When it came to telling the truth, Jesus didn’t hold anything back. He was especially blunt with the religious leaders. For them, scrupulously following the rules and regulations of the law was the benchmark of true religion and what made a person righteous. Jesus often challenged their

teaching. Today’s parable is one of his most direct criticisms. Luke tells us that, “Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteous- ness and despised everyone else.”

Right off the bat, Jesus focused the story on a particular group, the Pharisees, an ultraorthodox group that evolved from the scribes and sages and adhered to the strictest observance of the law. They reveled in their orthodoxy, and even took on themselves the name Pharisee, which means: “one who is separated.” They were haughty, and believed that, when it came to religion, they were better than most people.

In the parable Jesus juxtaposes a Pharisee and a tax collector. Remember that in the political climate of the day the tax collector was looked upon with loathing. Let’s face it, every- one hates paying taxes – and the tax collector would naturally carry the brunt of that hatred. But there’s more to the position of tax collector. Palestine was occupied by a foreign power,

Rome, and was taxed heavily. The tax collector was, by definition, a traitor be- cause he worked as an instrument of a foreign government to the detriment of his own people. Jesus begins the parable with a description of the Pharisee’s prayer.

He took a position in the temple where he could be easily seen by the people and spoke aloud. “O God, thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity – greedy, dishonest, adulterous – or even like this tax collector.” The picture I get from this one sentence is of a man looking over a crowd of worshipers with his nostrils flared as if smelling something quite disgusting. He’s haughty and filled with deepest disdain for the people he sees. His gaze rests on the hated tax collector. He immediately

voices a prayer thanking God that he isn’t like the tax collector. The Pharisee goes on to inform God of the depth of his commitment to the law. “I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.”

Jesus then focuses the parable on the tax collector who has found a private place to pray away from the people. He doesn’t dare look up to heaven. He bows his head, and begins to beat his breast as a sign of his sinfulness and repentance. He then quietly and simply pours out his heart. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

In this simple scene Jesus spins a teach- ing about the power of truth and the emptiness of self-delusion. The Pharisee proclaims himself the model of righteousness, bragging that he’s not dishonest, or greedy. He’s certainly not like this tax collector. How very true! In his prayer, the tax collector pours out his heart, honestly, and humbly con- fesses his frailty and struggles. He prays truthfully, and is rewarded. He returns home justified.

The Pharisee, on the other hand, is an empty shell of a person. He has abandoned his heart and soul. He doesn’t pray to God – he prays to the idol he has created. He worships himself and invites others to worship him. He did not go home justified. He went home more inflated and less alive.

Jesus ends the parable by warning us that “whoever exalts himself will be hum- bled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The parable is giving us a very simple teaching. When you or I honestly open up and, in painful humility, present our wounded and broken selves to God, God’s healing love rushes into our hearts. Will all our wounds disappear? Some will. Some won’t. Will we no longer be broken people? Maybe not! What will happen is much more important. God’s love of us will assist us in truly loving ourselves.

The Pharisee was in love with a false image of himself. That kind of idolatry doesn’t invite God’s healing love. Only our honest self- assessment, no matter how bad we may seem to ourselves, opens the floodgates of God’s healing love. When we accept ourselves for the broken and limited individuals we are, we can lay down our heads and rest peacefully in the knowledge that God loves who we are.

The parable of the Persistent Widow follows an extended teaching that Jesus delivered to his apostles about the coming of the Kingdom of God. It’s important that we reflect on this parable in the context of this teaching.

The apostles once asked Jesus to teach them to pray. So he spoke the prayer that we all know so well, the Lord’s Prayer. It contains the phrase: “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” These two phrases contain an excellent definition of the Kingdom of God. It is among us and, the same time, is evolving into full maturity when earth will have achieved perfect harmony with the will of God.

The Kingdom was set in motion at the first moment of creation when, God, from within the “inapproachable light,” commanded “Let there be light.” This light was carried and nurtured by people of good faith, the prophets and the people of the covenant. In the fullness of time, Jesus, at his resurrection, was anointed Christ, “the light of the world.” He impressed upon his disciples their role in the coming of the Kingdom when he declared to them: “You are the light of the world!” He was commissioning them, and those who would follow them in faith, to carry the light until the day of the Kingdom’s fulfillment when God will be “all in all.”

In the parable, the Persistent Widow is the image of the Poor in Spirit, all of us, the community of believers that continually witness to the light through our way of life and our prayer. As such, we never cease battling against the darkness that grips the world,

represented by the corrupt judge who “neither feared God nor respected any human being.” In the par- able, Jesus stresses that this life-long task demands constant and unshakeable dedication on our part. We must “pray always without becoming weary.” This prayer is the divine light we treasure within us. It’s the persistent Christ-light that shines in the darkness. It’s the light that can never be overcome. It’s the Kingdom of God among us moving towards its fulfillment.

PRAYER

As I gaze on the Eucharistic Christ, I see the light of divine love. As I am fed by the Eucharistic Christ, I feel his light grow within me. As I carry the Christ- light with me, I bring the light of the Kingdom into the darkness. Lord Jesus Christ, let your light shine in me today and every day. May your Kingdom come.

The first scripture we hear today is taken from the Second Book of Kings. It relates the story of a highly esteemed and respected Syrian army commander, Naaman. Sadly, he suffered from leprosy. His wife’s slave, a Jewish girl captured during a raid on Israel, told her mistress that there was a prophet in Samaria who could cure her master. Naaman responded to her suggestion. He went to the king of Syria who gave him a letter of introduction to the king of Israel along with gifts of ten silver talents, six thousand gold pieces and ten festal garments. Naaman and his retinue then set out to Israel. After delivering the letter of introduction and the gifts to the king, he went to the house of Elisha the prophet.

Naaman was told, through a messenger from Elisha, to bathe seven times in the Jordan River. He became enraged because the prophet didn’t come out to greet him personally, and that he was told to bathe in the Jordan, a river much inferior to the rivers of Syria. However, his slaves encouraged him to perform the simple task. What did he have to

lose. He bathed in the river seven times and was cured. He sent word to Elisha that he would, from that day on, wor- ship only the God of Israel.

The Gospel relates the story of Jesus curing a band of ten lepers. Unlike the highly respected Naaman, these men were social outcasts. The law prohibited them from approach- ing anyone, including family. They had to keep their distance from all healthy people. So, “they stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying, ‘Jesus, Master! Have pity on us.’” He told them to go and show themselves to the priests. This

was to receive from them an official declaration of health, and the freedom to return to their former lives. One of them, realizing that he was cured, be- gan to glorify God. He came to Jesus, threw himself at his feet, and thanked him. The man was a Samaritan.

Both of these accounts remind us of the importance of faith. Naaman discovered the true God through his healing. Jesus told the Samaritan who returned to give thanks that his faith had saved him.

Both of these stories focus on the outsider – the person who doesn’t fit in or isn’t in harmony with the society around him. Naaman wasn’t a Jew. His country had been in conflict with Israel. Yet he dis- covered a new life by entering the faith life of his enemy.

The Samaritan, despised by Jews, and separated from his own people because of his illness, found salvation and healing because his faith made him strong enough to reach out to the Jewish prophet, Jesus. Where can we go with these accounts?

We always need to bring the scriptures into our

 present-day experiences if they’re going to be a source of spiritual enrichment and guidance. Then perhaps the first question we should ask is, what does the image of the leper evoke for me, personally?

We may not have a physical illness, but we all suffer quietly within ourselves. We all experience what seems like an incurable sense of shame. Think back to your adolescence when you felt ugly, or overweight, or perpetually awkward. It was a period when the slightest comment about you could be the source of tremendous inner pain. You covered up the pain. You smiled in public but wept when you were alone. That adolescent shame rarely leaves us as we immerge into adult- hood. Perhaps we don’t feel it the same way, but it festers quietly within us, and subconsciously affects the way we act and our relationship with others.

Each of us needs inner healing. In one way or another each of us can relate to the painful isolation of the lepers in today’s readings. Each of us can cry out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on me!”

On the societal level we continue to suffer tremendously because of the hidden shame we carry as a society. We don’t seem to be able to unite as a community of diverse people. Just when we think we’ve healed some of our societal wounds like racism and sexism, another painful ulcer appears. Witness the brutality of our immigration policies. Witness the harassment, and sometimes even murder, of transgender people. Our society can cry out, “Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!

Each of us needs to bathe in the Jordan seven times. Each of us needs to cry out for healing from the Master. We haven’t been able to heal ourselves. We have to trust a power greater than our own to heal the inner shame that continues to torment us and our society.

Each of us has to ask ourselves the deep question, “What am I ashamed of?” When we honestly answer that question, we can call out a sincere plea for heal- ing. We have to have faith that the Divine Physical can cure us and our society. We have to have faith that the love of God can cure all our ills. We have to heal our shame in order to free the divine love that is within each of us. We have to ask for heal- ing so that we can all walk in the glory of the children of God.

“If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree,

‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

We’ve all heard this teaching many times. I don’t know about you, but I question the depth of my faith every day. Right now, as I’m writing this reflection, I’m asking myself, “When was the last time you had enough faith to uproot a tree or to move a mountain?!”

Jesus’ declaration makes me, a supposed man of faith, feel guilty about my lack of faith. I know that Jesus was using hyperbole in this teaching, but still, I don’t feel that I’ve ever done the equivalent of uprooting a mulberry tree or moving a mountain with the power of my faith! I take this teaching as a tremendous personal challenge. I wonder if my faith will

ever grow to the size of a mustard seed. With this personal confession, I’ll move on to the second part of his teaching.

“Who among you would say to your servant who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here immediately and take your place at table?’ Would you not, rather, say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat. Put on your apron and wait on me while I eat and drink. You may eat and drink when I am finished?’ Is he grateful to that servant be- cause he did what he was commanded? So should it be with you. When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are un- profitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do.’”

The second part of this teaching doesn’t leave me feeling as guilty as the first part. I work very hard. But often, I put too much on my plate, and so don’t always do my best. There’s a discipline that I lack. I rarely say no. I feel guilty about this, too.

When I first entered the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament as an impressionable teen- ager, I was impressed by an image our founder used to focus our call to serve Jesus. He asked us to be like the vigil candle that burns before the Blessed Sacrament. Its flame can continue to be a sentinel of faith only because the candle gives up its life to feed it. When I feel the stress, and sometimes pain, of working, I often think of the image of the candle. It helps me renew my energy and I keep going.

These are my thoughts about the gospel passage today. I’m sharing these personal thoughts with you to encourage you in your own reflections. Faith is a very personal matter. You have your own, very special and

unique experience of faith. You hear the call to be God’s servant in your own way, and your response is unique to you.

Try not to let any feelings of guilt you may experience as you reflect on these teachings paralyze you from taking a positive step as a disciple of Jesus. I’ve always found that my feelings of guilt were a hindrance to my accepting God’s loving call. Don’t let negative feelings dis- tract you from what Jesus taught us: that God is love. He clearly manifested that in his own life.

The two teachings we’re thinking about to- day, faith and service, point us to his call to love as God loves – unconditionally and sacrificially. To teach that we’re here on earth to serve God, means we’re on earth to love. That’s the challenge we all face as his disciples.