Richard Bollman, S.J.

30^th SUNDAY C: Luke 18:9-14 "Praying as a Sinner"

SCRIPTURE COMMENT

The Pharisee and the Tax Collector, chief characters in the parable,

were lay people involved in the world of their time, capable and secure.

A PHARISEE was learned in the traditions of religious observance,

eager to adapt and interpret them for his own time.

Not all of them looked down on others, but you have to admit

giving a lot of attention to observance of religious proprieties

can lead in that direction.

And they did not seem to exemplify the tradition of the prophets,

with their eye for social inequities.

You can find their parallel in yourself, in the way you might be

a person concerned with spirituality and closeness to God

and authenticity with the Church: wanting a more just church,

good things, but not the only things.

The TAX COLLECTOR, also a lay business person,

had the job of keeping the political structure humming

by enforcing the tax obligations of the citizens.

This being a Roman government, it was not a democratic process at all,

and there was expectation for the collectors to increase their own rates

in order to have some profit, while fulfilling what the government demanded.

Whether wealthy, or just moderately successful,

they had to endure a certain ostracism among their religious neighbors,

since they worked for the system, as it were.

Depending on who you are, you might look at policemen in this way,

or politicians, or bureaucrats of all kinds.

Jesus, you may recall, enjoyed their hospitality

and felt that they needed God’s attention and compassion.

HOMILY

A woman friend of mine passed through town recently.

We had supper together. Both of us had been dealing with

the diminishment and death of some family members,

and our own changes: there was a lot to catch up on.

For some reason, maybe just the rich colors of autumn around,

we raised the question whether we were ourselves ready to die.

No, emphatically. Not yet. Not at this time.

What was it we were dealing with?

There are so many things we hadn’t really ever finished doing,

reconciliations with people we ought to work on,

and I said from myself, "I just have this kind of impasse inside,

something I can’t make sense of or sort out. Unyielding.

I’d be embarrassed to die yet."

I realize we were moving along with the prayer of the Pharisee,

as if what we’ll need to say to God is something like this:

"Thank you God, I’m finally ready to meet you.

I celebrate our relationship as being totally honest and transparent,

and I’ve finally finished all the books I needed to read,

have cleared up all my relationships through the years.

I’ve stopped misbehaving: you’ll be glad for my virtues in heaven."

Boasting, is what this is called, in the parable we heard.

Recorded prayers of the religiously accomplished Pharisee, in Jesus time,

actually did give thanks for the good deeds they did,

bringing these things before God, and if there was any felt failure,

they surely included an intention to amend their behavior.

You probably know this side of yourselves too.

It’s funny: we come to pray, to show up before God,

and we seem to be inventing the caption

under our high school graduate picture: great guy, good musician,

fun at parties, always ready to go the extra mile with you.

Who would ever want to say we were:

ignorant of our own heart,

not easily compassionate especially toward people who are different.

What would it be, like the tax collector in our parable,

to "humble yourself." The very word is repellent.

But essentially it means to know yourself as human,

to respect the human connections that surround you,

and to want a relationship with God that allows your whole self

to be part of it, nothing omitted.

It is a prayer that rises up from our worn spots,

the limits of what we can control.

We’re invited to ponder the tax collector in the story

because he went home "justified," right with God, in tune with God’s reign.

So we have to believe that he wasn’t praying

just out of temporary guilt feelings,

but that rather he was offering something of himself that day.

What might have happened to bring him to this?

Maybe he caught a glimpse of the harm the system did to people,

and he was part of it. He saw the anxiety of a widow and her daughter,

deprived of safety and food because of the tax law.

What a mess I’m in: God be merciful to me a sinner.

Or, say you’re a junior in high school and routinely take part

in the kind of gossip and judgments that are normal

against girls who are overweight or guys who are nerds,

and you come upon someone who is convulsed in tears

from the things that keep her down and feeling alone,

and you realize how you’ve held yourself away from her

because after all you are so much more cool.

"What’s going on here: can’t this poor kid shape up . . . ."

But then, what’s going on with me. God be merciful,

to me, look in the mirror, how clueless I am:

Me a sinner.

So yes, besides the Pharisee among us there is this other character,

the one called simply "Me a sinner."

Is that you, the mess we make of things.

So familiar and ordinary.

Here’s a little story.

Last night I came back late from a wedding I did downtown

and went to the fridge for supper: hey, there’s nothing here,

nothing healthy, nothing I want. Not even a salad.

I glared at Joe Bracken who was arranging the last possible plate

of real food, humming away, chatting with a guest in the house.

"Well, I can at least go out and get some lettuce."

So, hoping to be noticed, I went back to the car, tooled out of the driveway,

going at quite a clip, uttering a little prayer

that my anger didn’t cause a wreck. "Hey there Mother of God,

support my every whim, keep me safe."

I pulled up to Kroger’s in Surrey Square in less than five minutes,

bagged some romaine, and had to wait in the express check out:

a slow express night.

The guy at the register kept pulling too many plastic bags,

they fell loosely from the dispenser through his hands to the floor.

It took him twice as long to bag the simplest things

for the guy in front of the line: a bottle of wine,

a jar of olive oil, tins of anchovies, a can of tomatoes.

I envisioned the late dinner this fellow was planning!

Then the clerk’s supervisor checked out the cash from his drawer,

then came a mom needing gallons of milk, bread,

I got to counting whether she was over the limit of 12 items,

as she took time with her check book.

And then my turn, my little plastic bag: "What is this," the clerk says,

groping for information through the bag " . . . . celery?"

"Romaine," I said. He looked it up.

"$1.49," I said.

When I got home and had finished my huge salad, healthy,

with walnuts and a little grated cheese,

I scarfed down the last phase of a beef casserole,

some garlic toast, a beer, an enormous cookie.

What a mess we make of what we desire,

how we are so beligerent and needy.

How fooled we are by what drives us constantly, the appetites,

the ready anger, the self justifications.

In the most ordinary terms, it was "Me a sinner,"

who I will be till I die.

You recognize this too, in your own mirror.

We can’t change the pettiness, but at a certain point it pains you,

because you can see how you yourself work hard to stay on top,

for things to go your way, the right way,

and how you have channeled some of the community’s hurt, doing so.

So let us pray with the tax collector.

"Lord have mercy, here I am. Receive me please as I am."

Take heart: this is the nature of prayer. This is freedom, really.

When we insist on perfection before God,

when we boast about our living skills,

we lose a part of ourselves. We aren’t whole.

The prayer of the tax collector is the prayer of a whole person.

Such a person is, as the Gospel says, "justified." She or he is open now

to the truth of themselves and their history, not holding things back,

in the powerful company of God’s grace, bringing them to a place

where they no longer lie or defend themselves, or blame others.

That is what "justification" means:

before God I neither defend myself or blame others.

Because in every instance of my foolishness, God claims me.

God does not improve me, or transform me to my liking,

God simply pours out divine spirit, hospitably washing my feet,

in every moment old and new:

being redeemed and brought close again.