Gospel reflection for Oct. 23, 2022, 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
The one aspect of modern culture that seems to be most problematic is the tension that exists between those who enjoy boasting about their accomplishments — real or imagined — and those who suffer from a sense of inadequacy about their own lives. It is so easy to brag about oneself on social media platforms that it almost becomes meaningless.
The braggart, as we instinctively know, is often nothing more than self-inflated, becoming a bore to those who are within earshot.
This is also true in our moral and spiritual lives. Many of us like to tell God how good we are. I will occasionally watch a video from one of a number of different Christian and Catholic “social influencer” and am always amused at how easily they will destroy the reputations of others while at the same time boasting of their faithfulness. It seems that everyone on Youtube is “more Catholic than the Pope.”
We find this tendency also even in the confessional where many penitents like to stake a claim in “being a good person” and claiming that, even after many months or even years, that there are no serious sins to confess.
It takes a lot of courage to look into oneself and honestly recognize our own strengths and weaknesses, our virtue and our sinfulness, and especially those areas where we need to grow.
Of course, there are also those who carry a false sense of humility and fail to honestly admit to the areas of their lives where they have genuine strengths and virtues. There is little value in boasting but there is also little value in the hubris of humility.
Jesus knew this same human tendency in his own time and, once again he uses the Pharisees as a foil for one of his parables. The parable of two men who go to the Temple precincts to pray is a direct challenge to the hubris of the Pharisees as a class. One man, a known sinner, pleads with God for mercy while the Pharisee boasts of his self-proclaimed righteousness. It is part of our sinful nature to want to avoid reflecting on our sinfulness, yet that is the challenge before us. We might feel the need to tout the good things we do, thus seeking praise, while avoiding our sins. This creates a stumbling block between ourselves and the infinite mercy of God.
The Christian is never too proud to call upon God for justice and mercy. The Responsorial Psalm for this Sunday summarizes the sense of where Jesus is taking us: “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” While we can rightly think of the economic poor and the destitute, there is a deeper sense here of what the Hebrew text calls the anawim — God’s poor. It is they who place all their hope and trust in God, whose voices the Lord hears first.
The image we can use here is that of a parent looking for a child in a large room filled with parents and children. It is very common that amidst the din of a room a parent can hear the call of their own child, and a child the call of the parent. We are attuned to the voices and intonations of those whom we love. While we talk about God’s love for us, we must also expect it to be true that God is tuned into those voices that he is accustomed to hearing. God, “hears the voices of those who call upon him from their hearts.”
We also learn that prayer is not so much a habit we need to form but an entire disposition of life. The Pharisee in the parable took a posture with God that made them almost seem as equals. He stands there, boasting of his magnanimity and mocking the tax collector and other sinners. The tax collector, has taken the prone position, expressing his contrition through a plea for mercy and stroking his breast.
We are challenged to be more like the tax collector than the Pharisee, even though we seem to want to be more Pharisee than tax collector. We live in fear, perhaps, of our sinfulness, and often feel like that if we continually remind God of our righteousness that maybe he will overlook or forget our sins. Yet, it is not our sins that hold us back from a genuine relationship with God but rather our failure to acknowledge our sinfulness and seek reconciliation and healing with him.
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.