Sunday, 10/30/16
The holier people in Jericho grumbled when they saw Jesus
going to eat in the house of a sinner. They thought he should have favored some
truly religious people. But who would they be?
The first reading, addressing God, says, “You love all things
that are.” And that reading goes on to say, “You love all things that are. How
could any person remain in existence unless you willed it?”
Our Lord’s story of “The Pharisee and the Tax Collector who
went up to the temple to pray” makes this same point, that humanity is not
divided between religious persons like the Pharisee, and non-religious persons
like the Tax Collector.
The Pharisee, seeing
himself as a truly religious person, prayed, “I thank God I am not like the rest
of men, for I fast twice a week, and pay tithes on all I possess.” While the Tax Collector just beat his breast,
saying, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”
And Jesus said, “This latter went
back to his home justified, while the other did not.
Jesus, by saying the Tax Collector “went back to his home,”
meant he went back to his place of business. He was saying that Tax Collectors are
necessary for the upkeep of society, as are men who run filling stations. (The
world would be in a mess if all we had were monasteries for religious people
like nuns and monks.)
My mother used to avoid very religious people, referring to
them as “Holier than Thous.” The most intimate relationship for each of us is
the one we continuously carry on with our creator.
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