“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

27 October 2019 –– Proper 25 Lectionary 30

Honesty about our own need for forgiveness is rampant throughout these readings. The tax collector cries out to God. Jeremiah pleads with God on behalf of his people who have wandered far away from the Lord. And Paul, the great Apostle whose story began with murdering followers of the Christ, gives thanks for the steadfast love of the Lord who “stood by me and gave me strength.”

These readings are for each of us as we individually struggle to live with faith and for nations, as well, dangerously in need of the self-reflection Jeremiah calls for. Wherever people fail to love God and love the neighbor, God requires repentance and transformation. –– Melinda Quivik

Luke 18:9-14

Luke places this parable in the larger context of a series of pericopes in which Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer. In the previous pericope the disciples are presented positively as the little people of this world, without any worldly power. In this pericope, however, there are some among the disciples who are presented negatively, believing themselves to be better than “other people. . .”

The Pharisee and tax collector of this parable represent two stereotypical polar opposites. . . The Pharisee is described as prayerful, faithful, generous, devout, and ascetic, certainly the best kind of person, one whom Jesus’ listeners would not have thought was to be faulted in any way. . . The tax collector, on the other hand, represents the worst kind of person. . . [who] collaborated with foreigners to extort from his own people. To Jesus’ listeners, the tax collector would be the one to be ignored by God, certainly not the pious fellow with all his tithes, prayers, and fasts.

To the surprise of Jesus’ listeners, however, it is the tax collector, not the goody-goody religious hero, whom Jesus says is “made right” before God, simply because of the taxman’s heartfelt contrition. In contrast, the pious yet smug religious person leaves his prayer without having been right in God’s eyes at all. His religious practices, for all their praiseworthiness, only end in isolating him from his neighbor.

There is a warning here: if we isolate ourselves from our neighbor, we isolate ourselves from God as well. Hence, Jesus insists that prayer, if it is to be genuine, must bring about a transformation of our hearts. . . . Without genuine conversion, even the most admirable pious practice and prayer risk becoming empty and meaningless. –– Lisa Marie Belz

Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22

Although the people of Jeremiah’s time are deeply religious, engaging in various religious practices (13:10), their religiosity . . . is based on a lie. . . They do not worship as God intends, and so their society is rife with violence and injustice (v 7). God is in their midst—they even bear the name of God (v 9)—but God “does not accept them” (v 10) and will not do for them what they will not do for themselves (v 19). Only authentic worship, that which combines religious observance with the construction of a truly just society, can remedy the spiritual drought and dryness which afflicts them. –– Lisa Marie Belz

2 Timothy 4:6-8,16-18

. . . Paul earned for himself a great deal of opposition, even among genuine Christians. The good news is the transformation that the power of Christ’s grace, over the course of many years and numerous hardships, was able to achieve in Paul. Because of the transformative power of Christ at work in him, Paul is made capable of pouring himself out totally, completely spending himself for the sake of the Gospel. Although we can sense Paul’s disappointment with those who did not stand by him, he is not bitter. . . . –– Lisa Marie Belz

Lisa Marie Belz, an Ursuline Sister, is assistant professor of Biblical Studies at Saint Mary Seminary & Graduate School of Theology in Wickliffe, Ohio.

Homily Service 40, no. 11 (2007): 43-52.