Homily
for October 28, 2007
Liturgical Year C - Cycle I
30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Andrew Moyo Topic:
Humility
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My
homily today will be on humility. In the first
reading, we heard: “The prayer of he
lowly pierces the clouds: it does not rest
till it reaches its goal.” In the
Gospel, Jesus tells us, “For whoever
exalts himself will be humbled and the one
who humbles himself will be exalted.” Parable: The first verse is key to
understanding the parable. Thus
we read: He also told this parable to
some who trusted in themselves that they
were righteous and despised others:
trusted in themselves that they were righteous…
The Pharisee represents this class of
people. He had a
confidence in himself before God and he also trusted on his own merit.
He considered himself
righteous…
Self-righteous people always begin by
saying what they
are not and then proceed to say many things about themselves. The
Pharisee begins by pointing out what he
is not: I am not like other men,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers. He then goes on to
enumerate before God all
the good that he does: He goes to tell God that he is an observant Jew:
He
fasted twice a week: He does even more than the Law required.
Instead of fasting once a year, he fasted
twice a week ( Lv 16:29: Num 29:7).
I give tithes of all
that I get
It was written in the law, that the
farmer, at harvest,
was to give to the priests as tithes, a tenth part of his main crops:
wheat,
wine, oil, and the first born of his heard and flock (Cf Dt 14:22-27).
…and despised others.
When one trusts self and considers
self perfect, it is
inevitable that the others do not count.
Hence, we see that the Pharisee despised others. There were in his own
thinking two perfect people in the world: God and Himself. He clearly
says:
I
am not like other men ………or even like this tax collector.
However, the tax collector, standing far off, would not even
lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying,
"God, be merciful to
me a sinner!"
The tax collectors were Jews, who
collaborated with the
foreign power of Rome to make sure that their fellow Jews paid their
taxes to
the Government of Rome. Because of this, they were hated by their own
people.
They were also despised because of the fact that they cheated. Not
everything
they collected went to Rome, some of it went into their pockets.
Thus, the rabbis agreed that the salvation of
the publican was utterly impossible. So,
this man aware of his state, does not even dare to lift up his eyes, he
strikes
his breast, nods his head and says:
God be merciful to me for I am a sinner:
Result: The tax collector went home justified,
that is, with a
peaceful heart and mind. Life Implications Jesus challenges us to be humble. The Pharisee went wrong in his
attitude towards God. The Pharisee in the story was too full of
himself. He did not recognize his own emptiness. He had no sense of
dependence
on God. He did not have enough sense to ask God to help him become a
better
person. He thought he had everything. His prayer had more “I”s than the
potato.
Its wrong even to call his prayer –prayer.
When we pray, we show our dependence on God. The Pharisee did not pray
at all. He was in the place of prayer but he did not pray. The
text says: He
took his position and spoke this prayer to Himself. He was the center
of
everything. He was telling himself that God owed Him. God owes me because I am
good. This is the wrong attitude towards God. He was trumpeting
himself before
God. The object of our worship is God, not self. As a result, he left
the
temple with nothing. The Pharisee also went wrong in his
attitude towards
others. When we think that we are perfect, we begin to judge
others.
We, in a way, put ourselves as the standard of
what is good. Then we begin to despise
others and we tell ourselves we are better or smarter than others
are.
When I was in Zimbabwe, a man came to me and
he was desperate and dejected. He told
me that whenever he had an argument with his wife, she would tell him
to go to
confession and she literally made sure that he went for
confession.
There are such people in the world, in our
communities. They are always on the
right and the others are always wrong. Others have to go for
confession.
They, themselves - they have no need of that: When I was studying in Rome, I stayed
with a priest who
was too full of himself. He thought he knew everything. He was very
boastful.
At table he used to make comments on everything - even the chemical
composition
of sugar! When asked to lead community prayers, he would always give
the
blessings in Latin, just to show everybody that he knew the language!!
As a
result, people avoided him because they disliked his attitude. Attitude
is
very important. You may be the most intelligent person at work, at
school, but
be humble when your companions come to you for advice. St. Therese of Jesus, the little
flower, wrote: 'Never
mention anything concerning yourself which people account as
praiseworthy, such
as learning, goodness, birth, unless with the hope of doing good
thereby, and
then let it be done with humility,
remembering that these are gifts from God.” Let our prayers be
like that of the publican, who humbly asked for God’s mercy. We are
always in
need of God’s mercy because we are sinners. We come before God not
because we
are so good, but because we are so empty. We recognize how our sins
have left
us isolated in our worlds. We have lost close friends because we have
not been
able to control our tongues. We have not loved as we could love because
we have
tried loving ourselves instead of others. So we come before the Lord,
alone,
abandoned by some whom we love, perhaps abandoned by our own self
esteem. We ask the Lord to hear our cries. My dear brother, dear sister, let your
prayer this week
be:
Lord God have mercy on me, for I am sinner.
Humility will save you from
potentially embarrassing
situations: The line at the airport was very long,
the crowd
pressing. The man at the head of the line was very furious. “ I want to
be
seated now. I can’t wait in this line.
I’ve got first - class tickets," he screamed. He went on and on. The
attendant behind the counter was patiently trying to explain to him the
problems, but he would have none of it. Finally he shouted, “Do you
know who I
am?”. Immediately the sharp witted
attendant picked up the microphone and announced: “Attention, we have a
gentleman here who doesn’t know who he is. If anyone can identify this
man,
please come to the front desk.”
…for
whoever
exalts himself will be humbled and the one who humbles himself will be
exalted.