While I was on sabbatical in England this past summer, I was somewhat removed from the day to day news in the US. As someone who loves to keep up on recent events, I found myself wanting to go to the few computer workstations that were available to us to check out the news here. On a few occasions, I would check out the Fresno Bee on-line to see what was happening here. Other times, I logged onto MSNBC.com to get a good overview of the national news.
On one occasion, I was very surprised to read that Jerry Falwell had died. Now, I have to say that I wasn’t surprised in sad way to hear of his death. Jerry Fallwell was one of my least favorite people. I found him to be very self-righteous and thought that his theological perspective really lacked compassion. He was known for blaming the state of the world on homosexuals, liberals, feminists, pro-choice persons and other suspicious elements of our society. He said some really ridiculous things and carelessly mixed religion and politics in pursuing his ultra-conservative agenda. On various occasions, he was forced to retract statements that were hurtful or just plain wrong. I really felt that he was, at worst, a charlatan who had succeeded in giving Christians a bad name. There’s only one other person like Falwell who is still on the religious scene who I really do not like but he will remain nameless.
Then, while I was on my sabbatical, we had a reflection day and this Gospel was given to us. We were instructed to read the parable of the two people praying in the Temple and to place ourselves in the shoes of both persons. How and when were we really like the sinful, but humble tax collector, freely acknowledging our sins and placing ourselves at the mercy of God. And, then, we were to reflect on how and when we were like the self-righteous Pharisee who looked with disdain on other people. Immediately, I realized that, in the story of the self-righteous Pharisee and sinful tax collector, I had become like that hypocritical Pharisee in the way I was thinking about Jerry Falwell. It dawned on me that, in my dislike for Falwell’s theology and spirituality, I was acting just like the Pharisee who was telling God how fortunate he was not to be like the tax collector sitting in the same building praying. I had to admit that I was judging and speaking of Jerry Falwell in ways that were more like the mindset of the Pharisee in the Gospel passage we just read. You see, it’s one thing for us to learn something from Jesus’ portrayal of the Pharisee in the Gospel but it’s another thing to think that we are somehow better than the Pharisee. While Jesus holds the Pharisee up as an example of someone who needs more humility, what gives us the right to judge the Pharisee with contempt? That’s what I was guilty of.
That’s the difficult thing about the Christian life. We have so many ways of praying and living out our spirituality that it is difficult not to judge others in some fashion when they are doing things differently. It’s easy for us to say, “I’m Catholic and better than those non-Catholics out there.” It’s easy to say, “I’m a traditional Catholic” or “I’m a liberal Catholic and I’m better than the others.” It’s very easy to pat ourselves on the back when we fast and pray and fulfill all the obligations of our church affiliation while looking down our noses at those who don’t exactly fulfill those obligations. The Gospel reveals to us that it is very easy to slip into the mode of the Pharisee who praised himself at the expense of another person sitting only a few seats away. I think of some people who pride themselves on coming to Confession regularly only to tell me how the rest of their family and friends are sinning!
What we learn from this story is that God cares little about the things that, we think, are important to God. It doesn’t matter to God whether we are liberal or conservative. God doesn’t care whether we stand or kneel when we pray or dance around with our arms raised in the air. It doesn’t really matter whether we prefer the English or Latin Mass. God is not impressed with how perfect our rituals are performed. And I dare say that God probably doesn’t swoon over us when we can understand and explain every church doctrine there is to know. Some of us may be impressed or swayed by such things but I suspect God doesn’t get as excited over the same things that we do!
What matters to God—and it is clear from this parable—what is important to God is that we be authentic about the way we live and sincere in the way we pray. We are to do what we believe is best for our relationship with God. We are to be ourselves and not try to be someone we are not. We are to pray from the heart and use words that convey what we truly feel at the moment. God wants to know that we see ourselves as we truly are and that we not are looking at ourselves through rose colored glasses or through the eyes of others. And God is certainly pleased when we can pray without comparing ourselves to others and that we don’t have to set ourselves against others in order to make ourselves look better.
This Gospel reminds us that we are all sinners who are in need of God’s forgiveness. No matter how great we think we are or how great we have been told we are by others, we are still fragile and broken people. This is a freeing reminder that God does not accept us on the basis of how saintly we appear to be or how successful we are at doing thing in the right way. Rather, God loves and accepts us because we are who we are. We are children of God; there is no other identifying mark that is more significant than that. As sinners who are forgiven and loved by God, we can face our true selves and not be afraid.