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Commentary on Malachi 3:19-20; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12; Luke 21:5-19

We are coming very close to the end of the Church year. In fact, next Sunday, when we will celebrate the feast of Christ the King, is also the 34th and last Sunday of the liturgical year. So, as usual at this time, the Church invites us to think about the final end of things. Our world, in which we spend so much time planning and securing our worldly future, is only temporary. Our own lives in this world will not last forever. The plans we make must always be contingent and conditional and take our final destiny into account.

In today’s passage from Luke’s Gospel we find Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem. It is quite near the end of his public life. Some of the people around him—perhaps they were visitors from “out of town” (or his disciples, as Matthew and Mark suggest)—were awestruck by the beauty of the stonework and the wealth of offerings being made by pilgrims.

The Temple was one of the most impressive buildings in the world at that time. In fact, the huge structure was not yet quite completed when Jesus was there. To most Jews, it was a place made to last forever (just as we feel somehow that St Peter’s in Rome should last forever). It was, so to speak, the “soul” of the Jewish faith, the focal point for all Jews everywhere—just as Rome is for Catholics. The comment of Jesus, then, must have seemed appalling, if not actually blasphemous. “All these things you are gaping open-mouthed at now—the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another: everything will be destroyed.”

End of the Temple
Jesus, of course, was absolutely right. As the result of a rebellion by the Jews against the Romans, Jerusalem was besieged and the city and Temple utterly destroyed. The Holy of Holies, a place so sacred that only the high priest could enter it once a year, was ransacked and the sacred vessels carried off as booty. Today, visitors to Rome can see the event depicted in sculpture on a triumphal arch built by the Emperor Titus to commemorate his victories. All that is left of King Herod’s mighty monument in Jerusalem today is the “Wailing Wall”.

The unthinkable had happened. And, for many Jews, including Jews converted to Christianity, it must have seemed like the end of the world. The early writings of the Christian Testament are very much concerned with what they believed was the imminent end of the world and the return of Christ in judgement. They were wrong, as we know, and even before the Christian Testament was completed, its later books indicate that the end is not so soon. The emphasis shifted from expectation of an early return of Jesus, to focusing on how fruitfully to spend the time of waiting.

Share the load
This, it would seem, is partly the meaning of Paul’s exhortation in the Second Reading today. The letters to the Thessalonians are among the earliest of the New Testament writings, written in the year 50 AD, twenty years before the destruction of the Temple (Luke’s Gospel, however, is believed to date from about 85 AD, fifteen years after its destruction).

Paul urges everyone in the community to work and pull their weight, and “not be a burden” on anyone. All are to contribute to the life and sustenance of the community. It seems there were some, who were so convinced that the end was near, that they were just sitting and waiting for the Lord to come and were even urging others to do the same (“doing no work themselves but interfering in everyone else’s”). Such “doomsday” people are present in every generation.

Three kinds of phenomena
Jesus lists three kinds of phenomena, which might induce people to believe that the end of all things was coming. “Take care not to be deceived,” Jesus warns us today, because many would come using his name and saying, “I am he”—false messiahs and salvation-gurus—and “The time is near at hand”. This has occurred even in our own time. Jesus’ advice: have nothing to do with such people.

There will be, Jesus warns, many events which will seem like the end but, they will not be. “When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened, for this is something that must happen, but the end is not so soon.” Jesus predicts wars between and within nations. “There will be great earthquakes and plagues and famines…fearful sights and great signs from heaven…” The last 100 years, not to mention the most recent decades, has seen a horrifying abundance of such evils and catastrophes.

Finally, Jesus speaks of the special threats hanging over his own followers. “People will seize you and persecute you; they will hand you over to the synagogues and to imprisonment, and bring you before kings and governors because of my name…” Many of the early Christians thought that persecution was also a sign of the coming end of the world. Jesus, however, reminds us that it is an integral part of the Church’s ongoing life. And so it has been.

Persecutions inevitable
There will always be people who hate the Gospel message, who find it deeply threatening. The Christian is called both to live and to proclaim a set of values and a vision of life that challenges the accepted viewpoints and lifestyles of most societies. If the Church stops experiencing persecution, abuse and criticism, we may well ask how well we are living our Christian lives, how faithful we are to the way of Jesus.

When the Church is attacked, even violently, it is not a sign of the end of things. Nor is it necessarily a sign that the Church has been moving in the wrong direction. Often quite the contrary. Nor is it something that we go out of our way either to avoid or to invite. It is not, Jesus says, something to be anxious about. It is not what those against us may do in the future that matters most, but what we are doing here and now to carry out the mandate of Christ.

How to react?
How, then, should we react to today’s readings? On the one hand, we must listen carefully to Jesus’ warnings. There will be an end to things, even those things we feel must last forever. On the other hand, we are not to be panicked into seeing the end even in major catastrophes. St Augustine, who lived in the sixth century, thought that the collapse of the Roman Empire and its culture under the hordes of “barbarians” (today’s Germans, French and Scandinavians), who poured down from the north, must be the end of everything. There are such cataclysmic events in our own time. How wrong they were, and how wrong we are to believe this!

As long as Christianity remains steadfast to its faith in God, to seeking the truth, to human compassion and justice, it cannot disappear. And it is to these things that we are to bear witness. We may have to do so under painful experiences, when we are “betrayed even by parents and brothers, relations and friends…and some will be put to death”. It requires a great inner strength, courage and conviction to put truth, love, justice and solidarity with all above one’s own family and friends and to suffer their betrayal. Yet, Jesus promises, “I myself will give you an eloquence and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to resist or contradict.” These words have been proved true again and again.

Securing our future
However, for many of us, the problem is not anxiety about the end of our world, but living as if there were an eternity of tomorrows. So many of us work so hard to guarantee an ironclad security for ourselves and our families. People are so focused on a future which they are assured they are going to enjoy. They seem to believe that all they have to do is take the right steps, get the right breaks and have enough money to guarantee the future is under their control. The words of Jesus in today’s Gospel are pushed into the background (they are so pessimistic!). Living the Christian life means fitting the Gospel into our chosen lifestyle and our chosen future.

That is as foolish as the man in Jesus’ parable who, having got all his wealth together, said, “Relax now, man, and have a really good time.” We know what happened to him. And it happens to people all the time…and it will happen to us.

The end of the world that is our universe may be from all the evidence far away. We may be fortunate to live in a society free from wars, ethnic strife, famine and natural disasters, free from religious persecution or discrimination. Yet, there is another end we all have to face and which is totally outside our control: the end of our bodily life here on this earth.

Are we ready for that? There is only one effective way to prepare: to live each day fully in the company of Jesus. We do not prepare for the end by guaranteeing our future (we can’t) but by living fully with God and for God at every moment of every day.

We can do this by:

• personal prayer;
• absorbing the message of the Gospel so much into our way of seeing life that it permeates everything we say and do;
• becoming “other Christs”, by learning to find Jesus, to love and respond to him in every person, in every place and in every experience of our daily life.

Then, no matter when Jesus comes to take us away, we will be more than ready. We will meet not as strangers but as dear and intimate friends who know each other well.

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Commentary on 2 Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14, 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5 and Luke 20:27-38

It will help if we put today’s Gospel passage into its context. First of all we need to realise that at this stage in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is already in Jerusalem and he will not leave the city again. The whole of the 20th chapter deals with the coming climax of Jesus’ public life and the situations which led to his rejection and condemnation by the religious leaders of his people.

Jesus’ authority to speak and act as he does is challenged by the governing establishment, the chief priests, the scribes and the elders. He gives them the warning parable about the vineyard owner who let out his vineyard to tenants. The tenants refused to give the owner the fruits of his own vineyard and actually killed servants who were sent to collect them. Finally, they also killed the owner’s son, thinking that thus they would become permanent masters of the vineyard. But, Jesus says, the owner will destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Jesus’ listeners, knowing full well exactly what he was saying, reacted in horror – “God forbid!”. Of course, that is just what happened. Just 40 years after this, the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem and destroyed it and the Temple with it. Even for the early Christians, it seemed the end of the world (just as the later sacking of Rome by “barbarians” seemed the end of the world for St Augustine).

Two encounters
Following on this we have encounters between Jesus and two influential groups. First, the Pharisees, who were both deeply religious and strongly nationalistic (a dangerous mix then, and now!), try to entrap Jesus into making a politically compromising statement. They show him a Roman coin, and ask an apparently sincere and innocent question about taxation. But “marvelling at his answer”, they were reduced to impotent silence.

Next, it is the turn of the Sadducees featured in our Gospel passage today. Who were the Sadducees? Basically they were a sect within the Jewish community. They included many of the priestly class and upper echelon families. Politically, they were more ready to compromise with the Romans in the interests of their own power and wealth. We may remember the remark of Caiaphas, the high priest and a Sadducee, that it was better for one man, Jesus, a fellow-Jew, to die at the hands of the Romans, than that the whole Jewish nation be destroyed. He was totally unaware of the irony and the hidden truth of his words.

Another distinguishing mark of the Sadducees was that they only accepted as the word of God the part of the Old Testament known as the Pentateuch. The Pentateuch consists of the first five books of the Hebrew (Old) Testament, which are traditionally attributed to Moses as their author (obviously, Moses could not have written all those books but it was the custom of the time to attribute authorship of a notable work to a famous person).

Because of this, the Sadducees did not accept beliefs which are only found in other parts of the Hebrew Testament. So, for instance, they refused to believe in the existence of angels – or resurrection from the dead.

It is on the basis of this that they confront Jesus with a problem, which is not a problem for them but which they deem unanswerable for Jesus (and other Jews, especially their rivals, the Pharisees*).

Levirate law
The problem the Sadducees address was based on a tradition, known as levirate law, by which a man was expected to marry the childless widow of his brother. This was so that the dead man’s name would be carried on to the next generation (it was presumed and expected, of course, that a son would be produced).

In their challenge to Jesus, the Sadducees propose an extreme case where seven brothers, who all die before having children, are married successively to the same woman. And they conclude by asking: “At the resurrection – which you believe in but we do not – which of the brothers will be the wife’s husband, since she was married to them all?” It was a mocking question meant to rubbish the belief of other Jews. The Sadducees feel that, without belief in life after death, there is no problem. The dead simply disappear into oblivion. But, for Jesus and those other Jews who did believe in the resurrection of the dead, the Sadducees felt their hypothetical created an insoluble solution.

Life after death
Jesus answers the question on various levels. First of all, he implies that life after death is not the same as a physical existence. Jesus’ own resurrection is never to be understood in that way either. Resurrection is not resuscitation. If we say that we rise body and soul we are only saying that we rise in the wholeness of our persons – which includes our spiritual and intellectual levels, our physical reality and, very importantly, our whole personal history (our fourth dimension!). All are part of ME and all shared in the life to come. That is what we believe.

Secondly, Jesus raises a point which pervades the whole of the Gospel message. All those who are in Christ enter into a new relationship with God and with all other people. We express this whenever we start to pray “Our Father”. These relationships transcend blood and marriage.

So Jesus says, “The children of this age take wives and husbands.” On the other hand, he says, “Those who are judged worthy of a place in the other age and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die for they are the same as the angels, and being sons (Greek, masculine, huioi) of the resurrection they are sons (huioi) of God.”

This is another assertion of the new kind of family that we enter as disciples and followers of Jesus. It belongs to the statement that Jesus made when he was told that his mother and brothers were looking for him. “Who is my mother? Who is my brother? Whoever does what God wants him to do is my brother, my sister, my mother” (cf. Mark 3:31-35).

New relationships
In “this” age, of course, people continue to marry and have other relationships but in the “new” age of Jesus, in the world of Jesus which covers both present and future existence, there is a whole new set of relationships. Seen in that light, the question of the Sadducees has no relevance whatever. There is no problem. People do get married and have families but, in the long run, it is our relationship with God, which determines our deeper relationships with each other.

It is also seems implied that in the “age” of Jesus, marriage is no longer a must for all. There are cultures in which even today every male is expected to get married and where daughters too are expected to get “married off”. It is not really essential for the Christian, as a Christian, to be concerned about having a family, about the family line being continued, about having sons rather than daughters.

The call to celibacy, whether for priests, religious or lay people, is a statement of this belief and it is why the witness of celibacy by some in the Church is seen as full of meaning in our Christian community.⁺

Argument collapses
Seen in this light, the argument of the Sadducees completely collapses. It is seen as very “this-worldly” and narrow-minded. However, Jesus has still one punch to throw. It is one that may not completely convince us today, but it would have made the Sadducees stop in their tracks. The Sadducees began their attack by quoting from the law of Moses concerning the obligation of a younger brother to marry his deceased brother’s wife. This law, of course, they accepted and believed as true (how well they actually followed that law in general was something their opponents, the strictly observant Pharisees, might have had something to say about).

In replying to them, Jesus concludes his argument by also quoting from a book of Moses. “Moses himself,” says Jesus, “implies that the dead rise again.” He did so when “the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush” (Exodus 3:2). And the Lord, identifying himself, said to Moses, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). And God, Jesus tells the Sadducees, is God, “not of the dead, but of the living; for to him, all are in fact alive” (even after death). The Sadducees fall silent. They dare not contradict the word of God coming through Moses.

It is not in today’s Gospel passage but immediately after this Luke comments: “And some of the teachers of the Law (possibly Pharisees) answered, ‘Teacher, you have spoken well’”. In other words, they were delighted to see the Sadducees put down. And Luke continues, “For they (the teachers of the Law) no longer dared to ask Jesus any question.” Jesus had established his authority but he had also guaranteed his final destiny.

Lord of life
In general the theme of today’s Mass is that Jesus is the Lord of life. And, that life is not terminated by physical death. We see this in the First Reading, which is from Maccabees (a book of the Bible, incidentally, not recognised by all Christians).

The issue here is not just about eating or not eating pork, or narrow-minded nationalism. It is about values, which transcend physical existence, which are of greater value than physical survival. Jesus knew this, the constant stream of martyrs down the centuries knew this, people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Maximilian Kolbe knew this. It is understood by the mother, who does not hesitate to give her life to save her child’s. “Ours is the better choice,” says the youngest Maccabee, “to meet death at men’s hands, yet relying on God’s promise that we shall be raised up by him.”

“The glory of God is a person fully alive” (Gloria Deo homo vivens) said St Irenaeus and only that person who has the perfect freedom to let go of everything, even physical life, for the sake of truth, justice and love and total commitment to the well-being of brother and sister is a fully alive person.
__________________________

*There is a wonderful scene in the Acts of the Apostles where Paul has been arrested and has returned to Jerusalem. The Roman authorities, having no idea what all the fuss was about, had sent Paul to be formally charged by the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews. Seeing the composition of the council, Paul appealed to the belief of the Pharisees (he himself was a Pharisee) in the resurrection against the Sadducees. As a result, the gathering was divided. The Pharisees now jumped to the defence of “their man”, proclaiming his innocence. The assembly was thrown into uproar as Pharisees and Sadducees went at each other. Paul had to be whisked away by the Romans who thought he would be torn to pieces in the melee (see Acts chaps 22 and 23).

⁺This is not really an appropriate occasion for the much longer discussion of the controversial issue of mandatory celibacy for Catholic clergy.

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Commentary on Exodus 17:8-13, 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2 and Luke 18:1-8 Read Sunday of Week 29 of Ordinary Time (Year C) »

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Commentary on Wisdom 11:22-12:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 and Luke 19:1-10

You are merciful to all, because you can do all things and overlook people’s sins so that they can repent. (1st Reading)

Today’s Mass is about God’s love and mercy for everyone and how we should not be surprised at how even the most unlikely people can hear God’s call to change their lives.

The Gospel opens with Jesus entering Jericho and passing through the town. Jericho is a city lying just to the north-east of Jerusalem. Luke’s gospel describes Jesus’ public life as beginning in Nazareth in the north, where he grew up and where he made his ‘mission statement’ (Luke 4:16-21) before setting out on his life of teaching and healing. His mission brought him in a relatively straight line in a southerly direction to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is the focal point and the goal of his life’s work. There he will be arrested, tried, suffer and die, and then rise in glory. And in Jerusalem, too, his disciples will be filled with his Spirit and from there begin their mission of bringing Jesus’ message of the Kingdom to the whole world.

So, Jericho is the last stage on this journey to Jerusalem and, in fact, before the end of this chapter 19 he will make his triumphant and final entry into the city on what we call Palm Sunday.

It is at this crucial moment that Zacchaeus appears. Luke says that he was one of the chief tax collectors and – he adds, rather unnecessarily – “a wealthy man”.

Tax collectors were among the most despised group of people in the time of Jesus. It was not just because they had to do an awful job. (Even nowadays people do not exactly warm to the idea of tax collectors and many people go to extraordinary measures to keep out of their clutches.) However, in Jesus’ time, bad reputation was more connected with the system under which they worked.

The Romans, like all governments, imposed taxes in order to fund public works and other expenses. But, as far as possible, they made their subject peoples rather than their own citizens pay the money required. And, they did not collect the money themselves. Instead, they farmed out the tax collecting to various individuals. These people paid upfront a large amount of money for the right to collect taxes and then it was their job to get it back – with as much interest as possible (perhaps what we would now call ‘commission’).

So, on two accounts the tax collectors were highly unpopular: 1) they extorted as much money as they could from the people assigned to them and 2) they were working for the hated colonial power. Because of their connections with the hated Romans, they were looked down on by most of their fellow-Jews as traitors and renegades and enemies of their own people.

Zacchaeus was not just one of these. He was a chief tax collector and, as in any corrupt administration, had most likely collected vast sums.

He had heard that Jesus was passing through the town. Like many people, he must have heard all the stories that were going around about this extraordinary Teacher and Healer. He was very anxious to get a look at him. He clearly had no intention of approaching Jesus. It was likely quite obvious to him that Jesus would not want to have anything to do with people like himself.

We are also told that he was a ‘short’ man. Is this also a way of saying that, in spite of all his wealth, he was not really such a big person?

Jesus was, as usual, accompanied by a large crowd of people, a few of them genuine followers but the majority just curious to see what wonders Jesus would perform next. Because of his short stature Zacchaeus could not see Jesus through the crowd. It is also likely that he would not have wanted to get too close to the crowd who would have despised and looked down on him – and not just because he was short. So he decided to climb a tree so that he could get a glimpse of Jesus passing below without being seen himself.

Imagine Zacchaeus’ surprise when suddenly Jesus looked up and spoke to him. “Zacchaeus come down. Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.” The poor man must almost have fallen out of the tree with shock. Did he hear Jesus correctly? And what wonderful words those were! Yet, they are words spoken to us every day of our lives and how often do we hear them? And how often do we respond to them?

So, Zacchaeus hurried down from the tree and welcomed Jesus joyfully into his home. The crowd, on the other hand, was utterly disgusted. “He has gone to stay at a sinner’s house.” Of all the people in Jericho, Jesus has to pick the house of the chief tax collector. It would be like the Pope opting to stop over at the house of the biggest drug dealer in town and by-passing all those good Catholic homes which would have been more appropriate for him.

The people, of course, totally missed the meaning and purpose of Jesus’ life. Earlier on, after he was criticised for calling another tax collector, Matthew, as a disciple and having a meal with Matthew’s tax collector colleagues, Jesus had said: “People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. Go and find out what is meant by the scripture which says: ‘It is compassion that I want, not animal sacrifices.’ I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts” (Matt 9:12-13). And here in Zacchaeus was probably the most prominent outcast in Jericho.

Of course, there is another important point too. The people are judging Zacchaeus on his past behaviour. Jesus, on the other hand, is seeing the Zacchaeus who can change and who will change. We do not know what happened in that house that day, but we do know that when Jesus came out, Zacchaeus was a changed man. He ignores the taunts of the crowd and says to Jesus: “Look, sir, I am going to give half my property to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody I will pay him back four times the amount.” This amounts to the total conversion of a man who would have been notorious for his corruption and greed.

Jesus then totally endorses Zacchaeus’ change of heart. “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost.” Salvation means the total rehabilitation of this formerly sinful man. He is now a true son of Abraham, that is, a true child of God who is reflecting in his life the love that God has for every one of our fellow men. And Jesus justifies his going to Zacchaeus’ house by saying that it was precisely people like Zacchaeus who needed to be sought out by Jesus.

It is worth noting that this story is strategically placed between the story of the healing of a blind beggar and the parable of the gold coins.

Zacchaeus, on the one hand, can be seen as a man who was caught up in a blind pursuit of wealth for its own sake and would stoop to any level to achieve his ends. After meeting Jesus his eyes are opened and he realises that his wealth is not for himself but to be used as a means to lift those in need.

The parable of the gold coins is about three men who were given various sums of money by “a man of high rank who was going to be made king” (a clear reference to Jesus himself) and told to trade with them. Two of the men doubled their capital but the third, the one who had received the least, was afraid to invest and hid the money. When the king returned he had nothing to offer. Again, we can see that this applies to the Zacchaeus story. Up to the time Jesus had come so unexpectedly into his life, Zacchaeus had nothing to show for all the wealth he had earned, but now he was sharing it generously with the poor and with those he had treated unjustly.

There is one more comparison to be made. In the previous chapter (Luke 18:18-29) we are told about another rich man, this time a very good man who asked Jesus for advice on leading a perfect life. When Jesus suggested that he should divest himself of his material wealth and share it with the poor, he could not. “He became very sad, because he was very rich.” In fact, he was in Jesus’ eyes now very poor. It is Zacchaeus who is rich, who has been truly liberated and who has become, like Jesus himself, a man for others.

As we read this story, it is for us to see how it applies to our own lives. It is for us to look at the deep compassion of Jesus and how he is not influenced by stereotypes or labels. We all need both of these qualities. We need, too, to be able to see the potential that can be in any person whatever their past or present record may be.

So often our Christian work is in working with the already converted. Not nearly enough of our Christian life is spent, like Jesus, mixing with those who have become alienated from society or Church, with those who are marginalised or looked down on. Let us be careful in our use of stereotyping language when we speak of people of other countries, nationalities, ethnic groups, religion or social class or occupation or life-style.

Let us work hand in hand and with Jesus our Lord “to seek out and save what was lost”. Let us hear again the words of the First Reading from the book of Wisdom: “You are merciful to all, because you can do all things and overlook people’s sins so that they can repent.”

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Commentary on Wisdom 11:22-12:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 and Luke 19:1-10 Read Sunday of Week 31 of Ordinary Time (C) »

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Commentary on Sirach 35:12-14,16-19, 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18 and Luke 18:9-14

The Pharisees regularly come under fire from Jesus and today is no exception. However, we should be aware that when Jesus speaks about ‘Pharisees’ he is not so much speaking about a whole class of people but about a certain kind of mentality. There is no doubt that many of the Pharisees were good people and took their religious obligations very seriously. We need to remember that Nicodemus, the man who came to Jesus by night and who was present at the burial of Jesus, was a Pharisee.

So when Jesus in the Gospel attacks ‘Pharisees’ he is not only thinking of a group of people in Jewish society in his time but his words – as far as the evangelists are concerned – are even more directed to the ‘Pharisees’ in the Christian community. And, whenever we hear a passage of the Gospel attacking the Pharisees, instead of ‘tut-tutting’ and saying to ourselves, ‘What awful people!’, we should rather be looking into our own selves and seeing how much of the Pharisee is in us.

For instance, do you ever find yourself sitting in judgement on other people? Have you ever found yourself comparing others unfavourably with yourself? How much time do you spend with friends or family gossiping about the presumed weaknesses of others? If the answer to these questions is a reluctant ‘Yes’, then we might read today’s Gospel with some fruit.

We are told that Jesus spoke a parable to some people “who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else”. Of course, none of us actually say we are proud of our virtues (especially of our humility!) and we would probably deny that we despise other people but, in fact, that is not what our words sound like at times.

In the parable, two men went up to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray. One was a Pharisee. The other was a tax collector. Tax collectors were among the most despised group of people in the time of Jesus. It was not just because they had to do an awful job. (Even nowadays people do not exactly warm to the idea of tax collectors and many people go to extraordinary measures to keep out of their clutches.)

Their reputation was more connected with the system under which they worked. The Romans – like all governments – imposed taxes in order to fund public works and other expenses. But, as far as possible, they made their subject peoples rather than their own citizens pay the money required. And they did not collect the money themselves. Instead, they farmed out the tax collecting to various individuals. These people paid up a large amount of money for the right to collect taxes and then it was their job to get it back – with interest (what we would now call ‘commission’). So, on two accounts the tax collectors were highly unpopular: they extorted as much money as they could from the people assigned to them and they were working for the hated colonial power. Because of their connections with the hated Romans, they were looked down on by most of their fellow-Jews as traitors and renegades and enemies of their own people.

So here we have two very different kind of people going to the Temple to pray. The prayer of the Pharisee consists partly of telling God how wonderful a Jew he is and partly of thanking God that he is not like the rest of mankind, ‘grasping, unjust and adulterous’. In addition to that, he performs religious duties above and beyond what the Law requires. In general, you are given the impression that God should be grateful that there is at least one person who gives him some attention.

On the other hand, the tax collector has no illusions about himself. He knows and admits that everything the Pharisee says about him is true. As he prays, he does not even dare to lift his eyes upwards but beats his breast in true repentance for the kind of life he has been leading. Unlike the Pharisee, he has nothing to give to God except his sinfulness so he prays: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And Jesus concludes by saying: “This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not.”

Does that seem a little harsh? After all, everything the Pharisee said about himself was true. He had kept the Law perfectly and had even done more than was expected. The tax collector, on the other hand, had done many sinful things.

The answer to this is in the final sentence of the Gospel: “All those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but those who humble themselves will be exalted.” In other words, the fault of the Pharisee was not in his behaviour, but in his motivations – in his claimed self-sufficiency. He saw himself as the origin of all his goodness. If he had prayed properly, he, too, would have been on his knees and thanking God for having protected him from falling into evil ways. As the great St Augustine once said: “There go I, but for the grace of God.”

It is put very nicely in one of Prefaces for weekday Mass: “You [God] have no need of our praise, yet our desire to thank you is itself your gift. Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to your greatness but makes us grow in your grace.” There is absolutely nothing we can give to God. Whatever we do for him, we are simply giving back something he has already given us. The trouble with the Pharisee in the parable is that he felt that God should be grateful to him, that he was bestowing compliments on God by being such a ‘good’ person. Quite the opposite was the case.

So we have this paradox in the Gospel that it is better to be a repentant sinner than a self-satisfied prig. So much of Jesus’ teaching and works are with sinful people. It was for this he was severely criticised by the Pharisees. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:1). But, how was Jesus to bring them back to God, unless he reached out to them? In the pharisaical mind (and that sometimes includes you and me!), they are just written off and, above all, their company is to be avoided completely.

The attitude of Jesus is well expressed in the First Reading, from the Book of Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus). “God shows no respect of personages to the detriment of a poor man, he listens to the plea of the injured party. He does not ignore the orphan’s supplication, nor the widow’s as she pours out her story… The humble man’s prayer pierces the clouds… And the Lord will not be slow, nor will he be dilatory on their behalf.”

God never sees the status of the person or their rank in society or their past behaviour. God – and Jesus – only sees the person who is before him here and now. That is the way he acted towards the prostitute woman who broke into the house of Simon the Pharisee and began crying at his feet. It was the way he acted with the man beside him on the cross, a man who had committed serious crime and may even have committed murder. To the Pharisee (be he a Jew, Christian, another religion or none) this attitude is inexplicable. But God’s ways are far beyond ours and in the Gospel we are constantly being invited to have the mind of God, a God who did not spare his own Son so that sinners (like you and me) might live.

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Paul, a Pharisee, in the 2nd reading seems to be – or at least justify – boasting. But, remember there is also a kind of false humility to not recognize our good points or the good things we have done for others. False humility is also prideful.

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Commentary on Sirach 35:12-14, 2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18 and Luke 18:9-14 Read Sunday of Week 30 of Ordinary Time (C) »

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Commentary on 2 Kings 5:14-17; 2 Timothy 2:8-13; Luke 17:11-19

There are a number of concurrent and related themes running through today’s readings. All can be linked to our own personal experiences and, hopefully, we will see how they operate in our lives in either a constricting or liberating way. These themes may be enumerated as, negativity, uncleanness, leprosy, ostracism, imprisonment and, positivity, cleansing, healing, wholeness and thanks.

At this stage in Luke’s gospel we see Jesus making his way south to Jerusalem, the goal of his life’s mission. He has just reached the southern border of the northern province of Galilee (where he came from) and Samaria, which was sandwiched between Galilee on the north and Judea on the south.

Ten lepers
As Jesus enters a village he is greeted by ten lepers who come out to meet him (incidentally, they are all men – in Greek andres). “They stood some way off.” As lepers, they were compelled to cry out “unclean” and to ring a bell when they saw people approaching. People in those days did not know much about the causes or the nature of leprosy but they did know that it was contagious. No cure was known and it slowly resulted in disfigurement of the person. So those who were believed to have leprosy had to keep a safe distance from all other people. Hence the expression, “They treated him like a leper.” Very likely, some unfortunate people who had non-contagious skin diseases were also lumped together with them. They all were treated as outcasts, forced to live on the fringes of society, an object of both fear and contempt.

Still some distance from Jesus they called out in desperation: “Jesus! Master! Take pity on us! (Kyrie! Eleison!)” They had no illusions about their helpless situation. Their only hope now was the compassion of Jesus, their Master and Lord, who was the living embodiment of the mercy and compassion of God. A mercy and compassion they had long ceased to expect from their fellow-citizens.

Jesus makes no fuss. He simply tells them to “Go and show yourselves to the priests”. On their way to carry out this instruction they discovered that they were cleansed and healed. Was this as a reward for their unquestioning and trusting response to Jesus’ instructions? A reward for their faith in him? And why did Jesus tell them to go to the priests? Because it was not enough for them to be healed – they would also have to be officially declared clean by the religious authorities. Only then could they be fully integrated back into “normal” society.

Only one comes back
Finding himself cured, just one of the group went back “praising God at the top of his voice”, threw himself at the feet of Jesus and expressed his deepest thanks for what had happened to him.

“The man was a Samaritan.” Much of the punch of the story is in those five words. As a Samaritan, he belonged to a hated and despised group. In this case, he was an outcast twice over. Even the disciples of Jesus were heard to speak violent words against Samaritans. And it says a lot for the miserable lot of lepers that there could be Jews and Samaritans together in one group. In their shared misery, other prejudices were forgotten.

Yet, after they were cured, it was not the members of God’s chosen people who came back to express thanks to their Lord but this outcast, a man who would be regarded as an outcast in Jewish society, even if he did not have leprosy. It was a foretaste of the future composition of the Christian communities.

Jesus’ reaction
Jesus highlights this fact by his own reaction. “Were not all ten made clean? The other nine, where are they? It seems that no one has come back to give praise to God, except this foreigner”. This alien, this outsider and, by implication, this godless pagan (or at least, dyed-in-the-wool heretic), a person who is presumed to be far from God is the one who is most deeply aware of God’s action in his life. We, too, in our time must have met non-Christians who had a much better sense of God working in their lives that some of us who carry the label “Catholic”.

“Rise up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.” The man is called to resurrection, to new life and to walk the Way of Jesus. His deep insight into what he has experienced has been a saving experience for him. There is far more here than physical healing. The whole person has been fully restored in his relationships both with God and with his neighbours and the community.

A message for us
On reflection this passage can say so much to us in our own lives. Leprosy, thank God, once such a terrifying disease has largely disappeared from many parts of the earth. Where it is still found, modern drugs are able to control it and even to heal it. We also know now that, although it is contagious, occasional contact with a leprous person is not dangerous.

However, leprosies of different kinds are still endemic in every society, no matter how sophisticated. In some parts of the world whole communities of people are neglected, despised, exploited and alienated. In every society there are people who are marginalised, sometimes by “benign neglect”, sometimes by outright discrimination and oppression. Racism and communalism are rampant everywhere, sometimes very openly, sometimes in more subtle but equally hurtful ways.

And we need to remember that prejudice and non-acceptance occurs in all directions, not just from the majority downwards. Minorities can be equally prejudiced against a surrounding majority. There can be divisions between one minority and another. We can all be guilty of making lepers of others.

In our own society, some racial groups are very aware of being seen as different and inferior. Newly arrived immigrants can fall into such a category, even when making a significant contribution by often doing the work that local people are unwilling to do. In Hong Kong during the 1980s, it was ironic that many Vietnamese “boat people”, who were not wanted by anybody, were housed in camps which had formerly housed actual lepers. Even immigrant communities, which have been in a country for generations, are sometimes not fully accepted by all.

The new leprosy
It is worth reflecting on who the new “lepers” are in society today. There are many whose lifestyle and choices are different from that of our own. Does this make them in some manner “lesser” that us? When the time comes for the sign of peace at Mass, would I shake that person’s hand? As well, are they are so afraid of being totally rejected and condemned even by us – good, Mass-going Catholics – that they don’t come to Mass?

Fear and ignorance
But no matter who we are talking about, be they victims of disease, or people of other races, religions or cultures, gender or sexual orientation, we need to be aware of our attitudes and the values of Jesus portrayed in his interaction with people of all kinds. We need to be aware of the role that both fear and ignorance play in our attitudes and reactions to people who are “different” from us (prejudice, from the Latin pre-judicium, means coming to a conclusion based on emotion and not on adequate data or facts leading to a truly rational, objective judgement).

As followers of Jesus, we need not only to be aware, but to promote the dignity and rights of people who are “different” by reason of race, culture, religion, life-style choice, or any physical or mental disability. Really, it is not those who are different who need to “show themselves to the priests” but we, the victims of the disease of prejudice, who need to be made clean of our fear, ignorance and intolerance. It is the propagators of intolerance rather than their victims who are most in need of help and healing.

God’s news cannot be chained
So, in the Second Reading from the Second Letter of Paul to Timothy, Paul speaks of the hardships he has to bear for preaching the Good News (it is striking how much resistance people, including ourselves, show to hearing the Good News!). “I have my own hardships to bear,” he says, including being thrown into jail more than once as a criminal. But, as he significantly says, “they cannot chain up God’s news”.

There are still today in many parts of the world people languishing in jails, being subjected to the most unspeakable torments and indignities for sharing the Good News. But that does not stop the Good News from being propagated. Nothing and no one can stop that. These people, with Paul, show their chains and their jail sentences with pride and joy. Far more insidious are the chains of fear and ignorance with which so many people are tied down.

Who are the outsiders?
Today we need to ask ourselves individually and as a family or community: Whom do we openly or silently marginalise as “outsiders”, as “not one of us”, people we would keep our children away from – people we treat, in effect, as lepers.

Yes, we all need, with the Samaritan, to be cleansed, to be healed, to be made whole of all the toxic substances in our system which distort our relationships and the way we see those around us. We need to see that for God there are absolutely no lepers, no outsiders. All are family, all have the same Father, all are his children, all are brothers and sisters to each other. We all need to be given by each other the same love that God gives to us.

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Commentary on Galatians 6:14-18; Psalm 15; Matthew 11:28-30 Read Saint Francis of Assisi – Readings »

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Commentary on Habakkuk 1:2-3;2:2-4, 2 Timothy 1:6-8,13-14 and Luke 17:5-10

Sometimes we must have the same feelings as the prophet in today’s First Reading. Why is there so much injustice and tyranny and oppression everywhere? Why so much outrage and violence? “Outrage and violence, this is all I see, all is contention and discord flourishes.”

Times have hardly changed since those words were written. On one side we hear politicians talking bullishly about “Unity” while on the other our news is filled day in day out with one atrocity after another. The world looks on helplessly as genocide takes place in some part of the world. Thousands die of starvation amidst political corruption and communal turmoil. Members of the great religions emerge from church, mosque or temple to slaughter all round them, either members of “rival” religions or even members of their own.

One might begin to ask: Where is God in all this? Why does he not protect his children, especially the most defenceless? Often, in these situations, people are reduced to a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. We feel there is nothing we can do; the only thing is to get out and go far away. There is an endless wave of millions of refugees seeking sanctuary in a place that promises a modicum of peace and security.

Message of hope
But listen to the prophet again. He has a message of hope in the future, a “vision for its own time…eager for its own fulfilment, it does not deceive.” Then he continues: “If it comes slowly, wait, for come it will, without fail.” But this vision is not for the fainthearted: “See how he flags, he whose soul is not at rights but the upright man will live by his faithfulness.” Whatever the surrounding circumstances, the one who is not in touch with God wilts, while the one who is full of God’s spirit lives. He believes that “come it will, without fail”.

And so, in the Gospel today, the disciples ask Jesus for an increase of faith. This prayer may well reflect the feelings of some communities of early Christians, who saw their future in very dark colours and who wondered whether, as a small minority in a sea of hostility and even persecution, they had any future. And, in the ensuing centuries, many Christians have been overwhelmed with persecution and the obliteration of their Church. It is a feeling that thousands of Christians must have felt, and likely still feel in various parts of the world today. But, we need to have courage and not misjudge or underestimate the power of Christian faith!

Faith that is trust
The faith that is being asked for is not to have a better knowledge of our catechism. What is being asked for is a much deeper and stronger trust and confidence that our God is near us, even when he seems so far away, that he will take care of his own.

That does not mean, however, that with such a faith Christian life will be free of all hardship and difficulty. Being a Christian, taking the Gospel seriously, is never going to be a tea party. God has promised his loving care but he has never promised a life free of pain, difficulties, suffering, or even sudden and violent death. Let us not forget that “He did not spare his own Son.”

What God does promise is that, with a deep faith and trust in him, we can endure pain and difficulties, that we can accept pain and suffering, if and when it comes, for the sake of making the message of Jesus a reality in our world.

A reliable servant
So Jesus goes on to compare the Christian disciple with a servant of his own time, usually a slave. When the servant comes back from working hard in the fields all day, he is not told: “Oh, come in, you must be tired! Sit down, have your supper, put your feet up and watch TV!” No, he is much likely to be told: “It is about time you got back. I’m hungry. Hurry up and get my supper ready. Then, and only then, can you have some time for yourself.”

Our relationship with God is not about buying and selling, about giving and getting in return; I give God so much and I can expect so much from him in return. No, our relationship with him is one of total and unconditional love and service. The joy and satisfaction is not in what we can do to squeeze favours from God but in what we can give and share of ourselves.

The reason for this, of course, is that no matter what we do, we are ever in God’s debt. The very energies with which we serve him are his gift to us. We are “merely servants”. We can never do more than “our duty”. However much we give to God it is a small repayment for all that he has already showered us with.

Love does not keep accounts
In any case, in a true love relationship one does not say, “Well, darling, I have loved you for three hours; now it is your turn to love me back for three hours.” If the loved one gets sick, one does not say, “Well, I’ll stop loving you now because you cannot give me anything. When you get out of hospital and can do things for me then I will begin loving again.”

In a true, loving relationship, whether it be with God or another person, the joy and satisfaction is in unconditional giving and sharing. Of course, in such a relationship, we do not have to worry – our love will be returned, often on a much richer level than what we have offered. But our emphasis is on the unconditional giving, on the happiness of the loved one. “I want to be happy but I won’t be happy till I make you happy too”, as the song said a long time ago.

So perhaps it is time for us to stop thinking of our religion as something which entitles us to get things from God, as if somehow he is indebted to us for our being Christians. It is time to stop our “supermarket” approach where the church is a place where I get the things I need. Then I find myself saying, “I don’t get anything out of going to church, or to Mass…” (Remember the elder son in the story of the Prodigal Son. “I have served you faithfully, I have not done anything to offend you but you never gave me a party or killed the fatted calf…”)

Let us instead listen to the words from the Second Reading of today. “I am reminding you to fan into a flame the gift [Greek, charisma] that God gave you.” Our life as Christians is not a compliment we make to God but our inadequate response to a precious gift made to us. Why me? A good question.

Strong, not weak
This gift of faith in Christ is “not a spirit of timidity”, a spirit of anxiousness about the future. It is, rather, the “Spirit of power and love and self-control”.

Armed with this Spirit, we are “never to be ashamed of witnessing to the Lord”, even if it means going against the tide of social expectations and we run the risk of losing material and social support and security. And, even if we are not suffering ourselves, we will not hesitate to express our solidarity with those who do so for the sake of the Gospel, even if it will entail personal loss for ourselves. We cannot be ashamed of being linked with fellow-Christians, or indeed any brothers and sisters, who are being intimidated by authorities of any kind for witnessing to love, justice, human rights and authentic freedom.

Today’s readings are highly relevant to our own lives today. On the one hand, we live in a world where thousands suffer appallingly in the struggle for truth, freedom and dignity. What support do we give? On the other hand, we live in a world of ever-increasing material indulgence becoming available to more and more people. The dream of being part of this can close our minds and hearts to the cry of the poor, distressed and marginalised. The affluent society becomes both a trap and an escape.

Many like to blame God for many of the world’s ills but, to be honest, the vast majority are of our own making.

“Increase our faith, O Lord,” that we may see. Teach us to use the precious gifts you gave us to serve you by being courageously at the service of all who are in need.