Sinners on their way to becoming saints

Homily for October 23, 2016 (30th Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Sirach 35:1-12-14, 16-18; Psalm 34; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-28; Luke 18:9-14

               Today’s gospel passage reminded me of Hans Christian Anderson’s classic story The Emperor’s New Clothes.  It’s about an emperor so obsessed with looking good that he falls prey to a couple of swindlers who promise to weave him a set of clothes that are invisible to anyone who is a fool or otherwise unfit for office.  As the emperor checks in on these dishonest weavers at their looms, he rightly sees them producing nothing; yet he doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to condemn himself as foolish and incompetent.  Members of his court see the same thing, but they too say nothing less they be condemned.

               Then the big day comes.  The emperor pays the two crooked weavers for his set of supposedly magnificent but nonexistent clothes.  He parades, almost naked, through the streets with his full retinue.  The people on the parade route see that he’s undressed, but everyone’s afraid to say a word.  Finally, a little boy says what everyone else is thinking:  “The Emperor has no clothes!”   The Emperor shivers both of embarrassment and because of the cold.  Yet he insists that the procession must continue; and walks even more proudly, with his nobles carrying the train of a garment that doesn’t exist.

               Psalm 36, which the Church uses in our Liturgy of the Hours, tells us that “Sin speaks to the sinner in the depths of his heart.  There is no fear of God before his eyes. He so flatters himself in his own mind that he knows not his own guilt.  In his mouth are mischief and deceit. All wisdom is gone.”  The Pharisee in today’s gospel passage is like the emperor in the fable:  so filled with self-righteous pride that he can’t see who he really is. 

Pharisees over the ages have come to have a bad reputation, and as we know from the gospels some of it is deserved.  We can forget that in the time of Jesus the Pharisees were religious reformers.  They wanted to make God’s word and the Law of Moses real in people’s everyday lives.  They fasted.  They prayed.  They tithed.  They strove to be spiritual Olympians, elites in following God’s will.  But as often happens with zealots in any area of life, many of them lost their sense of perspective and ultimately lost their way. 

The Pharisee in Jesus’ parable has lost his way: he lacks authentic gratitude, he’s self-absorbed without being self-aware, and he measures his spiritual growth externally rather than internally.  These are dangers for us today.  The various forms of social media that we use have given us remarkable opportunities to communicate with each other, but they have also facilitated an increasing narcissism, exhibitionism and insecurity:  “Well, enough about me.  What do you think about me?” The viewing of others’ pages and sites too often becomes an occasion of competition rather than information or affirmation. Some people not only “put their best foot forward;” they put a false foot forward.  They promote a misleading caricature of themselves and may even resort to denigrating, dismissing or bullying others in order to build themselves up and mask their own shortcomings.    

In contrast with the Pharisee, the tax collector is well aware of who he is.  He doesn’t pretend.  In humility, he bows his head, beats his breast (a gesture we follow when we pray the Confiteor at Mass) and asks for God’s mercy.  A soul standing naked before God, he opens himself up to receive God’s grace; and God, the just judge who is concerned with the orphan and widow, the oppressed, lowly and broken hearted, the Lord who stands by us when no one else does, lifts him up and clothes him in mercy and strength, inviting him to join the journey with his fellow pilgrims—sinners on their way to becoming saints. +