The Modern Pharisee and Tax Collector

The parable of the Pharisee and tax collector was the Gospel reading this Sunday. Nowadays, Pharisees seldom attend Mass.

Maybe today, the scene would go something like this:

A Catholic kneels before the Altar and, after silently praying the Pater Noster and Ave Maria, prays: “Thank you Lord for the grace and wisdom you have bestowed on me, for allowing me actually read and understand the Documents of Vatican II, and thank you for allowing me to see the errors of the dissidents and liberalism that wrack Amchurch parishes throughout the U.S today. Thankfully I am not of their number like that Catholic across the way wearing a dove! I cringe at all the sacrileges seeing all those two children per family couples going to communion and receiving from that army of Eucharistic ministers and then leaving church in their late model cars with the Kerry bumper stickers. Save us O lord from those gray haired baby boomers, their doves and their spirit of Vatican II!”

The second Catholic prayed: Thank you lord that I am not like that uptight Catholic across the way, holding his missal in hand, Really, Lord, when was the last time you ever saw one of those! Please God, help him and your bishops recognize we are all your children, straight, gay and transgender, married, divorced and remarried. Release your Church from its patriarchical authoritarianism! Thank you, Lord for giving me the grace to do your ‘real work’ at the local homeless shelter once a month and in understanding your real message in serving others and in not getting hung up on pieties and religious formalism. Thank you lord for your message of peace and I pray to you that our Bishops will learn what peace in our time means and save us from those ‘one issue’ voters for Bush when there are so many social justice issues to be considered. Save us from the home schooling sexually uptight spiritually deprived reactionaries among us who seek to return the Church to the ‘Dark Ages.’”

There were no tax collectors at Mass this Sunday.

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The Jewish audience of Jesus’ time knew all about tax collectors and Pharisees. The tax collectors worked for the occupying Roman army and skimmed a cut of the taxes collected, also accepting commission to undervalue taxable assets of their neighbors. They were even more despised than the IRS of today. Pharisees, on the other hand, were admired members of Jewish society, opposed to the Sadducees who did not believe in an afterlife. The Pharisees believed that God spoke through the Torah and tradition, rather than just through the Torah. They believed in the development of doctrine. Pharisees generally upheld the traditions of the torah as observant Jews, resisting the secular Hellenizing influence of the culture of the day. There is a lot to admire about the Pharisees today. Jesus’ point was that anyone--even a Pharisee--can fall victim to the sin of pride and that we all should be on the lookout when we pride ourselves on our particular form of righteous orthodoxy.

What did your prayer sound like? Mine was probably between the two politically but with the same sense of pride and self-righteousness. No faction in the Church today has a monopoly on pride and self-righteousness.

Comments

[Talmida]

Nicely written, UC, very nice! I don't actually know any really conservative catholics in person, only through blogging so my prayer was more along the line of:

Master of the Universe, please don't let me shame You by anything I write about You or Your church. Help me to recognize that everyone who bothers fighting for Your church loves it in some way. Strengthen me please that I might let others have the last word. And please, Lord, remind me to blog on my own time, and not on my kids'. Amen.

:)

[Steve Bogner]

That's a good one!

My prayer - God, I'm an imperfect, unworthy sinner and yet you have blessed me with abundance. Thanks! Please God, help me make the most of all the blessings and grace you have given me, for your greater glory and service. Amen.