REFLECTIONS ON THE READINGS FOR THE 30th SUNDAY OF THE YEAR, CYCLE C
Ecclesiasticus 35:12-14, 16-19; Psalm 33:2-3, 16-17, 19, 23; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14
Today’s gospel continues the teaching on prayer begun last Sunday and provides a bridge to next Sunday, when another tax collector, Zacchaeus, is praised. Luke has Jesus tell the parable to some who “trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt”. These believed themselves to be acceptable to God. “Despising” others is a very strong term for Luke, who uses it of Herod’s mockery of Jesus (23:11). Jesus uses this parable to address the crowd of disciples, who were themselves in danger of excluding others – the incident which follows this parable illustrates this, when they try to prevent children from coming to Jesus. The phrase used of the Pharisee in the parable, “prayed to himself”, means that he prayed silently, not that his prayer did not reach God. The reason for his confidence is that he goes beyond the requirements of the Law, which Jesus does not condemn: John’s disciples fasted and Luke reports how Jesus accepted the practice for members of the Christian community (5:35). It was the attitude of this particular Pharisee (and it is not suggested that he was typical of all Pharisees any more than it says that the tax collector in the parable stood for all of them) that let him down. His thanksgiving was genuine and was certainly not portrayed as hypocritical. It is an outlook that is found in the Psalms and expresses a genuine piety. But it has its dangers. Here, the primary one is the separation from humanity as a whole which, in the thanksgiving for one’s own acceptance by God, denies it to others. So, the tax collector went away “justified more than the other”. His acknowledgment of his sin and his call for mercy make for a bridge between himself and God which the other’s attitude did not allow. He was “justified”, that is, accepted by God and open to God’s reconciling power. Whether his prayer can be counted as penitence is more doubtful, for there is no suggestion that he was turning aside from his actual way of life (cf. the response of Zacchaeus). Yet it is precisely this that gives the parable its starkness. He, whilst remaining a sinner, was actually more open to God than was this particular Pharisee. The tax collector was “justified more than” the other man, making a startling contrast without either denying entirely the prayer of the Pharisee or approving completely the lifestyle of the tax collector.
The episode which follows this parable focuses upon Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples. Referring to the children whom they try to prevent coming to him, Jesus says that it is “to such as these that the Kingdom belongs” – that is, to those without status and self-sufficiency, those who acknowledge their total dependence upon others and upon God. The Kingdom is something that in the end can only be received, for it is pure gift. This echoes the sentiment of our first reading from Ecclesiasticus, where God is portrayed as one who “shows no respect of personages to the detriment of a poor man …. does not ignore the orphan’s supplication,/nor the widow’s as she pours out her story.” This is a poem about the justice of God, connected to the preceding passages in Ecclesiasticus by the shared theme of prayer. The Hebrew of the first line here reads “for God is a God of justice”, echoing Isaiah 30:18, with God’s concern for the widow and orphan.
This, again, is the theme running through Psalm 33. I strongly recommend that the psalm be read in its entirety and not just the scattered verses chosen for today’s liturgy. A line we do not ready today is “Taste and see that the LORD is good”, which is startling in its concreteness, perhaps with the intention of suggesting the powerful immediacy of experiencing God’s goodness, God’s protection, God’s being ever present to those in special need who cry to the Eternal One: Once again, as in Ecclesiasticus, the cry of the “poor man” is heard by a just God, who “rescued him from all his distress”. This psalm articulates a moving vision of hope for the desperate: “The LORD is close to the broken-hearted;/those whose spirit is crushed God will save.” Part of the spiritual greatness of the Psalms is that they profoundly recognize the bleakness, the dark terrors, the long nights of despair that shadow the lives of many people, and, against all this, evoke the notion of a caring presence that can reach out to the broken-hearted.
In the Second Letter to the Timothy, there is also a confidence expressed in God who is a “righteous judge”, a God who “stood by” Paul in all his trials, a God who “will rescue (him) from all evil attempts on (him)”. We, too, know this to be our God, to whom we pray and in whom we put our trust, so our prayer today might be that of the last line of our reading: “To God be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Sr Margaret Shepherd nds