Saturday, October 22, 2016
Pentecost 23 ~ Proper 25C ~ October 23, 2016
Sermon for The Twenty-third
Sunday After Pentecost
Year C, Proper 25 ~ October
23, 2016
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than
the other
+In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided
Trinity
Well, aren’t you glad you’re
not like the Pharisee? I know I am! And here we have yet another parable that turns
out to be a paradox, when we think about it a little. Naturally I will identify
with one of the characters, and who would not wish to identify with the one who
goes down to his house justified? That means I have to imagine that I am not
like the Pharisee! But in so thinking, I become just like him: he said I
thank you God that I am not as other men — for example this publican! And I
say I thank you God that I am not as
other men — for example this Pharisee! It's a joke!
As
bad a mistake as it is to identify with the Publican in this self-congratulatory
way, and to think that I am better than the Pharisee, there is one almost as
bad that goes along with it: to imagine the Pharisees a bunch of corrupt
hypocrites. Indeed, the very word came to mean that in Christian usage. Phariseeism came to mean that reliance upon their own righteousness,
with which the Evangelist begins the parable. By the time he wrote, relations
between the Early Church and the rest of the Jews who did not regard Jesus as
the Messiah were pretty bad, and so it was easy to regard the Pharisees as the
enemy, and to make them into a caricature. The Pharisees thought that
observance of the law was the main thing, with or without the Temple. They were
at odds in this, and many other matters of doctrine, with the Saducees, who
considered that the Temple was all-important. We should not forget, that Jesus
was on their side in all of this — angels, general resurrection at the end of
time, the notion that the Temple was not essential — Jesus shared all these
views with the Pharisees, while the Sadducees denied them. When the Temple was
destroyed — just before St. Luke wrote his Gospel — the Saducees disappeared,
and the Church and the Pharisees — who were pretty much the same as the
synagogue Jews all over the Empire —both considered themselves the continuing
People of the Covenant. So, there may have been a polemical reason for casting
the bad guy in the story as a Pharisee.
But
I think to content ourselves with this misses the point. The point is that the
Pharisees were good guys. Like
Joseph of Arimathæa and Nicodemus and even Simon, the Pharisee who had Jesus
over for dinner. (Even though he wasn’t as attentive as a host as he might’ve
been, Jesus did accept his
invitation.) So it may be that St. Luke’s
chose the Pharisee as a foil for the Publican precisely because he WAS a good
man. The dreadful paradox is that as
long as he thinks he is a good man,
then he is deluded, and he is not even as good as the Publican, who dares not
raise his eyes to heaven. So, if I identify with the latter, I may fall into
the trap of condemning the Pharisee, and thus become like what I condemn!
That
may be one of the meanings of this parable: we become like what- ever we
condemn.
Real
repentance is necessary – repentance like the Publican’s, which relies solely
on God’s mercy. If we think we deserve anything good, we had better think again
(re-pent). Fortunately, the Good News
is that God loves us and desires to shower blessings on us. The only thing that
can prevent Him is our own will, which can refuse Him in many ways. Among the
most subtle refusals is the belief that I deserve grace. As long as I cling to
that delusion, I am like the Pharisee, even though I may imagine that I am like
the Publican.
So the Collect for today prays for Grace: the increase of faith, hope, and love. As
St. Augustine observed, like the Trinity, these supernatural virtues are one in
essence. If you have one of them, you have all three. Obviously the Publican had
faith and hope. He would not have been there had he not trusted in God’s mercy
and hoped to receive it. And perhaps we can discern charity in his refusal to
judge anyone but himself.
Nothing is more important, because there is nothing
more toxic to our soul’ s health than judging another, as the Pharisee did. It
is an obvious violation of the second great commandment to love our neighbor as
ourselves, but it is also a blasphemous violation of the first commandment, to
love God, since I can judge another person only by putting myself in God’s
place, shoving Him off the mercy-seat, and taking over myself.
May God deliver us from that hideous delusion,
and with the Publican grant us the
increase of faith, hope, and charity, the grace always to remember the stunning,
ravishing, astonishing words from the lips of God Himself: I tell you, this man and not the other went down to his house
justified.
AMEN
MARANATHA
COME LORD JESUS
