Sunday, Feb 21, 2016

Lk 18: 9-14; Phil 3:5-9; Dt 6:4-18 Publican & Pharisee

Recently in our house we have been spending some time doing dream work. I have never really researched this topic but I know it is commonly said that every character in your dream is you. So if your mother is in your dream, it is really you. If your brother is there, it’s you; your boss, it’s you; your neighbor, it’s you; that person you do not know, it’s you; your dog, it’s… well I don’t know about the dog, but who knows? Dogs certainly appear in my dreams! So all these characters are really aspects of our personality or our psychological make up or our shadow, sending us messages. I don’t know about you but for me some of these messages I would just as soon not receive. In a way, the beauty of it all is that we can’t control it, but that can also be the unnerving thing about dreams.

As I was thinking about this morning’s gospel passage, the dream work analysis kept coming to me. The publican and the Pharisee were well known characters to Jesus’ audience. For us they are just features of an historical past we can read about but never experience. For Jews of Jesus’ time, the publican is what today we would call the tax collector. But even though we have images of IRS personnel we seldom see them or recognize them. The publican, however, actually collected the taxes and added his own cut on top! That was the system. And he was collecting taxes for a foreign occupier. He was known and despised.

The term Pharisee is known to us today, but not the reality. It might be a stretch to say that they were something like the morals police in some Muslim countries. But outside of that, they exist only in our imagination. Because of St. Paul’s self-revelation, we know something about the character of a Pharisee, and then we have this parable to fill in the picture a little more. Scrupulous in
observance of religious law, self-satisfied and self-important within the boundaries of their social and cultural milieu. So we can get the idea even if we don’t have the personal experience of knowing these people.

On hearing this story, it is easy to be drawn into the scene and identify with the characters. Since the publican is viewed as the humble one and called “justified” by Jesus, we can easily lean towards the desire to be like him. But I would submit that, similar to our dreams, we can really be both of these characters. For the publican, I would suggest that there is not a person in this temple who has not at some time or other in church, in a private place in your home or elsewhere, gotten down on your knees to ask for God’s mercy. The publican knew himself and what he was and was moved to compunction in a grace-filled moment in the Temple. We experience those moments too. We don’t have to know the publican intimately to know how we identify with him. And we should not forget that when he asked for mercy he knew how great his need was for that mercy.

The Pharisee’s situation is a different matter. He has followed the law and in effect is not asking God for much of anything. He is simply reporting on his exemplary life. But he does say one thing that is very revealing and it is what links us all to him as well. In the course of his prayer he glances toward the publican and with great condescension sneers: “I’m glad I’m not like him!” Oooh the delight in his voice! And yet we might also say the same thing about the Pharisee: “I’m glad I’m not like him.” Indeed, that’s the issue. I would submit that, just as with the Pharisee, we all have let those same words slip from our lips, or cross through our minds, or linger in our hearts, or lie in our subconscious. Madoff: “I’m glad I’m not like him;” a terrorist who cuts off a victim’s head: “I’m glad I’m not like him;” a rapist: “I’m glad I’m not like him;” and we can all extend this list. Here’s the problem: If we say these words or think this thought, we are cutting ourselves off from the core teaching of our faith: to love God and our neighbor. What the Pharisee is saying is not just a matter of comparison, he is placing a barrier between himself and the publican. The option of becoming like the other person is not the issue, rather it is the need to love that person, regardless of the deed. “God sends the rain on the just and the unjust alike.”

God is the creator of all, and declared it: “good.” God created all of us and loves all of us, that does not mean God condones all our behavior. But we are also called by God and by Christ to love one another. Indeed, what is the Kingdom of God if not the place where love reigns? And what is Christ’s teaching if not a constant call for us to strive to purify our hearts so that we can experience the Kingdom that is “within us.” The one thing common in all human beings is that God placed love that only God can give into each of us. However, our fragile and weak human nature intervenes to cover up that hidden treasure. Our insecurities, shame, fears, angers, hurts, grievances, ambitions, pride, and pettiness all conspire to obscure the core love that Christ is calling us to bring forth. To love does not necessarily mean to like. We can’t like everyone, we can’t be pals with everyone, but we can love everyone because love God gives is about treating people correctly and with respect.

Why is coming here to church to pray and participate in the common feast of Eucharist is so necessary? We forget. We forget to love, we forget we are connected to everyone else: black, white, Hispanic, Asian, straight, gay, Christian of any denomination, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, we are all God’s creation and loved by God. Our challenge is to strive to emulate that love. The Eucharist is the participation in the bonding of love that Christ established for all humanity. All who participate are linked together by that mystery. This happens nowhere else. This is what we proclaim to all and invite all to join. It is the sign of the Kingdom, the visible reality of the Kingdom to come. It is the nourishment for the building up of that Kingdom that is within us all. It is why the words of the Pharisee strike us as harsh and remind us to look within ourselves to find and purify those same sentiments lurking in our hearts. We can’t do it alone. We need God’s help. It is always there, we just need to grasp that open hand of God and not let go.

Christ is in our midst.