pharisee,” our imperfection testifies that we are just like the Pharisee who we so desperately want to pretend we’re not like.  We’re so obsessed with what we’ve done, what we haven’t done, what we should do and what others should or shouldn’t do according to our rules and expectations that we not only lose sight of God but we also compare ourselves not to God’s perfection but according to the imperfections we point out to God about others.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church asks:

When we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or “out of the depths” of a humble and contrite heart?  He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer.  Only when we humbly acknowledge that “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. “[A human being] is a beggar before God.”  (# 2559)

This realization should cause us to fall to our knees when we enter church, just as the tax collector fell to his knees upon entering the Temple.  Or, unlike the tax collector, perhaps this realization so embarrasses us that we fear even coming to church, of entering its doors, and of availing ourselves of the healing that is only available in the Church and its sacraments.  Thank God, the tax collector did enter the Temple and, hopefully, we enter the church, too.

When we compare ourselves to God rather than to other human beings, as the tax collector did, we grow in the virtue of humility.  People who are humble do not identify themselves by their proximity to God; no, people who are humble identify themselves by their accurate assessment of their distance from God.

For those of us who have become resentful, angry, and arrogant―who fear coming into the presence of God because of our wicked choices―there is hope.  As the Protestant minister Terry Cole-Whitakker noted in the title of her book, Every Saint Has a Past, Every Sinner Has a Future:

People around us can make it even more difficult for us to release the past and live in the present.  Old friends and family tend to view us as we were and not as we are.

Family and friends may feel the need to continually remind us of what we did that wasn’t okay or what we failed to do.  Sometimes they don’t say anything; they don’t need to.  Resentment, anger, and judgment pervade the very air we are breathing in their presence….A relentless stream of thoughts and conversations about a dead past forces us to perceive and believe that hope is gone when the truth is, hope is eternal….

The past is valuable to the degree that we can take the love, lessons, and successes and apply this knowledge to our present situation.  Nothing we can do will change yesterday, bring back what was, or allow us to regain the lost moment….A sinner can be transformed into a saint in a flash….There is hope for everyone.  (pp. 2-6)

I believe that, like Jesus, Terry Cole-Whittaker was speaking about the tax collector, not the Pharisee.  Casting himself upon God’s mercy, the tax collector had hope.  Trusting only in himself, the Pharisee had no hope and didn’t even realize it.  Our goal, as we traverse the pathway of discipleship, is to pray to God using as the standard of judgment God’s perfection, not the imperfection of other people and to trust in the justice and the mercy of God our loving Father not to trust in ourselves.

 

 

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