Lent - Day Twenty Four - The Proud and The Humble

Gospel	Luke 18:9-14 ©

The tax collector, not the Pharisee, went home justified.

Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else: ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.’

It is hard for me to put into words just how hot the desert can be.  The sun is unrelenting in its attention to you. You do not really sweat because as soon as your body forms the sweat it evaporates without effect. The sand gets into everything.  If you have the slightest hole in a sack at the end of the day besides what you yourself placed in the sack you will find sand.  We use the sand to clean our dishes - it does that very well.  It is a little known fact that Saudi Arabia imports camels and sand from Australia.  I know, its like the Eskimos importing ice cubes.  But it is true. Don't tell Benjamin, my camel but camel meat is a staple in Saudi Arabia and the world's largest herd of wild camels happens to be in Australia.  As far as importing sand, the sand from down under possesses special qualities that the Saharan sand does not have and it is used for sandblasting.  Again I have to see if you want beachfront property but do not like the noise of the ocean, this horrible but beautiful desert is the place to come.  Here you find your place in the scheme of things. Spending hours in the hot sun with your only view being the ass of the camel in front of you gives you time to reflect on who you are. The Master said it best.  First, he read the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple. Then he went on and said:

"So, brothers, we have two men in the temple.  Being in the temple is a good thing, a laudable thing.  It is an action that pleases the Father.  But in our case, one of the men is filled with pride and tells the Father just how much he does for Him and how he cannot be compared to the miserable sinner behind him.  The Pharisee made a good beginning in coming to the temple but the lost it when he spoke with such pride of all the things he had quote, done for God unquote."

"What made him think that God had any need of his fasting or tithing or refraining from unseemly conduct?  Fasting and other works of self-mortification are not for God.  He takes no pleasure in the suffering of His people, but He does commend them for their efforts to subjugate their bodies and minds to God's will.  The actions of the Pharisee were useless because of the pride he took in completing it.  He thought that the mere actions made him better than others while that was far from the truth.  Mind you, the Father still loved the Pharisee but the Pharisee loved himself and admired himself more than he loved and admired the Father."

"The tax collector, now what can we say about him? He had a more humble view of himself and knew his life needed many changes to become a whole man, that is to say, "Holy."  He entered the temple for some reason.  Tax collectors did not spend a whole lot of time in the temple.  They spent their time collecting money and going to parties. So, our man, for some reason, felt compelled to come to the temple.  Perhaps he had a change of heart and was wanting to repent. We don't know what inspired him to come on this day but when he came he knew his place. He remained far off, in the back of the temple and he would not even raise his eyes.  He poured out his soul to the Father with the simple words, "God be merciful to me a sinner.""

"Every person has dignity.  Every person from the Queen of England to an untouchable privy cleaner in New Delhi is dignified by the fact that the Father loves him with an unquenchable love that cannot be described with human language. But the one truth that all of us have to learn is that the sum total of a man is what God sees him as, nothing more or nothing less. God's vision of you is true and He sees all down to the depths of the farthest reaches of your soul. So, remember that God can say "I AM" and only He has the right to say "You are."

If You Can't See, Well then Climb a Tree!

At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town.

Now a man there named Zacchaeus,

who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, 

was seeking to see who Jesus was;

but he could not see him because of the crowd,

for he was short in stature. 

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus,

who was about to pass that way.c

When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, 

"Zacchaeus, come down quickly,

for today I must stay at your house." 

And he came down quickly and received him with joy. 

When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying, 

"He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner." 

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord,

"Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor,

and if I have extorted anything from anyone

I shall repay it four times over."

And Jesus said to him,

"Today salvation has come to this house

because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. 

For the Son of Man has come to seek

and to save what was lost."

Today we read the story of Zacchaeus a man of some importance in the town of Jerricho.  The town of Jerricho was an important place because it was from this area that balsam was exported.  Balsam was used to make a rare perfume known as the Balm of Gilead. It was used by young women to attract eligible young men but it also was used to anoint the heads of some of the kings of Israel when the oil that was normally used was not available.  It was said that Jerricho was the only place one could get the genuine balsam.  The product was, therefore, considered very valuable and the Romans stationed a trusted tax-gatherer in this town so not one denarius of tax would escape the emperor's treasury.  The man that they put in place was Zacchaeus who is called a man of small stature.  To be blunt, he was short.  His name in Hebrew means "innocent" or "pure" which is kind of ironic since his chosen occupation was most certainly looked down upon by the people.  Israel could never get used to being subjects of another country.  The Romans were seen as invaders. The Romans for their part did their best to keep the situation calm in this small backwater of the empire, going even so far as to circulate coins that did not depict Caesar on them for the Jews would not even touch those coins as they believed that they were against the commandment of God.  The Romans even put local people in charge of collecting the taxes due to the empire.  They felt that payment would be made with less fuss if a local citizen was in charge of collecting the payment.  They told their collectors how was was due and it was the job of the collector to provide that amount of money to the treasury of Rome.  The people saw it just a bit differently.  They saw the tax collector as a collaborator of Rome, as a sinful man and he enjoyed only the company of other sinners.  Since they were not considered worthy of being friends and neighbors to their friends and neighbors, the tax collectors typically extracted more from the people then was actually due.  These extra funds, to which the Romans turned a blind eye, went to line the pockets of the tax-collectors and many of them were made very wealthy indeed. 

So, here we have Zacchaeus, a despised man who is very short.  He wanted to see Jesus but he could not because he was too short and I would imagine that the people lining the streets did their best to keep the hated puppet of Rome in the back of the line and for once not getting his way.  It must have been a bit of sport for the crowd to irritate the tax man in this manner.  Now, Zacchaeus could have handled this in two ways.  First, he could have just given up, cursing the day he was born a short man.  Second, which is the way he took, he could take his lemons and make lemonade with them!  He rushed ahead and climbed a tree, so great was his desire to see Jesus.  Jesus noticed him and told him that he meant to have dinner with him that day.  Can you imagine how Zacchaeus felt?  He must have been almost giddy with joy.  The people in the town hated him for what he did for a living but the Jesus would come and dine with him.  He made the arrangements and a lavish feast was prepared. In a moment of inspiration, he repented of his sin and told the Lord that he would give half of his possessions to the poor and repay those he had defrauded four-fold.  Jesus saw the goodness in this mans heart and told him that as of this day, salvation had entered the house of Zacchaeus.

What can we learn from this story?  I think that we should always be ready to do whatever is necessary to get closer to Jesus.  If we do this and if we repent of our sins He will come into our homes and stay with us.  No one is so evil that they cannot repent.  While life flows through our veins we are given the opportunity to do what is needed to be a friend of Jesus.  Climb the tree today, the view from the top is magnificent! 

The Sound of Silence

Jesus said to his disciples: "I tell you, everyone, who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God. "Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

There is a cost to being silent and it is a terrible price to pay indeed!  If we acknowledge Jesus, He will acknowledge us. If we deny that we know Him before others, He will deny that He knows us as well.  Can you imagine arriving at eternity and being friendless?  At the judgment, it will truly be a case of not what you know but who you know!  Some of us will gather there and feel self-assured because we studied hard and we know all about Jesus, every fact, the significance of every word He spoke that is recorded in scripture, the fine nuances of every parable and the history of the time Jesus lived and even why He came. But, when we look for Him on that awful day we will not see Him because we only knew about Him but we never truly knew Him. Standing to our right will be that little man who spent his life in obscurity, who gave to God what was God's and who ministered to The Christ by acts of piety and charity that went unseen by those with means and power on the earth.  This little, insignificant man will be trembling with excitement because he will be able to clearly see Jesus, his friend, his counselor, his king. He will jump up and down with great excitement and holler, "There He is, there He is."  Tears of joy will stream down his face while on your face they will be only tears.  The little man spent His life ministering to people that needed it.  Although he had very little, he gave what he could and cared for each person as if they were Jesus Christ in the flesh.  He spoke out when he saw a wrong, and it cost him on this earth, but he could not remain silent while the mighty stepped on the meek.  He will be shepherded into the flock that will join Jesus in heaven while you will be sent with the goats. 

Others on that day will be surprised when they are condemned when they are told that their sin against the Holy Spirit, their blasphemy against the very Love of God for the Son and the Son for the Father.  They will ask when they did such a monstrous thing and they will be told that they died in their sins and refused the promptings of the Holy Spirit to repent and so chose the road that is wide and easy to tread. 

I know that this is not a "God is Love Feel Good" message today.  But we have to remember, our lives, our actions, our speech, our acknowledgment of the primacy of God in our lives will matter more than the knowledge that we have about God.  We have to know Jesus and follow His way.  Which way is that you ask?  It is the Way of the Cross. 

Those brothers and sisters that have gone before us and are in Purgatory need our prayers to help them finish the purging of the effects of sin and the temporal effects of sin on their soul. Offer your Mass this week for them and please if you have time, say a Rosary for them. 

Humility

Quote from C.S. Lewis

Humility is one of the most misunderstood virtues in the Christian arsenal. When we speak of a person who does not come from money we say, "He is a person that came from humble beginnings." By that, we mean the person did not have the opulence that some people had when they were young.  We call an unpretentious home a humble dwelling. We call a person without much money a person of humble means.  It would seem that we consider humble to be a synonym for the word poor.  Our common definition of the word seems to make being humble akin to being unfortunate. I do not think anything could be further from the truth. 

Humility for a Christian is acting upon the knowledge that we depend on God for everything. Everything we have in this life is a gift to us from God.  But, I hear you say, "I worked hard for (insert name of possession.)  True, but the very work you did was a gift from God.  

Humility is also the knowledge that everything we have is ours on a temporary basis. Everything you have will someday belong to another person.  Perhaps the knowledge that you cannot take it with you is the thing we need to remember to foster humility in our lives.

To be humble does not mean that we should forever turn down compliments. Humility is to accept and to thank the person that is complimenting you for your extra effort. Humility is to accept help when help is needed.  All of us, someday, will be in a position where we will need someone to help us do things we formerly could do on our own.  Pride will tell us to resist. Humility will allow us for someone to help us. 

Finally, humility is the realization that what we are is what we are in God's eyes, not how our friends and enemies view us.  We are exactly as God sees us and nothing more or nothing less.