30th Sunday Year C

See Commentary on Luke 18:9-14


Homily 1 - 2007

The Gospel we have just heard said that Jesus directed his story to some who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else. That attitude seems to be a professional hazard for everyone who takes seriously the business of growing in holiness. It’s certainly a professional hazard for me as a priest. We mightn’t publicly, or even consciously, pride ourselves for being virtuous, but there we are, up in our ivory towers, taking pot-shots, not necessarily at everyone else, but certainly at those whom we judge to fall short of those standards that, to us, are so obvious.

It can often be easy for those of us who have been schooled to do so, to say: God, have mercy on me, a sinner, in a half-hearted way because, even though we can accuse ourselves of the list of things we were taught to confess as kids, we don’t think we are really into sin in a bad way. We might admit to the occasional use of bad language, or bit of gossip, or distraction in prayer, or sexual attraction. but we tend to think that we’re not going all that badly. At least we’re trying, and are certainly a lot better than those who are into drugs, or who drink themselves stupid, or brazenly flaunt their sexuality, or drive like maniacs, or who never come near Mass.

What was the Pharisee up to that led Jesus to say that, while the tax collector went home at rights with God, the Pharisee did not? What was his sin, that meant that he was not at rights with God?

Well, Jesus told his story against all those who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else. The Pharisee believed that he didn’t need mercy because, really, as far as he could see, he didn’t sin. Yet Jesus saw what he didn’t. Like most of us, the Pharisee was quietly pleased with his virtue; and he despised others: his approach to others lacked love. He failed in the one thing necessary – love. And he was proud. The way Jesus put it, what the Pharisee didn’t see was his pride, and his pride kept him clear of God.

His lack of self-awareness of his pride on the one hand and the absence of love on the other closed him off from the God who is mercy. His sin – what kept him out of reach of God – seemed to have been that he didn’t – couldn’t – surrender himself to a merciful God.

Have you ever said, or were you even taught to say: “There, but for the grace of God, go I”? When you consider it, to think like that is to skate dangerously close to the wind.It is not all that different from: “I thank you God for your grace that has kept me different, and virtuous.” Or, as the Pharisee put it in today’s story: I thank you God that I’m not like the grasping, the unjust, the adulterous, or whatever.

Of itself, sin is no barrier to God, provided that people let God get at it. The tax-collector’s prayer for mercy and God’s ready forgiveness showed that. The 14th century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, once wrote: “We need to sin, or we would never discover the unconditional love of God”.

What matters is: 1) that we learn to recognise our sin; 2) that we then accept our sin; and 3) that we let the God who is merciful get at us and forgive us.

The problem will always be our pride. The only way to deal with our pride is to grow in self-knowledge, to face the truth of ourselves, and to discover our compulsive need to feel, and to look, perfect (or almost perfect!).

Beyond owning our pride, and our difficulties with loving, we can’t do much about it. The very effort to beat our pride comes almost inevitably from our pride! All we can do is to hang out for God’s transforming love, ask for God’s mercy, forget about how we’re progressing, and leave it all to God.

Rather than: “There, but for the grace of God, go I”, perhaps the truth is: “There, with the grace of God, go I, too” – both of us totally in need of God’s merciful love, both of us saved simply by the saving grace of Christ.


Homily 2 - 2016

 “[The tax-collector] went home again at rights with God, the other did not”. 

At rights with God, perhaps better, aligned with God, in tune with God, open to and enjoying God. 

St John tells us that God is love. The very essence of God is defined as, consists of, loving. If so, God cannot ‘not love’. God loves everyone, always. And God cannot make exceptions, because God can only be perfect, complete, thorough, total, consistent. So both men went home equally loved by God; yet, one was at rights with God, the other was not. Obviously, it is not enough to be loved by God. That God’s love be of any benefit to us depends also on us. We need to accept God’s love. We need to let it flow through us, and then flow out from us. That way, it changes us.

The Pharisee in today’s story misunderstood God and God’s love. He confused it with reward. He saw God’s love as earned, as controllable. I suspect that most of us, for most of our lives, instinctively feel that way too. He was not attuned to God’s love given gratuitously and always on offer. Basically satisfied with his efforts, he did not see any real need for God’s love, other than as an agreeable bonus. He felt no need to learn to trust totally in God’s gift of love, because in his mind, he deserved it. Because he felt sure he had earned God’s love, when he did sin, he was psychologically unable to own the fact. He was unable to see or recognize his sin and had no motivation to look more closely. Consequently, there was no change in the Pharisee, no growth. He was certainly not in tune with God, not at rights with God – and in a potentially highly destructive place to operate from. This is a major problem for religious institutions and for those of us who are professional religious, and explains partly why clergy sexual abuse was not faced openly and effectively, and perhaps is still not.

The tax-collector’s prayer is worth examining more closely, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”. He confronted his own sin. He owned and accepted the fact that he sinned. It was a start. More importantly, he believed God’s love. He trusted God and was ready to accept God’s love [and mercy]. 

Interestingly, the fact that we are sinners and the fact that God loves us nevertheless, both allow of degree, of more and less. Over time, our trust in God can grow, opening the way to deeper self-knowledge. Trust essentially is relationship; and relationship can continue to blossom until it becomes: “All that I am, just as I am, offered to all that you are, just as you are”. It is a dynamic that works two ways: the Trinity offer themselves to us sinners and draw us into their inner life of joy-filled love as we in turn accept their love and offer our lives more and more confidently and completely to them.  Indeed, as our trust in God develops and we know in our bones that we are loved totally gratuitously, we can take the psychological risk and face the obvious. We can come increasingly to see just how truly we are sinners, how destructive of our personal dignity our sin is, how much it hurts others – and yet how God’s love for us remains unchanged. We are safe. Bewildered yet exultant, we want to weep.

The perceptive fourteenth century English mystic, Julian of Norwich, agrees with us. “We need to fall… If we never fell we should never know the astonishing love of our Maker. That we sinned grievously … made no difference at all to God’s love, and we were no less precious in God’s sight.” 

Like the tax-collector, we can go back to our homes at rights with God – not sinless, nowhere near perfect and not likely ever to be, no better than anyone else, captivated by God, surprisingly loved, wanting to love, and quietly joy-filled. 


 

 Homily 3 - 2019

Over the years I have found this parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector an inexhaustible mine of unexpected meaning and insight. Of recent months, whenever I come across Pharisees or scribes in the Gospels, I see them, not so much as individuals, but as mirrors to look more closely at the religious culture in which I am immersed – specifically the clerical culture comprised of us priests and bishops, plus a big number of the people like yourselves still coming to church.

The challenge of the original parable was how to sensitise good people and help them to move from a misplaced sense of arrogant superiority and holiness to one of genuine repentance and deep trust in God. Today, as I see it, the parable’s challenge is to change the present clerical culture in the Church from one of unquestioned, complacent, blithely unrecognised and spontaneous defensiveness, symbolised by the Pharisee, to one of insight, humility and patient acceptance of the constant need for genuine, ever-deeper conversion, symbolised by the tax collector.

Since the Royal Commission finished its task, we have been made aware of the contribution of the clerical culture to a climate where both sexual abuse of minors by priests and even bishops happened, and where a consistent response of confidentiality and cover up allowed it to run rampant. The bishops as a body have accepted blame for the almost unimaginable damage done to victims of the abuse by their totally inadequate response. They had little other realistic alternative.

Meanwhile, I have complacently prided myself on my insights into the clerical culture and the need for genuine change. I have tended to associate myself quietly with the humble prayer of the tax collector. I am all for us priests praying, and being seen to be praying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner”. Then, just this week, as I was turning today’s Gospel passage over in my heart, I was shocked to realise that, if I am honest, I do not really feel myself a “sinner”, whatever I may say. In no way is my reaction that of the tax collector who “stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast ...”. I do not feel like that before God. Does that mean I am, indeed, innocent?

Certainly, I am not a pedophile. To the best of my memory, I was not aware of the abuse that was going on as it was going on; so I did not share in any cover up. Yet I was a member of the culture that contributed to the mindsets of both pedophiles and bishops. I was part of a network of relationships and mutual influence proper to all cultures. We priests rarely hold each other accountable for the decisions we make. We rarely call each other or our bishops to order for abuses of power, even when they distress us. Usually we keep quiet about each other’s inappropriate behavior. We seldom share details of our spiritual lives, even with our friends. The spiritual images of shepherd or father that we regularly cite are hardly appropriate models of institutional authority among mature adults. In a climate like that, pedophilia and cover up more easily fell under the radar and went unnoticed. We were not totally innocent.

Alongside and intermingled with individual sin and guilt there is also social sin and social guilt. Generally we have not been sensitised to social sin, yet in many ways, it can be more deeply destructive and more far-reaching. There is also a world of difference between felt remorse and rationally recognised and accepted guilt. Genuine guilt may not be felt, even for truly hurtful behaviour – yet, fortunately, when recognised and owned, even though not felt spontaneously, it can effectively move us to repentance.

Spending time quietly imagining ourselves into the hearts and minds of victims, somehow allowing ourselves to share their hurt and betrayal, while distressing, can be precious sources of energy for change.


Homily 4 - 2022

What a Gospel! It says so much to me. I hope that that is your experience, too. Let us review it more closely. Many scholars suggest that the opening sentence was probably added by Luke. Whereas it serves well to focus our attention on Jesus’ story and what he wanted people to learn, it may limit some of the other lessons that may be hidden in the story.

Jesus’ story presented us with two characters, a Pharisee and a tax collector. It might be worth while to ask ourselves with which one we instinctively identify — if either? My reaction is to immediately distance myself from the attitude of the Pharisee — I am not like that! But if that is my reaction, I think I have fallen for Jesus’ trap — because on reflection, I see that I am like that!

I have a strong perfectionist streak. My whole life, by and large, has been spent trying to become perfect, and I have tended to believe that that was what God has expected of me: I try not to be “grasping, unjust, adulterous”; I try to be pretty self-disciplined and careful what I eat. And I am prepared to contribute to a variety of good causes. All my life I have been particular about trying to pray properly and often.

Look at the Pharisee’s prayer: “I thank you God .. that I am not [sinful] like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here”. Is his prayer — “I thank you God” — any different from, “There but for the grace of God go I”?

Was there anything wrong with that? When the Pharisee described his general behaviour to God as he did, I presume he was honest. Where did he go wrong?

It was not his behaviour that was wrong — it was his inner attitudes, where his behaviour came from, his motivation. What was the source of his energy? Whom was he talking to in his little speech?

Let us take another look at his prayer: It was all, “I”, “I”, “I”. His gaze seemed to be more on himself than on God. Was he really engaging with God, relating to God? It sounds more like that he was composing for God a letter of reference for himself, just in case God had not noticed how good he was. He needed to impress God. He needed to feel in control.

That leads me to ask what might have been his sense of God, how did he feel about God? To me he sounds distanced from God. His sense of God seems to resemble that of a bank manager interested only in keeping everyone’s account in credit. I sense no warmth, no trust, in the relationship. In which case, for all his knowledge of the Law, all his prioritising of the Law, he seems to have little, if any, knowledge of God as a loving, merciful, forgiving God. Nor has he discovered that the deepest love is always unconditional.

The Pharisee despised the tax-collector. Certainly, tax collectors had a very poor moral track record. But this one does seem to have had a firm conviction that God is a merciful God, and trustfully surrenders himself into those merciful arms of God, despite a clear awareness of his sin. Jesus’ comment could hardly have been simpler: “This man … went home again at rights with God; the other did not”.

Do you find Jesus’ comment shocking? or, at least, confusing?
Or do you find it wonderful, and immensely reassuring?

I find it wonderful. But I also find it immensely challenging — not just to trust God totally and let go of all self-reliance; but also, since I think I admire so much God’s unconditional love, to allow God and [seriously — and joyfully] to want God to empower me to love others, any and all others, unconditionally too.

Where does Jesus’ simple little story leave you?