Joseph was a Good Man Advent 4 Yr A

+Mary, Joseph and Jesus may, quite possibly, be the first example of what we now call “A Blended Family.” You’ll notice that in the Prayers of the People for December we refer to “The Blessed Virgin Mary and Blessed Joseph, parents of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Some of you may have wondered----doesn’t our priest know that Jesus’ Father is God? That Mary conceived through an act of the Holy Spirit, not the normal birds and the bees way?

Of course, I do, but I also resist referring to Joseph as Jesus’ Step Dad. As a matter of fact, I resist referring to any person who has assumed the responsibility of raising a child as a step-Dad or Step-Mom. These men and women have, through their love for their spouse, also assumed a love and commitment to children; children they may not have biologically created, but parent nonetheless. If there’s one thing our modern world has taught us, it’s that parenting has a whole lot more to do with what happens after conception than conception itself. For God to come among us, to experience the human existence as fully as possible, in the person of Jesus, God needed to use two humans as instruments, vessels for this task.

Enter Mary. Enter Joseph.

Mary is famous. She’s known the world over. Worshipped as a prophet and saint by Christians and Muslims (she’s one of four women prophets in the Quran, the holy book of Islam).

Mary is known, adored and worshiped. While Joseph may be as famous, I don’t think he gets his due—his adoration and worship--- as thoroughly as Mary.

There are a number of reasons for this, most notably the fact that the most familiar Christmas story---there are two nativity accounts in the Gospels---is from Luke, where Joseph has, at best, a “bit part.” [We’ll hear the Luke accounts of Jesus’ birth on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and we do every year.] The lesser-known birth account comes from Matthew’s Gospel, which we heard this morning, and will pick up again later in the Christmas season.

But today we hear Matthew’s account of Joseph’s annunciation—how he was told that what Mary, his betrothed, had told him was true---she was having a child via the Holy Spirit and he should follow through on plans to marry her…even though he would be subject to ridicule, ostracizing and shame.

In spite of all he would face, and in spite of the fact that no one would believe that he and Mary were telling the truth and in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t live to see it all come to fruition, Joseph said yes. He said yes.

It’s easy for us to say God gave Joseph an incredible gift—to raise a child of God, to be one of two human beings in all of creation God chose to raise Jesus. But think about what it meant for Joseph’s daily life.

Remember he was older--- significantly older than the teenaged Mary-- a man who should, by all accounts, have been slowing down and starting to reflect on his life, became, instead, saddled with what looked like a fiancé who had cheated on him, who then gave birth to a head-strong impetuous boy---remember when the 12 yr old Jesus gets left behind at the temple and ridicules his parents for being worried---yet with dignity and respect, this man says, “OK God, not my will, but yours.”

Joseph was quite a guy.

He doesn’t get as much press because he disappears from view fairly quickly, after the 12 yr old Jesus is left in the temple, we don’t hear from Joseph again. He may have died a natural death or he may have been killed in one of the Jewish uprisings against the stranglehold of the terrifying Roman occupiers, but he didn’t live to see Jesus begin his active ministry. It’s as if his job was to get Jesus to young adulthood—to teach this boy how to be a man---he helped Jesus develop a skill set---he taught him a trade—carpentry---but more importantly he taught him how to be a man. A dignified, respectful—especially of all the down trodden and outcast, man. A man who was able to carry the mantle of messiah not just in his divine self, but in his human self as well. Joseph helped Jesus become the man we lovingly call Emmanuel, Lord, Savior, Prince of Peace. Joseph, a regular guy from Bethlehem, an honorable man who was given a challenging task and without knowing how or why, with knowing only that an angel of the Lord assured him it was ok, said yes to being a father. A father to the Savior of the World. David taught the Son of Humanity to also be the Son of Joseph.

Joseph was a good man.

Several commentators suggest that Mary, who would be by Jesus’ side until his death and resurrection, guided the Divine part of him, encouraging him to use his divine gifts when needed as opposed when he wanted to---think the Wedding at Cana---but Joseph, Joseph was responsible for guiding the human part of him.

Like so many fathers and father figures in the world, Joseph took responsibility for the raising of a child…. regardless of the child’s biological heritage, Joseph and so many who have come since then said YES when asked to take a child and teach the child how to become a responsible honorable and dignified man or woman, to become an adult who through the values learned at the knee of a loving and responsible elder, strive to make this world---the world created by God and entrusted to our care ----a place where the Peace and Love of God can grow, flourish and rule in the hearts of all.

So, for Joseph the Carpenter and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and for all the men and women of the world who say yes when entrusted with the raising of children, our most precious commodity, I say Thank You. And Amen. +

Advent 3 Yr A

John the Baptist was antsy. Sitting in prison and waiting, waiting for the messiah whose coming he had prophesied, waiting for his cousin Jesus to get on with the fire and brimstone of judgment, to get on with separating the chaff and the wheat, waiting for Jesus to clear the threshing room floor, waiting, no doubt, for Jesus to get him out of jail!! John asks, if you’re the one, then where’s the action? Where’s the wrath?

In response, Jesus lists his acts of love—no recompense here, just healing.

Jesus wasn’t the messiah a first century Jew expected. From John the Baptist of Jesus’ early ministry, to the apostles of his life and the early Christians of Paul and James, Jesus’ followers assumed that the second coming was going to happen soon--so they waited, getting everyone riled up to “be ready.”

Of course we’re still waiting…but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get ready.

But, just what constitutes “getting ready?” Repenting of our sins, turning our lives around? Absolutely, these are important steps, but they’re reactive—reactions to choices we now regret. Besides being reactive, we must also be pro-active. We have a part in this second coming, but we need to pay attention, because God? God tends to show up where we least expect it…in the downtrodden, the lost and the unnoticed.

If the first Advent was ushered in via a scared young woman and her poor yet faithful fiancé, why should we expect the Second Advent to be some type of surround sound High definition blockbuster event?

My guess is that God will come in the most astonishing and unimaginable way possible, simply and quietly, because that’s what God does….God hides in plain sight.

No one expected anything good to come out of Nazareth and certainly no one gave that poor couple searching for lodging in Bethlehem a second thought. Just like so many in our world don’t give a second thought to the homeless, the hungry, the captive or the destitute among us. But we must because that’s how God comes to us. In the unnoticed, unrecognized “other.”

When God came the first time, in the person of Jesus, the Romans weren’t toppled, the Pharisees weren’t thrown out of the temple. The lame walked, the blind saw and the deaf heard.

The Kingdom of Heaven on earth isn’t going to be an event, God’s reign on earth is a process. A process which began to unfold through the First Advent, and which will culminate in the Second Advent. The first Advent and the second are all God’s doing, but the in between time? That’s ours. The in between time is the time for us to bring the love of God into action.

Jesus’ first coming did cast the mighty from their thrones—but not because of military action or legislation, but because he put compassion into action and that is what will bring Christ again. Compassion in action—the Second Advent will begin when we ----God’s beloved-----put the compassion of Christ into action.

And we can do it---we can bring compassionate justice into our world because we have God on our side [it’s right there in this morning’s collect]. God’s bountiful grace and mercy helps and delivers us--- from hardness of heart and wanderings of mind, from looking out for ourselves on the backs of our neighbors, from walking past the homeless and the outcast, the downtrodden and the lost. God’s bountiful grace and mercy is given to us as fuel…fuel to do all the work we’ve been given to do, work in redeeming this world from the power of selfishness and hatred, from war and violence, from cheating and deceit.

The second coming, the Second Advent, the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is guaranteed—it’s guaranteed because God is patient---God will wait until we get it right, God will wait until we realize that our part in the second Advent is neither passive nor impossible.

Our part in the Second Advent is active and possible, it is energetic and do-able, and it is necessary and needed. And it is up to you and to me.

John the Baptist wanted to know if Jesus was the one because Jesus wasn’t acting like he expected the Messiah to act. Today, the leaders of faith who get the most attention beg a similar question---they don’t act like people of faith—they seem to ignore the teachings of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, begging the question, “where is the loving God of faith? Where is the tolerance of the Almighty, of Yahweh, of Allah? Where is the peace of Abraham, of Isaac of Ishmael, of Jesus? How can you, [how can we], preach a message of redemption, of repentance, of renewal when what comes out of your mouths is hate and intolerance?”

The questions of John the Baptist, “are you the one?” came because the peace of a humble carpenter’s kid from the backwater area of Nazareth was not how he envisioned God in the Flesh. The questions were legitimate and Jesus answered them---not by proclamation, but by action.

The public view of religion today has been usurped by fanatics who have high-jacked the message of God, as expressed in the three great Abrahamic faiths, to suit their own needs of power and elitism. No wonder people today ask us, how can your faith be the answer…look at what’s being done in the name of God!

John the Baptist was antsy, antsy for some action from the Messiah. And now the Messiah is antsy, anxious for some action from us.

Our Advent task, our Christmas task, our Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost task is to reclaim the message of the incarnation—the message of peace on earth—and make sure that in all our doings we live into the message of hope which is Christ, that the lame and the blind and the deaf of our lives—those people who are deaf to the pleas of the homeless, the people who are lame to the plight of the destitute, the people who are blind to the needs of the outcast—are healed.

Advent 2 YrA

John the Baptist: wild haired, camel skin wearing, locust eating mad-man standing in the middle of the murky Jordan River, preaching a message of repentance---accusing the world of sin and challenging everyone, especially the Jewish elite of his day---to make their way straight and get ready. For the Kingdom of Heaven was coming and there was no time for arrogant self-serving piety.

No doubt the Pharisees and Sadducees wished he would just go away. Or at least be quiet.

But it was too late. Word had gotten out about this prophet—was it Elijah?—who was baptizing people with those muddy waters, promising them a new kind of baptism—with fire and the Holy Spirit no less---to be rendered by a messiah—the messiah. His shtick, if he was to be believed, was just the opening act, the main event was about to burst on the scene. And John, John was trying very hard to get everyone ready.

Of course getting ready is what Advent is all about and it’s why the Baptist takes up two of our four Advent Sunday Gospels---because we are to be aware, to get ready and to repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is about to arrive. God is coming to be with us, we best be ready. We best repent.

Repentance. To turn from sin and dedicate oneself to amendment of life.

To turn from sin. Sin is such a tough word for our 21 st century ears---well at least for my 21 st century ears—its been tossed around by so many tele-evangelists, folks who profess to be holier than thou but who, in the stark light of day, turn out to be a lot more human than holy.

We sin when our actions take us away from God. The German Jesuit Theologian Karl Rahner puts it best when he says that all human behavior moves along a continuum—a continuum that is either moving toward God or moving away from God. Are our actions moving us closer to God or farther away from God? If we’re moving farther away from God we’re sinning. All sins are not the mortal sins we here our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers talk about. To sin is to miss the mark. To sin is to do something, which furthers our own self-interest instead of moving along with the divine plan. You know the divine plan I’m talking about—loving our neighbor as yourself, loving God with all our heart and soul and mind. Sinning isn’t always headline news. Sin, more often is simply missing the mark. Sinning moves us away from God.

The goal of our life, according to Rahner, should be to move toward God—because God is always—always—reaching out to us.

Of course, during Advent this is particularly poignant for us because in the Christmas event—in the birth of Jesus, God not only reaches for us, God becomes us.

With God coming to dwell among us, the time seems ripe for us —to repent, amend our lives and head toward the outstretch arms of our loving God.

So we visit the stories of John the Baptist, this wild man on the banks of the river, screaming at us to straighten up and fly right.

He saves his most venomous wrath for the religious elite of his day—the Pharisees and Sadducees—they figure by virtue of their heritage—being children of Abraham---they’re set. They assume the Baptist has come on the scene to help the gentiles, the pagans, the fallen away Jews---but not them.

The arrogance of piety—the thought that his message of repentance was for other people---people who don’t follow the law, people who don’t tithe, people who don’t offer the appropriate sacrifices at the temple—it was this arrogance which fueled John’s You Brood of Vipers rage.

Because John knew that such arrogance was just one of the many things which draw us away from God…and that all of us==Pharisees and Sadducees, Gentiles and Pagans, you and me…that we all need to day in and day out turn around---repent----change direction and start heading toward God.

Changing direction. That’s what repentance is. It ‘s a turning around. And that, according to Episcopal priest Sam Portaro, is exactly what John the Baptist is asking us to do. It’s what he was telling those who trudged to the banks of the Jordan to do, and its what we are to do. How can we increase our holiness, our piety, our faithfulness? How can we be better Christians? How can we best prepare ourselves for the coming events of incarnation, how can we ready ourselves to receive God among us? Pray more? Tithe more? Go to church more? Now all these are good things and many of us find them very helpful but they’re instruments of our faith---they are not our faith. Faith isn’t lived out in these pews. Faith is lived out in the world…in the offices, the homes, the grocery stores, the banks, the regularness of our lives. Faith---true faith---life changing faith, faith that will bring the reign of God fully into this world---is exercised out in the world.

So as we settle into our second week of anticipation, our second week of preparing for God among us, we are to go out into the world, loving and serving one another as Christ loves and serves us. We are to walk the streets of our lives with the truth of our faith---that God so loved us God came to be among us ----straightening our paths and turning us around, because when we do that—when we live our lives as Christ directs us, we will be a beacon—attracting others to us bringing people toward the light of Christ, a light which, when we live toward God instead of away from God---shines on the darkness of this world, a world which desperately longs to be wrapped in the loving embrace of God.

Advent 1 Yr A

Advent always seems to sneak up on me. I guess it’s my determination to give Thanksgiving its due; I resist the onslaught of Christmas decorations that appear the day after Halloween. In my focus on fall and harvest themes, pumpkins and squash, pots of soup on the stove and a slow extraction of sweaters and coats from storage, the transformation from the settling in of a WNY fall, the winding down of the long season following Pentecost into the expectation—the getting ready-- of Advent catches me by surprise, each and every time.

Advent has long been misunderstood. Advent isn’t a mini- Lent but it’s also not a 4-week wind up to Christmas.

Advent is, by design, a penitential season of sorts—it is a season when we focus on becoming reconciled with God. But it’s not like Lent when we lay ourselves bare before God, stripping ourselves, confessing our sins and awaiting God’s redeeming act of resurrection. No Advent is when God lays God’s self-bare before us[1]---when God comes to dwell among us in the stark vulnerability of a newborn baby.

Advent is when we ready ourselves for the ultimate reconciliation of humanity and God---reconciliation in the person of Jesus Christ.

It’s actually overwhelming, when you think about it, God is coming to us—how can we ever be ready for that?

But here we are, Advent One, the first Sunday of Advent, getting ready for the birth of Jesus, the nativity, the wonder of the incarnation.

And to help us get ready, our lectionary, our readings for this Sunday—and the next two—focus on “end times” imagery. Apocalyptic themes about readiness for judgment, the demand for justice and the hope for Christ’s second coming.

‘Tis the season for avoiding darkness, debauchery, licentiousness and the thief who steals away in the night…

ho ho ho.

This is a season to expect the unexpected to prepare for something we can’t even fathom, Emmanuel: God with us. God as us. God in the flesh.

Advent is about waiting. Advent is about getting ready. Advent is about remembering that we don’t know the day, the hour, or the moment of Christ’s return.

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We can plan all we want, making lists and checking them twice, but life marches on, seemingly oblivious to our desires. Life is fragile, unpredictable and wonderfully spontaneous, despite our best-laid plans!

What we do know is that, as we ready ourselves for the commemoration of the first Advent---the arrival of Jesus, we’re preparing for the second Advent, the coming of Christ again.

Our lessons today have a theme---judgment and justice. Darkness and light. We are to resist the dark, and seek the light. We do this by seeking and serving Christ in all those we meet and by respecting the dignity of every human being. We are to beat our swords into plowshares, our spears into pruning hooks. We aren’t to rest until justice reigns on the earth. That’s our task, that’s what is to occupy us from now until the end of time. Serious stuff. Which is why

I think all this Christmas frivolity, the shopping of Black Friday, the parties, the mailing of packages to loved one’s far away, the writing of Christmas cards is….. absolutely fine. Good even. Really good.

The challenge of this season is to look past the presents and the parties to remember what they represent—a way to let others know that they matter to us. That they are important. As long as we spend this season of preparation for Christ’s birth as a time to tell others how much we love them, and to work at making sure the dignity of all human beings is honored and respected then, party away. Shop til you drop---just never forget that with every Christmas card you sign, every stocking you fill and every glass of egg nog you sip is a way to cherish one another.

And cherishing one another is what God wants us to do, because that’s what God does.

On the last day, we’ll be judged for how we’ve lived our lives and the litmus test---the standard by which we’ll be measured-- is very simple: justice. Have we lived justly?

Have we moved out of darkness and into light?

(This is what Advent asks us to do---it’s right there in today’s collect—“cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” )

The darkness of our lives is injustice. And while we cannot overcome all the injustice in the world, we can refuse to accept a world where injustice is ok. We can be a thorn in the side of our elected leaders, of the power brokers of this world. We can make sure that the oppressed are never forgotten.

These readings aren’t designed to threaten us; they’re designed to encourage us. They aren’t telling us that the holiday season is wrong, they’re telling us that all the parties and gift giving isn’t something we HAVE to do, it’s something we WANT to do, because we want those we love to know we love them; and we want those who may not know the love of another to know our love, our concern, our wish for them is that they are able to live with dignity and respect, because that’s the birthright of every human being.

Just as our children and grandchildren, our nieces and nephews, our young friends and family make their Christmas lists and check them twice, I encourage you to count your blessings—check them twice-- let them lighten your world, freeing you from the darkness of worry and want. Let those blessings encourage you to live justly and honorably, respecting one another, as the baby born in that barn in Bethlehem wants us too.

So I wish you all a very happy and blessed Advent. A season of getting ready to receive the glorious love of God, as given to us all in Jesus Christ. Amen.

---

[1] David Lupo, The Text this Week Facebook page 11.26.10

A Thanksgiving Homily

Two weeks ago this very evening I awoke in the recovery room of Roswell Park Cancer Institute so overwhelmed with gratitude all I could do, for several minutes, was cry.

So overcome all I could utter, through the tears, was “thank you.” Never have two words meant so much.

Thank you. Thank you God.

Thank you God for the presence of a world class cancer institute in our backyard, with a newly arrived surgeon who, full of smarts and compassion, full of determination and grace had removed the cancer from me and had painstakingly poked and prodded until she was sure---absolutely positively sure—that all of the cancer was gone. That anything which looked or felt suspicious was removed, checked, double checked and triple checked.

Thank you God for a community of family and friends huddled in that waiting room, and across town and across the country by phone and computer, waiting for the news…committed to walk with me wherever this journey takes us. Members, each and everyone, of Team Cathy—people who aren’t just helping me, but are fully in this with me. Ready to help me laugh and cry.

Sometimes all in the same moment.

Thank you God for the community of faith which is this diocese and this parish Church of the Good Shepherd—people who prayed me through that day, the days leading up to it and all the days yet to come. A community of love who will walk with me in good times and in bad, who will rejoice with every victory and will lament with every set back. A community, which encompasses a faith in the bread of life, Christ Jesus who’ll never leave us hungry, never leave us thirsty. A faith in the peace of God, which truly surpasses all understanding.

Thank you God for faith. For the indescribable, ever present belief that, as Paul states in tonight’s Epistle: whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure comes from the love of God, poured out for us through Jesus Christ.

And, thank you God for cancer.

Yes, thank you for cancer.

Because of cancer I am learning lessons I never even knew I needed to learn. Because of cancer I am discovering a depth of love and faith and gratitude I never knew existed. Because of cancer, I have learned that Thanksgiving is not just a day for turkey, football and pie.

Because of cancer, dear God, I have found gratitude.

True gratitude, Gratitude from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. Gratitude deep within my heart and soul.

Almighty and gracious God, for all of this and all that is yet to come, I simply say,

Thank You.

Amen.

All Saints' Sunday 2010

I sing a song of the saints of God

Patient and brave and true,

Who toiled and fought and lived and died

For the Lord they loved and knew.

And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,

And one was a shepherdess on the green:

They were all of them saints of God --- and I mean

God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,

And his love made them strong;

And they followed the right for Jesus' sake,

The whole of their good lives long.

And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,

And one was slain by a fierce wild beast;

And there's not any reason --- no not the least

Why I shouldn't be one too.

They lived not only in ages past,

There are hundreds of thousands still,

The world is bright with the joyous saints

Who love to do Jesus' will.

You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,

In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea,

For the saints of God are just folk like me,

And I mean to be one too.

Dust is dust and faith is faith. Pentecost 22 Yr C 10. 25.10

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that when we fast we’re to wash our face and comb our hair, to not draw any attention to ourselves because we’re fasting. The lesson, I think, is that:

Faith isn’t something to display, it’s something for others to notice about us.

I learned this lesson many years ago, at the end of an Ash Wednesday Liturgy back home in suburban Chicago. I was probably 10 or 11 and our parish priest, Fr Muth, suggested, as we were leaving church, that we wipe our foreheads free of the ashes he had just imposed. His rationale was, that as we returned to the secular world, we weren’t to wear our piety, our faith on our sleeves—or in this case, foreheads. That true piety, true faith is in the action, not the appearances. So, to this day, I wipe the ashes from my forehead as I leave church—not because I don’t want people to see that I am a faithful Christian, but because I want them to know—to experience—that I am a faithful Christian.

I don’t wipe away the knowledge that I am but dust and to dust I shall return—I wipe away any sense of entitlement, honor or praise which may be given to me because I went to church on Ash Wednesday. I don’t wipe away my faith, I wipe away my arrogance.

I ‘m not saying everyone should wipe their foreheads off on Ash Wednesday, it’s just something that works for me---it’s humbling, reminding me that all that I am and all that I have is because of God…that without God I would be but dust.

This knowledge—that all that I am and all that have is because of God, is humbling. And humility…humility is a big part of who Jesus wants us to be.

Humility is a good thing. But it’s often misunderstood. Humility is not humiliation. Humility is not about being a worthless wretch. Humility is realizing that although we can never earn the blessings God bestows upon us, we can never earn the love God has for us we can be grateful for that love and gracious in our accepting of it. We can ask for it, receive it and, out of gratitude, strive to do everything in our lives for the glory of God.

Not us, not me, but God.

That’s humility.

To not notice and remember God in all we do? That’s arrogant.

Humility and arrogance lie at the crux of both last week and this week’s Gospel.

Sometimes we’re arrogant, sometimes we’re humble. Sometimes we’re the Pharisee or the unjust judge, other times we’re the tax collector or the persistent widow.

But all the time—all the time—we’re nothing without God.

The Pharisee wasn’t humble. Neither was the unjust judge. Both of them were full of themselves. So focused on hoarding what they had—money, power, prestige and their own sense of righteousness, that they failed to notice the widow, to notice the tax collector.

To notice God.

In many ways the Pharisee looked like a righteous person---he donates 10 % of his worth to the temple, he worships, he doesn’t lie or cheat or steal. Not a bad guy….but he fails to give credit where credit is due. He forgets that without God he is but dust. He is a self made man who takes all the credit for his success.

He’s not grateful, he’s not humble. He’s not gracious.

As Lutheran Theologian David Lose states, the Pharisee’s prayer of gratitude may be outwardly spoken to God, but inwardly the praise he offers is for himself. He proclaims his own righteousness when he states: “God I thank you that I am not like other people [I am good and righteous].”

It sounds like he’s thanking God for making such a swell guy such as himself. This isn’t humility, it’s arrogance. It’s not prayer, it’s self promotion. What looks like righteousness is actually self-righteousness.

At first glance, the tax collector doesn’t appear righteous at all. He makes his living off the backs of the poor and disenfranchised. He’s done much to offend the law, the Temple and God. But he has enough humility, he has enough self-knowledge, to realize this….he’s not praying to God out of thanksgiving or out of gratitude. He doesn’t pray to God out of self-love, like the Pharisee. He prays out of self-loathing. Out of disgust. He prays to God out of desperate need. Out of longing. Out of hope against hope.

The tax collector prays to God on the off chance—the off chance that this God truly is an all forgiving all loving God who responds to all who call out. He prays to God counting on the sheer unconditional abundant love of a God who promises to grant mercy on all who come to God with hearty repentance and a desire to amend their life. He prayed to the God spoken of by the prophet Joel in today’s first lesson, that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The tax collector doesn’t approach God out of duty, but out of desire. He doesn’t pray to God out of habit, but out of faith.

The Pharisee approached God out of duty, out of show. He prayed to God because that’s what righteous people do. His faith isn’t bred out of longing and desire, his faith is bred out of duty and expectation.

The tax collector doesn’t want to be noticed by anyone, he just wants to be heard by God.

The Pharisee wants to be noticed by everyone while he fails to hear God.

The Pharisee isn’t a bad guy….but he is arrogant. The tax collector isn’t a saint, but he is humble. The Pharisee appeared to have faith while the tax collector had faith. The Pharisee looked righteous while the tax collector, in his humble and desperate appeal to God, was righteous.

So today I thank Fr Muth for teaching me that faith isn’t something to flaunt like the Pharisee, but it’s something to seek, like the tax collector.

Yes Fr. Muth, I understand it now, faith isn’t what you show, it’s what you live.

Amen.