A Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) 2007
[One of the domed ceilings in the Cathedral at Orvieto, Italy showing the Beggar of Assisi. I took this August 2007.]
What is the great sin of our society? I am sure we all could nominate a few: abortion, materialism, culture of death, attacking the traditional family, etc. While these are certainly prevalent evils in our modern society, I think we suffer from something more fundamental. I think that the greatest sin of our modern society is presumption.
Some may even ask what exactly presumption? Presumption is one of the two sins against the virtue of hope (the other is despair), so maybe we should first recall what we mean by the virtue of hope. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision of God; it is also the fear of offending God’s love and of incurring punishment” (#2090).
The Catechism describes two different kinds of presumption. In the one, a person presumes upon their own capacities. Basically in this type of presumption we think that we can save ourselves without divine grace by just doing good works. In the second kind of presumption we presume upon God’s power and mercy, thinking we can be forgiven without conversion, or participate in God’s glory without merit. This is the type of presumption in which the person thinks that it does not matter how they live their life, that it is OK to sin – at least the “little” sins – because Jesus is their friend. In both forms of the sin of presumption the person fails to give God the honor and respect that is due to Him. They fail to fear God.
The Pharisee in today’s Gospel reading is presumptuous. He probably did the good things that he said that he does; the extra fasting, the giving to the poor. In a strictly superficial level he was virtuous. However, he robbed his virtue of any value by his way of approaching God. In pointing our all that he had done for God so to claim his reward, he was comparing himself with others instead of comparing himself with the standards of God’s law. God’s standards are always higher than our best achievements. We always have shortcomings, and can do better. The Pharisee placed his trust in his own achievement instead of trusting in God.
The tax collector in the parable, on the other hand, was very much aware that he was a sinner. During that time, the Roman officials would contract out the collecting of taxes. The way that these private tax collectors made their money was by adding a commission on the tax that each person owed. There was no rules governing how much of a commission could be added, so tax collectors were often prone to corruption; extorting money from people. The tax collector in today’s parable knew he was a sinner. He probably could tell God each person that he took an unfair commission from. He probably could tell God the so-called reasons he used to justify his sinful behavior – for example, he needed to take more money from some people because there would always be those few people who always seemed to slip away without paying their taxes, so he needed the collect extra from those he caught to make sure that both the Romans and he got his “fair share.” He knew that this was a lie he told himself to cover his greed.
Something moved this tax collector to compunction. He came to recognize his sinfulness and he knew that he could not do anything on his own to make it right. He recognized that he needed God’s grace to forgive him and to strengthen him so that he would act more justly in the future. His recognition of his own sinfulness could have led him to the other sin against the virtue of hope, namely despair. However, his experience of his own limitations and failure has led him not to despair, but to depend on God. He has remembered that there is something beyond every evil threat and the Lord will rescue him.
Dependency is not something that we tend to view as something good. We think that we should all be independent, that we should all be able to take care of ourselves on our own. Underlining such an attitude is pride. We are utterly dependent on God. The Lord has created us, and He gives us every beat of our heart and every breath we take. God gives us life, and He saves us from damnation. But in creating us He has given us a free will. We need to choose to accept the grace that He offers us. We need to have the humility to acknowledge our own limitations and sinfulness. We need to have the humility to acknowledge that we need to be forgiven, we need to be saved. Then we need to depend on God, our loving Father, by following His will.
Throughout the Old Testament we hear, as we hear in today’s first reading, that the Lord hears the cry of the oppressed, particularly the orphan, the widow, and the resident alien. In that time and culture, those were the three most vulnerable groups of people because they had no one to care for them. They relied completely on God, and to their cry “the Lord is not deaf.” They knew what it meant to depend on God.
Likewise in today’s second reading, St. Paul tells Timothy that in his trial and imprisonment he too learnt that he could only depend on God. That when no one appeared on his behalf at his defense, he realized that “The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom.”
We need to turn away from presumption, and develop an attitude of utter dependence on God. Jesus has taught us that the real hero in history is not the person who is self-sufficient, rather it is the beggar: “Christ begging for the heart of man, and the heart of man begging for Christ” (L. Giussani, S. Alberto, & J. Prades, Generare tracce nella storia del mondo [Generating Traces in the History of the World]. Milan, Italy: Rizzoli, 1998, p. vii).
