Father Rick Bolte's Homily

C: Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time            2007-10-28

There was a joke that Fr. Cedric told during on parish mission about a man who died and met St. Peter at the gates of heaven.  Peter told him that to enter heaven he needed 1000 points.  The man tried to think of how he may have earned points.  He said, “I was married and I got along fairly well with my wife.  I was a good provider, didn’t drink, gamble, and I was faithful.  We had five children together and I tried to be a good father.  I managed to send them to Catholic schools; we went as a family to church almost every Sunday . . .  How many points is that?”  Peter replied, “One.”  The man thought he must want to hear more of what I did religiously and outside the home and so he continued, “I was involved in my parish as a Eucharistic minister for several years, I was a member of the parish council for a couple of terms, and a member of both the Knights of Columbus and the Foresters.  I tried to be generous with lots of charities and even came close to a 5% tithe some years.  I volunteered a couple times a year at the soup kitchen . . . How many points is that?”  Peter replied, “Maybe a couple more.”  The man became exasperated and said, “What did I have to do to earn 1000 points??  I’ve already told you almost everything I did.    There’s no way I’m going to get 1000 points. All I can do is throw myself on the mercy of God.  I can’t earn it myself!”  Peter said, “That’s all the points you need.  Welcome to heaven!”

If all we know of the Pharisees is what we read in the New Testament, we get a very bad and distorted view of them.  In reality they were a fellowship or an order of men who tried to take their Jewish faith very seriously.  To join they promised to say all the prayers prescribed in the Torah, they fasted two days a week, and paid their 10% tithe as alms for the poor.  They even tried to evangelize by allowing their praying, fasting, and almsgiving to be done prominently before the larger community as a way to encourage praying, fasting, and almsgiving among the other Jews.  Jesus’ problem with them, which is highlighted in today’s Gospel parable, is that they thought their dong all these things justified them and made them good.

I don’t think too many of us strive to earn salvation or to make ourselves good in the eyes of God as much as we strive to look good in the eyes of others.  One of the most obvious clues that the Pharisee is trying to prove his goodness is that he compares himself to others.  He thanks God that he is not like the rest of humanity or like the tax collector.  Much of ours is also not seeking something of particular value as much as trying to show relative value, how we compare to others.  We show off our fancy new car if it’s fancier than those we show it off to, we are less likely to show it to those who have better cars.  When we are in school, we subtly check how well others did.  If we got a C and everyone else got D’s and F’s, we let people know what we got (subtly but proudly).  If everyone else got A’s and B’s, we usually keep our C a guarded secret.  As parents and grandparents we talk about the accomplishments of our children and grandchildren if we think they are impressive in the light of what others have shared about their offspring.  We, often without our consciously recognizing it, work to look good in the eyes of others.

This kind of looking good, looking good because of what we have or do, never lasts.  What you have or do may look good today but tomorrow you have to do something to maintain your edge.  We ignore the fact that all we have and are comes to us as a gift from God we can never earn.  The best we can ever do is use well what God has given us.  When we stand before God aware that what we have is a gift and we can’t make ourselves deserving, we finally throw ourselves on the mercy of God.  That’s what the man in the joke does and it is what the tax collector does.  Jesus tells us he is justified not because he has made himself good, he didn’t.  He is justified because he knows he can rely on nothing but the mercy of God.  And God justifies!  God’s love knows no bounds.