Sunday, October 23, 2022
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: SIRACH 35:12-14, 16-18
Responsorial Psalm: PSALMS 34:2-3, 17-19, 23
Second Reading: 2 TIMOTHY 4:6-8, 16-18
Gospel: LUKE 18:9-14
Jesus continues his catechesis on prayer. After a lesson on the efficacy of persevering prayer, He now teaches us that prayer must flow from a humble heart, a heart that repents of sin.
The famous actor Gregory Peck was once standing in line with a friend, waiting for a table in a crowded Los Angeles restaurant. They had been waiting for some time, the diners seemed to be taking too much time and new tables weren’t opening up fast. They weren’t even that close to the front of the line. Peck’s friend became impatient, and he said to Gregory Peck, “Why don’t you tell the maître d’hôtel who you are?” Peck responded with great wisdom, “No, “if you have to tell them who you are, then you aren’t.”
That’s a lesson that the Pharisee in the Gospel never learned. ‘His prayer,’ is essentially an arrogant statement of self advertisement, selling himself to God. Jesus rightly says, “he spoke this prayer to himself.” He would have done better if he had Gregory Peck there to whisper in his ear that if he had to remind God who he was, then he wasn’t.
The tax collector, on the other hand, didn’t have to tell God who he was. He knew who he was and he knew that God knew who he was. His prayer is not an exercise in self-promotion, but a confession and a plea for mercy. Psalms 51: 17 says, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a humbled, contrite heart you will not spurn.” However, the Lord who does not despise a humbled, contrite heart, ‘opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble’ (1 Peter 5: 5).
The tax collector is not advertising or selling himself, but opening himself.
Jesus tells us it is the tax collector that went home justified. To be justified is to be declared “not guilty. It is to be declared right. The tax collector is declared to be in the right relationship with God while the Pharisee, so full of himself and certain of his own righteousness is declared not to be in a right relationship with God. He is not justified before God.
Five times in his prayer that spans two verses, he uses the pronoun “I.” Like any typical proud person, he suffered two problems: an inflated view of who he was and a deflated view of who God was. This is why C. S. Lewis said, “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you.” That is why pride is the first and the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. It leads directly to idolatry, the cult of the self.
Jesus did not teach what He Himself did not practice. St Paul said, “Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. And being found in human form He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2: 5-8). He said, “learn from me; for I am meek and humble of heart.”
The first reading tells us that the prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds and it will not rest until it reaches its goal, until the Most High responds. Let us humble ourselves before God who hears the cry of the poor and raises up the lowly. Let us recognize that we are not perfect and avoid judging like the Pharisee. When we humble ourselves, our prayers will become acceptable to God.
Happy Sunday
Fr. Chidi Onwuka MSSCC