Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
At first glance, today’s gospel reading might seems to be about pride versus humility, about self-righteousness versus trusting God’s mercy. In reality, though, Luke is continuing his reflection on prayer. Last week, his emphasis was on “the necessity to pray always without becoming weary.” This week, his focus is on prayer as an extension of life.
Let me provide the context of today’s gospel reading. The Pharisee and the tax-collector come before God in prayer. It is important to know their lives. Surprisingly, the important figure in this story are the unmentioned people – The Romans. Various segments of the Palestinian society reacted differently to the Roman occupation. The Pharisees responded by a resurgent fidelity to the Law. But everybody did not have this choice. The Palestinian society of Jesus’ time was an impoverished society. People had to make a living to feed their families. Some of them reluctantly worked for the Romans simply to make a living. Tax-collectors were one of those people. The Pharisee’s attitude towards the tax-collector and the tax-collectors attitude toward himself was determined by their respective response to the Romans. The Pharisees saw the tax-collectors as traitors to the national and religious identity. The tax-collectors, on the other hand, knew that people despised them. In reality, then, the social reality of Jesus’ time was being played out in the temple. The prayers of Pharisee and the tax-collector were a reflection of their life.
- Prayer is Life, Life is Prayer. Last week, I preached a homily on “prayer is life and life is prayer.” What the Pharisee and the tax-collector bring before God is life as they lived it. In this first point, I do not want to focus on the difference between the Pharisee and the tax-collector, but rather on us. What is the connection between our life and our prayer? When we come before God in prayer, are we the same people who live our life out there? And what we live out there, is it consistent with our prayer? Is there a dichotomy between our life and our prayer? Is there a dichotomy between the life we live and the person who stands before God?
- Prayer is Fashioned by Life. I believe that our prayer is often fashioned by our life. Our prayer is only going to be who are in life. If we are angry and divisive people, then when we come before God, our prayer is going to be angry and divisive. If we judge people and condemn people as we go about our lives, then we carry these attitudes into our prayer. If we are a loving people, then our prayer will overflow with love. We see this played out in the parable. The tax collectors knew the impact of their actions on society. Some of them like Zacchaeus even extorted money. They knew they were in need of repentance and God’s mercy. Perhaps that is why they responded more easily to Jesus than the Pharisees. The Pharisees, on the other hand, developed an attitude of self-righteousness in relation to the tax-collectors. This led them to treat even Jesus with condemnation. The attitudes of the Pharisee and the tax-collector plays out in their prayer before God. The Pharisee prayed from his self-righteousness and judgmentalism and the tax-collectors from his need for repentance and God’s mercy. Our prayer can only be who we are in life. If our prayer must be humble, then our lives must be humble; and if your lives must be humble our prayer must be humble.
- Life is Fashioned by Prayer. Let me share a story from my seminary days. I was in the early years of my seminary when I first started to take my relationship with God seriously. As was to be expected, I found myself spending quiet time in prayer in the seminary chapel. It gave me much contentment and I would look forward to taking more time to be with God in prayer. Ironically though, my prayer was beginning to give me a sense of superiority over other seminarians who did not take the time to pray. I found great satisfaction in finding myself better than others, or at least, I thought I was better than others. Things got even worse before they got better. I very briefly reached a stage when I would feel unhappy to see certain seminarians pray, especially, the ones I had difficulty get along with. It gave me the sense that I was losing my spiritual superiority over them. It took me some time to discover that all those times that I thought I was in prayer, like the Pharisee in today’s gospel reading, I was deluding myself. How easy it is to make our even our prayer an oppressive tool. Prayer can become a means of oppression.
This Eucharist is the prayer of Jesus offered on our behalf. It is the most sincere and powerful prayer. Let us unite our lives and our prayer with the prayer of Jesus. Let us allow Jesus’ prayer to fashion our lives. With the tax-collector let us say, “Have mercy on me, a sinner!” Let us unite ourselves with the prayer and the life of Jesus. Then let us live this prayer out there each day.
Fr. Satish Joseph