October 24, 2004AD
30th Sunday in Greentime
TaxCollector and/or Pharisee?
Jesus’ parables demonstrate that His right brain was highly developed. His creative way with words and imagery made for such memorable stories that people, after 2000 years, can still catch His drift.
On one hand, we have to be careful because, as often as we hear the parables, their “punch” might be lessened on us. Still, we change as people just as the parable does not.
The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is familiar to us for several reasons. First, before the liturgical readings were changed after Vatican II, in 1970, this parable was proclaimed every year on a summer Sunday. Second, the bragging of the Pharisee is so outrageous that he is obviously setting himself up, while the humility of the sinful tax collector is touching. Third, Jesus had a knack for setting up two characters in many of His parables. (Recall the older brother and the younger brother in the Prodigal Son, the Rich man and Lazarus, the Good Samaritan and the priest-levite, the unrighteous judge and the annoying widow.) Fourth, Jesus’ moral, based on a quotation from Ezekiel, teaches us that God sees things differently than we do. How are the humble exalted and the exalted, humbled?
A graced insight in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is that everyone should be in the position of the tax collector as he seeks God’s mercy. All of us need forgiveness for something in our lives whether we care to admit it to ourselves or not. The doctrine of original sin speaks of the baggage of a world that we create without God. None of us is perfect and, without grace, we all contribute to this baggage (or “rubbish” or a more scatological word that entered
This may be one reason why the prayer of the tax collector has resonated down through the centuries since Jesus first spoke the parable, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
In fact, it is quite an acceptable mini Act of Contrition, according to the revised ritual of sacrament of penance and reconciliation in 1974.
There is even a mini-version of the mini-version, the four syllable, two word mantra “Jesus, mercy.” According to stories of saints, this prayer was a liberating technique for people who were able to internalize the prayer through frequent recitation so much so that it became a natural part of their everyday lives! One anonymous Russian peasant, known simply as “the Pilgrim”, walked through Russia-Siberia in the nineteenth century saying the pray as he continued his journey.
