30th. Sunday, Year
(C)
(Ecclesiasticus 35:12-14, 16-19; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14)
Jesus spoke this parable, Saint Luke tells us, to some who
were:
Convinced of their own righteousness
and despised everyone else.
However, He spoke this parable not so much to attack anyone
but rather to offer healing to all; and to that end He portrayed two characters,
both of them caricatures: a Pharisee praying as if he thought ALL MEN (even his
fellow Pharisees!) were greedy, dishonest and adulterous … an opinion to which
no one could give credence; and, on the other hand, an Israelite tax-collector
working for the hated Romans who expected him to get the standard of living he
desired from making surcharges which the Romans themselves did not demand, and
yet apparently praying with the utmost devotion and obvious sincerity in the
Temple soon to be destroyed by those Romans.
Two caricatures because Jesus wanted to make
perfectly clear a teaching which He needed to impress upon them because of its absolutely
essential importance for any man’s relationship with God: a teaching that offered
hope to those near despair and demanded humility from those whose apparent sincerity
and devotion, though highly regarded by many was actually being eaten away by a
voracious pride in their party’s much over-valued human traditions. For
such healing to be effective it was necessary for the wrong to be recognized
and for the medication to be rightly applied.
Jesus would seem to have addressed the parable to Pharisees
who were, indeed, wanting to be righteous before God, because the whole
point of the parable is show that they are not actually achieving what they
wanted:
I tell you this man (the
tax collector) went down to his house justified (that is accepted by,
acceptable to, God) rather than the other.
Jesus, Who was recognized as a Rabbi, that is, a teacher, was
saying, in other words, if you want to be acceptable to, righteous before, God,
you are going about it the wrong way; have a good look at look at the
tax-collector here with you in the Temple, and learn this from Me:
Whoever exalts himself will
be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
So, what was the great fault – according to Jesus’ parable –
that the Pharisee’s were committing?
Jesus made it ludicrously clear:
God, I thank You that I am
not like other men -- greedy, dishonest, adulterers.
No doubt some of the Pharisee’s contemporaries were well-known
money lovers, unjust (pseudo-religious) people, and some, maybe, adulterers; others
may, at times in the past, have been guilty of such behaviour; nevertheless, he
could in no way claim that ALL his contemporaries, especially his fellow
pharisees, were like that. If he had
simply said ‘that I am not like some other men’, or even perhaps ‘many other
men’, he might have been speaking truly.
But Jesus’ whole purpose was underline as much as possible – and mockery
was a most effective weapon with which to deflate those so proud of their religious
practices and public esteem – and so His caricature has the Pharisee praying
those ludicrous words:
My God,
I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity.
As regards the tax collector, he was indeed reckoned among
the worst of extortioners: exacting often-excessive taxes on behalf of the
hated occupying Roman power; he was also unjust beyond-the-pale, so to speak, knowing and
caring nothing of the Law of Moses, the great pride of Israel and deeply respected
though not always obeyed by most Jews of those days, especially in face of the Romans. How could a practicing tax-collector behave
in such way: he was openly and, most humbly, praying in the manner of a pious Jew,
in the Temple: in that regard, although his dress bespoke a tax-collector, his
actions were those of a deeply religious man.
Our Pharisee, of course, saw nothing other than the clothes of one he
despised above all.
That would seem to have been the characteristic trait of the
Pharisees in general at that time against which Jesus was wanting to warn them and
offer healing: regarding all others with potential disdain,
especially tax-collectors, extortioners, adulterers, and all those unjust
before the Law!
It is really quite amazing to think that serious and
sincerely religious men could have such a blanket attitude! What was at the back of it all? Well, Jesus would seem to be emphasizing,
highlighting, in order to bring into the open, an attitude that was, to a large
extent, endemic in the Pharisaic observance of the Law:
I fast twice a week; I give
tithes of all that I possess.
This pharisaic (sic!) tendency presents a perennial danger,
People of God, for committed individuals of all persuasions; and in early
Christianity, we find Paul seeking to root it out when it began to show its
head in the Corinthian church he had founded (1 Cor. 4:7):
Who sees anything different
in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as
if you did not receive it?
God’s gifts are given, generally speaking, to be used to
further God’s purposes in the world around.
They are also given to draw the recipient closer to God: gratitude felt
should be expressed to God, Personally; and, in that way, should lead to closer
personal relationship with God, to a deeper appreciation of, and responsiveness
to, Him.
When, however, religious practice becomes merely the
external observance of certain precepts and ordinances rather than a personal
commitment and response to God known and loved, then, gifts received can be personally
appropriated and used to exalt the recipient’s pride and imagined superiority
over others, instead of establishing his humility and bolstering his gratitude
to God. Moreover, when religion thus
becomes cold and impersonal, even good deeds, being done not out of love for the
all Holy One, but as claims to personal holiness, become quite worthless before
God, nothing but further additions to a sum total of personal achievement and
pride.
That was the state of the Pharisee in Our Lord’s parable:
and nothing could better recall him to true religion than the sight of a
repentant tax-collector dead to all but God in the Temple.
There is only one sure proof of holiness: love for Jesus,
and in Him, for the Father, by the Spirit.
Holiness is not, in its essence, proven by miracles performed, nor by
good deeds done, prayers said, pilgrimages made, money given, or indulgences
gained; and of course, worldly reputation, the approval of authorities, or
popularity among peers, have no true relevance here. All of these can indeed, under the right conditions,
be indications of some measure of holiness; but love alone is the authentic and
certain criterion of that God-given holiness which is charity.
This teaching is sublimely expressed by St. Paul, again
writing to his church community in Corinth:
Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass
or a clanging cymbal. And though I have
the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and
though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I
am nothing. And though I bestow all my
goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not
love, it profits me nothing.
Let us now listen to Our Lord answering the question once put to Him in the Gospel by a Scribe of pharisaic persuasion (Mark 12: 28-33):
“Which is the first commandment of all?" Jesus answered him, "The first of all the commandments is: Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.”
And let us turn back to our readings for today and see how
St. Paul himself manifested that very spirit so badly distorted by the Pharisee
in the Gospel parable:
I have fought the good fight,
I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of
righteousness.
At that point one might think that Paul was dangerously
close to being like the Pharisee counting up personal items of merit. But notice how he continues, for Paul was not
one to think his righteousness to be his own, personal, achievement; nor that
he was alone among men in his endeavours and in his success:
There is laid up for me the
crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on
that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have longed for His appearance.
Finally, hear and admire his total humility and childlike
trust before God when, fully aware of his imminent execution, he refers to his
life’s achievements as having been done, in him and through him, by God (2 Tim.
4:17-18):
The Lord stood by me and lent
me strength, so that I might be His instrument in making the full proclamation
of the gospel for the whole pagan world to hear; and thus, I was rescued from
the lion’s jaws. The Lord will rescue me
from every attempt to do me harm, and bring me safely into His heavenly
kingdom. Glory to Him for ever and
ever! Amen.
