30^th Sunday Ordinary Time

Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18

2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

Luke 18:9-14

Ludwig Wittgenstein, considered by many to be the greatest 20^th century philosopher, believed the purpose of Christianity was to become a different person. Early Christians called their religion The Way, and this makes sense when we understand the goal is to become a different person, as this is a life-long journey.

The Chinese have a saying: a long journey begins with a single step. Today’s parable illustrates the first step you must take to begin the Christian journey. If you are like the Pharisee, completely self-satisfied with who you are and what you are doing with your life, you are not ready to start out on this journey. You are fine you as you are, so why bother trying to become a different person?

If, on the other hand, you are more like the tax-collector, well aware of your need for God’s mercy and forgiveness, you are open to change, to be changed by an encounter with God. This is the critical and necessary first step on the Christian journey.

If you decide you want to be a different person, the next question is: what kind of person do you want to be? If you are a Christian, the answer is simple, although not easy. You want to be a person like Jesus. Most people do not start out being like him.  I Sure didn’t. That is, always forgiving everyone for everything. Loving your enemies. Turning the other cheek when someone hits you. Caring nothing about money, status, or power. Serving the poor and outcasts. Giving to all who ask for help. And having a faith so strong you can work wonders.

The First Dilemma

However, as someone who has long been trying to walk the Christian Way, I must say this parable presents me with a dilemma, one I think I may share with many others who have been trying to follow Jesus.

We want to believe we have made some progress, that we have not been wasting our time praying, serving others, working for justice, reading the Bible, going to church, and so on. If not, isn’t your spiritual life a big waste of time? What’s the point if you have made no progress?

Over the years, as my relationship with God has deepened, I have found myself thanking God for many blessings, material and spiritual. You can be thankful for God’s help, without denying your continual need for God’s mercy and forgiveness. If you believe you have made some spiritual progress, it is appropriate to be grateful for this and to give thanks to God for helping you to do it. If you know yourself at all, you can easily discern when you are doing something “out of character.”

If we are in touch with how God is working in us and through us, it’s possible to avoid the temptation of taking credit for these changes. It will feel natural to give thanks to God for helping you to change. Our role is to be open to participate in God’s grace working in us. This is not false modesty; it is simply being in touch with reality. It’s no different from recognizing how you could not have achieved certain goals in your life without the support of your spouse, parents, friends or relatives.

But if I am thanking God for helping me to become a better person, does not that place me in danger of praying like the Pharisee? How can we distinguish the prayer of the grateful Christian, who has made some progress in becoming more like Jesus, and the self-satisfied Pharisee?

It is important to point out that this parable is not about making moral judgments on the tax collector and the Pharisee. In fact, if we do this, we are falling into one of the traps the parable warns us against! The context of this parable is the same as the one we read last week: Jesus is telling us how to pray. The tax collector is held up for us as a good example of how to pray. The Pharisee reveals mistakes we may all be tempted to make in our prayer life.

The Mistakes of the Pharisee

I can see five moves the Pharisee makes that someone making progress in the Christian life will want to avoid. First, the Pharisee thanks God that “he is not like the rest of mankind.” This makes it seem as though God is being thanked for a settled fact: I am now, always have been and always will be different from and better than the rest of mankind. As if this supposed moral superiority is a “one and done” deal. As if we never change, grow, or are tempted to fall into sin. This is unreal.

Instead, we can thank God for “helping us to become more like your son, Jesus.” Becoming a different person is a never-ending process, and God must be helping us every step of the way. We all slip and fall at times. We may even fall into mortal sin.  If we thank God for helping us to become better, we are really thanking God for our relationship with God. I think that must be pleasing to God.

If you are faithful, you won’t need to take credit for these changes; you will realize you could not have done it without God’s help. If you are going to boast or be proud, it won’t be about your “moral” superiority. Instead, you might be proud or grateful for your relationship with God.

The second move the Pharisee makes is to compare himself to others, “the rest of mankind,” and to judge them as morally inferior to himself. This is a temptation for us modern-day Pharisees! How can we not make moral judgments about sex abusers, for example? Or President Putin? They are sinners, after all, aren’t they?

The parable reminds us that what is most essential is our relationship with God. We do not know what is going on between God and people we believe are “sinners.” It could be the sinner you are judging is, like the tax-collector, even now begging God for mercy, a mercy God is certain to grant. This is one of many reasons why Jesus warns us against judging other people (Luke 6:37). Judging people is God’s job, not ours.

The Pharisee, and the parable, reveal a pit we can fall into when our relationship with God is unsound. The Pharisee uses his negative judgment about the tax collector in order to feel better about himself. This is a waste of time. Because if you have a solid relationship with God, you will not need to compare yourself to others. You will know God loves you, as you are, forgives you when you fall down, and has faith in you, believing that you will grow to be a better person. What more does anyone need in order to love himself?

Third, notice in verse 11 that the Pharisee is praying with himself and about himself?  No more need be said!

Fourth, the two good deeds the Pharisee brags about are religious sacrifices: tithing and fasting. The prophets, and Jesus, repeatedly warn us that God wants love, mercy and justice more than sacrifice.

Finally, if Jesus is our model, we will be saved from the Pharisee’s self-satisfied complacency, because we will realize we still have a long way to go before we are truly like Jesus: the power of our faith; our loving service to others; our ability to forgive everyone, even those who unjustly torture and kill us; our devotion to non-violence, even when it is killing us. If you are trying to be more like Jesus, it is natural to feel humble!

A Second Dilemma

But this final move raises a second dilemma the parable presents us with: the danger of a self-hating guilt-ridden conscience.

The parable contrasts the “bad” prayer of the Pharisee with the “good” prayer of the tax collector. But is the tax collector really the best model for prayer and for the spiritual life? Christians, especially Catholics, are often criticized for being obsessed with guilt. In extreme cases, the anxiety of avoiding sin and the guilt-ridden conscience can lead to a neurotic self-absorption that is blind to the needs of others. This is not the goal of Christian living. If we are not careful, we can be misled in this direction by taking the model of the tax-collector too literally.

God loves us, God will forgive us for our sins, and to follow Jesus’ Great Commandment (Matthew 22:26-40) we need to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. What’s the difference between appropriate self-love and the pride of the Pharisee?

Once again, I think the solution to these real dilemmas of the spiritual life points to the centrality of our relationship with God. If this relationship is healthy, we will be able to realize, and truly feel, that we are loved, just as we are. After all, God created us and does God make mistakes? At the same time, if we have a genuine relationship with Jesus, we will realize that we have a way to go before we are sinless, as he was. Finally, we will also feel forgiven and empowered to live joyfully in the Holy Spirit.

This parable, like the one we read last week, is about prayer. Last week, we learned how important persistence is in our prayer life. This week’s story warns of the dangers of praying the wrong way. Is it not thought-provoking to consider that the Pharisee’s prayer is doing his spiritual life more harm than good?

I have always recoiled from bumper stickers with the one-word command: “Read!” I love to read, but if you believe that a good book can enrich you, does it not follow that reading too many bad books can harm you? Is not this the premise of Don Quixote? The same principle holds true for prayer. We have to be careful we are praying with the right heart, for the right things, in the right way, with the right intention.

The parable ends with Jesus telling us that those who exalt themselves will be humbled, while those who humble themselves will be exalted. What does this mean? Is Jesus talking about what will happen to us when we die, and God judges us? Perhaps, but I read this parable in a different way.

If you choose to feel better about yourself by judging others to be morally inferior, the parable is warning you that this plan will not end well. I speak from experience! You will end up isolated and alone because people have a way of discerning your judgments. You also may find it difficult not to end up judging yourself just as harshly as you do others. None of us is morally perfect. If your self-esteem is based only on your moral superiority to others, you better watch out! You are leaning on a broken reed!

As my friend Duane, a Lutheran pastor told me, on his death bed Martin Luther said, “I am a beggar.” Humility is nothing more than facing the truth about ourselves. And, as Jesus says, the truth will set you free. I have found that once I stopped worrying about being “better” than everyone else, I had a lot more energy to focus on what really brings joy: giving to other people and serving God. I feel more alive when I am living this way, and I think this is what Jesus means by “exalted.”

If the purpose of Christianity is to become a different person, our faith, like this parable, tells us we do not achieve this on our own, through our own moral effort. We need God’s help. One of the best ways to receive this help is through prayer. Knowing how to pray–and how not pray–is therefore critical.

Today’s parable is about how to avoid crucial mistakes in the way we pray. In doing so, it raises dilemmas of the spiritual life that point to the central importance of our relationship with God. That is perfectly appropriate, because our relationship with God is what prayer is all about.