Homily for 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Homily for the
30th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Oct. 23, 2022
Luke 18: 9-14
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx

“Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else” (Luke 18: 9).

Jesus presents us with another parable about prayer.  Last week (18:1-8) he urged us to be persistent like a widow seeking justice from a corrupt judge.  Today he urges us to pray humbly.

The Pharisee in the parable is basically a good man who tries to keep the commandments—as were most of the Pharisees despite their bad reputation in the gospels.  This man gives God credit for the virtues he practices.  So far, so good.

But Jesus tells his audience, “those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else,” that the Pharisee doesn’t “go home justified” (8:14), i.e., in a healthy relationship with God.  Why?  Because he hasn’t looked deeply enuf into his own heart to see any faults, any guilt, anything in his own attitudes or behavior that might be displeasing to God.  He passes judgment on people who aren’t like him and looks down on them.  There’s no evidence of love in his heart.

There’s some Pharisee in all of us.  Haven’t we despised Osama bin Laden and Vladimir Putin?  How have we despised some neighbor, someone we work with, some relative—saying some version of “Thank God I’m not adulterous, murderous, thieving, lazy,” and so on, like so-and-so?

In the gospels, tax collectors are categorized alongside “sinners,” always criticized by the “right kind of people” in society; and Jesus is criticized for befriending them and allowing them to associate with him.  He even called one—St. Matthew—to be one of the 12 apostles.

No doubt the tax collectors, in general, were a bad lot.  They collaborated with the Romans and with Herod the ruler of Galilee to oppress ordinary people, demanding much more in taxes than they were required to turn over to the authorities, making for themselves a very handsome income and reputations as traitors to their own people.

The tax collector in Jesus’ parable realizes all that.  When he enters the temple, he keeps to the back, not daring to approach closer the presence of God, up where the Pharisee gladly stations himself.  (Is that why so many Catholics sit in the rear pews?)  He doesn’t present a list of virtues; altho he probably has some, that’s not the point of his prayer.  Instead, his sinfulness, his unworthiness to stand before God or even raise his eyes to God (8:13), consumes his mind.  All he can do is implore God to be merciful to him (8:13).

No comparing himself with others.  No boasting.  No excuses.  Just an honest, sincere appraisal of the state of his soul, perhaps with some specific sins on his mind.

To such people God grants forgiveness.  They go home justified, pleasing to God—as do Catholics when they come to the sacrament of Reconciliation, humbly confessing their sins and asking God for mercy—mercy that our good Lord Jesus is more than eager to give to us, as he did to tax collectors and sinners in 1st-century Israel.