The Humble Taxman

Sirach 25:12-17; Psalm 84

2 Timothy; Luke 8:9-14

The Pharisee was proud, wanting to show how much he had done to earn God's love. The tax-collector was humble, with heart ready receive the gift that God offered. We keep the faith alive by recognizing God's gracious gift of mercy, overcoming our own self-righteousness, and by sharing the faith that we have received.

“I have kept the faith.” Saint Paul’s greatest triumph was keeping the faith – the faith that he had received which transformed his life. Paul remained faithful, true to the loving covenant God had established. But Paul did not keep the faith to himself. He passed it on, as he wrote to the Corinthians, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I myself received” (1 Corinthians 15:3).

“But how did St. Paul preserve the faith? Not in a safe! He didn’t hide it underground, like the lazy servant who buried the talent. … He kept the faith because he didn’t limit himself to defending it, but proclaimed it, spread it, brought it to the farthest reaches of the world. … He preserved the faith because, just as he received it, he passed it on, throwing himself into the peripheries without hiding behind bunkers. Here we can ask ourselves: how do we, in the family, keep our faith? Do we keep it for ourselves, in our family, like a private possession, like a bank account, or do we know how to share it with witness, with welcoming, with openness to others? (Francis, Bishop of Rome, Address to the Faithful in Saint PGodeter’s Square, October 23, 2016).

For Saint Paul, to keep the faith was his greatest boast. So, how do we keep the faith? Three points are illustrated in today’s readings.

GOD'S GRACIOUS GIFT

First, we keep the faith by recognizing God’s mercy as very real in our lives and as something that was graciously given, freely and without merit. In the parable told by Jesus that we heard today, the Pharisee is essentially asking God a question: “What can I do to be worthy of your love?” The Pharisee was what most people would deem a good religious man. He was going up to Jerusalem to the temple to pray. He was fasting twice a week, much more than the prescribed fasting on the Day of Atonement. He was tithing on his whole income, not just on that part of it required by the law. He was a role model – at least in outward practice. But there was something askew, something missing in his conception of God’s love. He fasts, he prays, he tithes, he lives an upright life, but in the process of doing so in order to earn God’s love he actually cuts himself off from God and from his neighbor. When we try to make ourselves worthy of God’s love through our supposed virtues, even the virtue of humility, we end up casting a sideward glance at others and measuring ourselves against them. If I need to earn God’s love, then I will have to be better than the other guy.

Indeed, the Pharisee asks the wrong question. Instead of “What can I do?” the Pharisee ought to be asking the much simpler question, “Do you love me?” And, of course, the parable gives us an answer – THE answer. “Do you love me?” we ask. And God replies resoundingly and forever, “Yes.”

The tax collector’s humility was not a virtue that earns him God’s love and acceptance. The tax collector’s humility is a posture of openness. Essentially, the Pharisee and the tax collector are the same. They both need God’s love. The Pharisee, however, doesn’t know it while the tax collector does. The tax collector goes up to the temple with nothing, as nothing. The tax collector’s heart is emptied of self, ready to experience the Gospel. He knows that there is nothing he must do, nothing he can do to earn the grace and love of God.

The love that moves the sun and the other stars, the love that creates, sustains, and redeems the cosmos, is always uttering and eternally “Yes” to our question “Do you love me?”

OVERCOMING SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

Second, we keep the faith by overcoming self-righteousness. Again, the Pharisee’s conception of God’s love was a little twisted around. We have a clue in the language that is used in the parable. In our NRSV translation, which we heard in the Lectionary lessons this morning, we heard this phrase, “The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus…” The Greek phrasing here, to say the least, is awkward. Luke Timothy Johnson translates the text in what seems a more literal (as in, true to the text) manner with a reading, “The Pharisee stood and prayed these things to himself.” It is certainly possible to read this turn of phrase as the Pharisee praying alone, quietly so that only God could here, such a rendering doesn’t fit the message of the parable. Instead, a more difficult reading seems appropriate, so that the Pharisee prays to himself rather than to God, with a reference to himself contrasting the tax-agent. (See Luke Timothy Johnson, Luke, Sacra Pagina 3, 271). In other words, the Pharisee was praying to himself – noting is own specialness and thanking God (in a way that all around him could hear) that he wasn’t like the many others who were thieves, rogues, adulterers and publicans. He rejoiced in his own virtue, failing to recognize his own sinfulness and failing to ask God for mercy. He didn’t think he needed it because compared to so many around him, he must have been a saint among sinners.

Now note the contrast Jesus makes with the other man who went up to the temple to pray that day. Tax-collectors, in Jesus day, were hated by their fellow Jews. Tax-collectors were collaborating with the Romans who were oppressing and subjugating the Jewish people. Moreover, in carrying out of the duties of collecting, they were notoriously corrupt and greedy. Assessed by the Roman officials for a certain amount to be collected, tax-collectors could keep whatever they collected beyond the assessment. They were well-known for gouging the poor and extorting from artisans, shopkeepers, and others. They were like the ancient mafia extorting money for safety and the “right” to conduct business. This type of betrayal of his nation and compatriot kept most tax-collectors away from the Temple, because they would have been seen as hypocrites. This tax-collector, however, knew that even if others might never forgive him, God would. This tax-collectors knew he needed God’s forgiveness. So, with no arrogance or self-importance or self-righteousness, he went to the Temple. With all humility, he remained in the back of the Temple and, beating his breast, cried out, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” As the first reading from Sirach says, “The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds!” (Sirach 35:21). He didn’t deserve forgiveness and knew it. He also knew, though, that the Lord was kind and merciful, that the Lord’s mercy endures forever. So, with contrition on his heart, he prayed for the gift of mercy.

KEEPING THE FAITH ALIVE

Third, to keep the faith means to keep the faith alive. It means that we must run the race to the end and fight the good fight. On one side of the coin, this means that we should, like Saint Paul, tell people the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. We remember that Saint Paul used to kill Christians, but he converted. He was transformed by Jesus on the road to Damascus – even as he was going to persecute the Christians there. And even when he became an apostle, he confessed that he was the least of all because of his persecution of God’s Church. He discovered, however, that God was rich in mercy, so abundant in mercy that he called Paul to be an ambassador of that mercy, calling people throughout the world to be reconciled to God. All Saint Paul did he did by the mercy of God, for the Merciful Lord who stood by him and gave him strength and at the end of his life, he was able to pray with humble gratitude to God that he had fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith. Likewise, each of us needs to recognize our need for God’s mercy and how God has chosen us, like St. Paul before us, to pass on as of first importance to other this great news of his merciful love.

On the other side of the coin, this means that we share our faith in and through our works. I often speak of the Gospel of love, of love being the benchmark of our witness. I think, though, that love can often just be a concept, some vague notion of what it means to be Christian. I feel that it often becomes a description with no teeth, a prescription with no cure. So, what does it mean to love? It’s quite simple really: It mean to act like Jesus. In fact, Jesus gave us quite a little summary in Matthew 25: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, care for the sick, and welcome the stranger. A fuller description of the way of Jesus can be found in the Bible.

This is the love that moves the sun and the other stars, the love that creates, sustains, and redeems the cosmos. It is the love that is always uttering and eternally, “Yes,” to our question, “Do you love me?”

Through the mercy of God, and through Saint Paul’s intercession, may we imitate Paul in fighting the good fight of the faith, finishing the race we’ve been given to run alongside Jesus, and keeping the faith in his merciful love. Amen!