The gospel for this Sunday's Mass is a familiar one - which means you have an added reason for reading and reflecting on it ahead of time. The most familiar texts can sometimes sail right over our heads because we think, "Oh, yeah - I've heard this one before..." And then we tune out.
Here are the scriptures for October 28, the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time. For some background material to help you understand those texts better, check out the St. Louis University site for Sunday Mass.
As always, your comments on these texts can be helpful as I work on my homily this week.
This gospel text is perhaps capable of different readings. Luke says: "Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else." There's no doubt that the pharisee is the bad guy. But, like the nine lepers, he could be doing what good Jews are supposed to do. He was talking to himself because God is present to him in the law, not so much in a personal faith. And he was rehearsing to himself all the ways he was successful in keeping the law, not like the tax collector. But the faith of the tax collector (a foreigner ?) recognized God's justice and his own sinfulness, and appealed for God's mercy. In this way he was justified. In this way the reading does not highlight the pride of the pharisee so much as the character of the tax collector's faith.
ReplyDeleteThis also seems to be consistent with the other readings. The message of reading I, reinforced by the psalm: "The Lord hears the cry of the poor", would seem to point to the tax collector's poverty before the Lord. And also to Paul's poverty of human support, having been abandoned in a desperate situation by those who let him down. Paul's seems to be a mystical faith as he comes to the end of his labors.
Doesn't seem to me that the way Jesus casts the story indicates that he sees the Pharisee doing what the law requires. Although I'm aware that I raised a similar question in my homily on the 10 lepers!
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