sermon: Man’s conduct is the proof of the sincerity of his heart

The 30th Sunday whose readings are Ecclesiasticus 35:15-17, 20-22; Psalm 34; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18; Luke 18:9-14 speaks of something very obvious but of great importance: God sees the heart of man and cannot be fooled by exterior appearances. Hence man has no choice when dealing with God other than being sincere within himself. The readings above refute the notion that God may favor someone because he or she is rich or poor. That exterior way of judging belongs to people because their judgment is often tainted by the limitation in our human way of seeing things. While man is impressed by the external details, God goes to the heart of the matter, to the human heart where a person keeps his treasure. Psalm 15:11 tells us that it cannot be otherwise: ‘Even the depths of death and destruction are known by the Lord. How much more does He know the human heart!’ What the book of Ecclesiasticus tells us in a matter of fact, Jesus in the Gospel of Luke teaches it to his audience in a wonderful parable which shows how people’s hearts differ a lot: Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men; robbers, evildoers, adulterers or even like that tax collector behind! I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all I get’, he continued. But the tax collector stood at a distance. He did not feel fit to look up to heaven, and he said beating his breast, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ What a great difference in these two prayers! The Pharisee prays a false prayer of thanksgiving in fact boasting of his own personal achievements. He does not need any answer from God because he can provide all for himself. The only thing he thanks God for is that he is not as worthless as the miserable tax collector behind him in the Temple. There is no love of God or of neighbour, nor a grain of sincerity in his prayer. The tax collector’s prayer, on the other hand, is personal and sincere. He recognizes his indignity and misery before God. He knows that before his God he cannot hide the content of his heart. He compares himself to no one; that is not his business to judge others, and he is sure that he is the person most in need of God’s grace. God liked his prayer, forgave his sins and he went away justified. The Pharisee with all insincerity saw no need to ask for justification, since he thought he had perfected himself. In the Second Reading St. Paul appears different from the Pharisee and the Tax collector. Although Paul knows his nothingness, he is still sure about himself. He knows he has done some good but it is the Lord who helped him to do it. That is why he is proud to say that by God’s help he has “fought the good fight” and “run the race to the finish “, and because of this divine help, he believes that he will receive “a crown of righteousness.” Unlike the Pharisee, St Paul’s source of success is above and his reward will come from God. His conclusion summarizes this attitude: “The Lord will rescue me from all evil… and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom.We learn a lot from the Pharisee, the Tax Collector and Paul. There is something present in the last two but so lacking in the Pharisee’s way of life. It is the filial attitude towards God and a sincere heart. This is the attitude which helps us all to accept the truth that we are creatures placed in existence by God. This fact makes us acknowledge our fragility and our sinfulness. With this in mind it becomes easier for one to address God in prayer. Now and then we feel the need to thank him, to adore him, and to ask him forgiveness. That is how we discover the traditional four subjects of prayer we learnt in our catechism: when we ask God for what we need it is petition, when we feel grateful for what we have received it is thanksgiving and when we recognize who God is and feel like giving him the homage of our heart, then it is adoration. And whenever we pray, we must remember that God is more within us than we are ourselves. Ends