30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C); October 23, 2022

Sir 35:12-14,16-18. Ps 34. 2 Tm 4:6-8; Lk 18:9-14

Deacon Jim McFadden

Last Sunday, we reflected on why persistence in prayer is necessary to keep our relationship with God viable. Today we consider the second part of Jesus’ teaching about prayer in Luke 18. The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector reminds us that God hears the prayers of some surprising people and that we all must approach God with a humble disposition to surrender.

The Old Testament passage from Sirach 35 in our first reading summarizes the recurrent biblical conviction that God gives special consideration to the prayers of the oppressed and needy and those who seem least in our society. Jesus underscores that “special consideration” in Matthew 25 when he says that what we do to the least of his brethren, we do to him. Psalm 34 affirms that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and crushed in spirit and hears the cries of the poor. Both Sirach 35 and Psalm 34 carry an implied challenge to us: just as God identifies with and shows partiality to the poor and those on the margins of society, if we are to be right relationship with the God of justice, we, too, must do the same. Indeed, the cry of the poor if the Church’s cry of hope.

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector makes a similar point, that God hears the prayers of some very surprising persons. It begins with the prayer of the Pharisee, which actually begins well: “God, I thank you” (Lk 18:11b). This is a great beginning, because the best prayer is that of gratitude, that of praise as we recognize that everything we are and everything we have come from God’s gracious love. But, immediately though, we learn the real reason he gives thanks: “that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector” (v. 11c). He then goes on to boast about his religious accomplishments: specifically, he fasts twice a week while there was only yearly obligation and pays tithes on all of his income, though tithing was only prescribed on the most important products (cf. Dt 14:22ff). In short, he boasts because he has gone over and beyond what is required in fulfilling the commandments. But he has forgotten the greatest commandment: to love God and our neighbor (cf. Mt 22:36-40). Brimming with self-assurance of his own ability to keep the commandments, his own merits and virtues, he is focused only on himself. His prayer was so self-referential—what he was doing right and his superiority to the

tax collector. His prayer was so much about his spiritual accomplishments—what he has done—that it was hardly a prayer at all. It was more about self- congratulations than it was a genuine prayer to God.

The tragedy of this ostensibly religious individual is that he is without love. Even the things that he does—fasting and tithing—really don’t count for anything if they’re done without love (cf. 1 Cor 13). Without love, what’s the upshot? He ends up praising himself instead of praying to God. In fact, did you notice that he didn’t ask God for anything because he does not feel needy or in debt to God; indeed, he seems to imply that God owes something to him! He stands in the temple, being very self-satisfied about his accomplishments, and, at the same time being very alienated from God and his neighbor.

Together with God, he forgets his neighbor; more to it, he despises him. For the Pharisee, his neighbor has no worth, no value. He considers himself better than others, whom he calls literally “the rest of humanity”. In other words, anyone outside of his self-referential silo, are “leftovers,” they are scraps that can be thrown away if they are not useful to him. How many times have we done this, personally or nationally. Just think of the unborn babies that have been killed since Roe v. Wade? Look at how we treated Native Americans, erasing their history, taking their lands, nearly eradicating them from the land they had occupied for millennia. Or, the Original Sin of our country—namely, slavery which morphed into racism and white supremacy which still oppresses our black brothers and sisters. Or, the exploitation of Creation, which has left our precious planet a wasteland, which God meant to be lived in for all.

Are we like the Pharisee? Do we do the right things—liturgical rites, “prayers”—but forget who we are: namely, children of God who are meant to love our neighbor. People of God, even though we may pray and regularly go to Holy Mass, we are vulnerable to the religion of self-worship. Let us take an honest look at ourselves to see whether we too may think that some are inferior and can be tossed aside. Let us pray with humility remembering what the Book of Proverbs reminds us that “Wisdom comes to the humble, not the arrogant” (cf. Prv 11:2, 18:12). Let us pray for the grace not to consider ourselves superior to anyone, not to believe that we are spiritually and religious alright, not be become cynical or scornful of others, who do not belong to our political/economic/social tribe.

Instead, let us turn to another kind of prayer: the prayer of the tax collector helps us to understand what is pleasing to God. The tax collector, whatever his failings may have been, knew who God is and who he is before God. He prayed

sincerely, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Lk 18:13c). He simply had the attitude of dependence, of trust in God. He knew who he was. He accepted that he was a sinner and that he was absolutely dependent upon God’s grace to be saved. He was not approaching God from his accomplishments but his shortcomings, not from his riches but his poverty. His was not economic poverty—tax collectors in his day were very rich as they tended to make money unethically—but he felt a poverty of life, because we never live well when we stay in our sin. The tax collector knew that he had exploited others and so he came before God in his poverty and humility. Unlike the Pharisee who stood in front of the Temple on his feet (cf. v. 11), the tax collector stood far off and “would not even lift up his eyes to heaven,” because he believed that’s God is indeed great, while he knew himself to be small. He “beat his breast” (cf. v. 13) because his breast is where his heart is. Unlike the Pharisee, his prayer was coming straight from his heart. He was being honest, transparent. He places his heart before God, not his accomplishments. To pray is to stand before God’s eyes—because it is God who is looking at us when we pray—without illusions, excuses, or self- justifications.

Brothers and sisters, as we reflect upon this parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, let us rediscover where we should begin with our prayer: all of us are in need of salvation. This is the first step of the true worship of God, who is merciful towards those who come to him in their need. The ones who recognize in their humility that they are broken and are in radical need of salvation, will be exalted. Those who presume that they have they are self-righteous, that they have basically saved themselves, will fail in the spiritual journey.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we all have a bit of the Pharisee and the tax collector because we are all sinners—everyone one of us! We tend to be presumptuous, embracing the conceit that we can do it ourselves, as we look down on those who are floundering. But, we don’t have to stay there: let us strive to be like the tax collector and pray for the grace to experience ourselves as being in need of mercy and being interiorly poor. For this reason we will recognize that we are all beggars before God and so we follow his path which leads us to minister to the poor, oppressed, and marginalized. God only operates in this atmosphere of interior poverty. So, let us continue to “beat our breast.” Amen.