Sunday Readings Commentary
Father Andrew Wadsworth offers a short commentary on this week's Sunday Lectionary readings.
To read the relevant Bible passage just click on the reference.
Before reading and reflecting on God's word you might like to use the following prayer:
O Lord,
who hast given us thy word
for a light to shine upon our path:
Grant us so to meditate upon that word
and follow its teaching,
that we may find in it the light that shineth
more and more unto the perfect day:
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time
The Lord is the judge, and with him is no partiality. He will not show partiality in the case of a poor man; and he will listen to the prayer of one who is wronged. He will not ignore the supplication of the orphan or the widow when she pours out her story. He whose service is pleasing to the Lord will be accepted, and his prayer will reach to the clouds. The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds, and he will not be consoled until it reaches the Lord; he will not desist until the Most High visits him and does justice for the righteous and executes judgement. And the Lord will not delay.
The Book of Sira, or Ecclesiasticus, was translated into Greek by the grandson of the author. The grandfather wrote in Hebrew. He was a wise, witty, and sometimes cynical teacher of Jerusalem, who gathered and built on the pithy sayings of the sages. The first part of this reading, about the widow’s persistent appeal to the Lord, may well be the basis of last Sunday’s parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge. Did Jesus build his parable on this piece of wisdom of the ancients, or did Luke use the Book of Sirach to expand Jesus’ teaching? So also the second part of the reading, which prepares us for today’s parable of contrasting suppliants, proud and humble, in the Temple: did Jesus build on the ancients or Luke? Jesus certainly heard and learnt from the holy books of Judaism. Whether Jesus directly used it or not, the message of the two parts is clear in the phrase which joins them: whoever whole-heartedly serves God will be accepted. There is no pretending in prayer.
Beloved: I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.
At my first defence no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
This is a summing-up and defence of Paul’s mission, according to the literary conventions of the time. We do not know where the trial he mentions took place, nor the eventual outcome, though the tradition holds strong that he was martyred in Rome (and his severed head bounced three times, giving rise to three fountains, the famous Tre Fontane). In his letters Paul several times mentions imprisonment, but nowhere a formal trial, so that we can only guess. Did he set out on further journeys, even to Spain, after his confinement in Rome? We do not know. The sporting images of ‘the good fight’ and the ‘race’ are typical of Paul, and also the image of a libation, the first few drops from a cup of wine, offered in homage to a divinity. But most of all we are reminded that Paul had long yearned for death and to be fully united to his Lord and ours: ‘Life to me, of course, is Christ, and death would be a positive gain’ (Philippians 2.21), though he was held back by the positive need for his energetic guidance.
At that time: Jesus told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: ‘Two men went up into the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.’
Luke is the evangelist of prayer, offering frequent hints about it. In his Gospel Jesus is explicitly mentioned as being in prayer more often than in any other, at the Baptism, the Transfiguration, when called upon to teach his disciples the Lord’s Prayer (Lk 3.21; 6.12; 11.1). The Agony in the Garden is shaped to show the need for prayer in time of testing (Lk 22.40). In the Infancy Narratives his characters burst into prayerful praise on every occasion, and from these we derive the three great canticles of the Church, the Magnificat, the Benedictus and the Nunc dimittis. His parables insist on the need for perseverance in prayer, especially the parables of the Friend at Midnight (Lk 11.9-12) and the Unjust Judge (Lk 18.1-5). Their motives may not be perfect: the Friend at Midnight eventually caves in because he does not want to be shamed for inhospitable behaviour when the whole village hears the hammering on the door. And the appellant to the Unjust Judge seems to be on the edge of violence, threatening to hit the Judge in the face! But the message is to persevere!
Today, in this parable of the Pharisee and the Tax-Collector, Luke combines deadly earnestness with humour in a typically Lukan fashion. The pompous and self-contradictory bragging of innocence by the Pharisee is duly repellent, while the humble self-accusation of the tax-collector is something to which we can all aspire.