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Institute for Homiletics

A Collaboration of The Catholic Foundation and the University of Dallas

Year C

Praying for Mercy

There is a funny song in the highly irreverent musical The Book of Mormon. One of the two young Mormons being sent as a missionary to Uganda is a real “golden boy” with genuine expectations of doing great things. When he is paired up with a less prepossessing fellow named Callahan, he sings a song predicting the great things they will do. The song’s title is “It’s You and Me—But Mostly Me.” 

The prayer of the Pharisee falls into this category. It is not a bad prayer, we are told. The Pharisee stands before God in gratitude for many blessings. But the focus quickly shifts to “I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . ” It is the simple prayer of the tax collector that wins God’s heart. Note how Jesus expresses it: “the latter went home justified.” To be justified is to be in right relationship with God; it is a gift of God.  Asking that God be merciful puts us in right relationship with God. 

We can make our own several prayers found in Luke’s first two chapters.  Consider the prayer of Mary upon hearing Elizabeth’s words of greeting (1:46–55),  the prayer of Zechariah at the birth of John the Baptist (1:68–79), and the prayer of Simeon in the temple when he takes in his arms the Christ Child (2:29–32).  Each keeps our focus on God as a God of justice and mercy. Each calls us to bow our heads humbly in recognition of who we are and who God is. 

Consider/Discuss

  • Does God really want us bowing our heads and beating our breasts?
  • Where is the line between self-acceptance, self-esteem, and self-absorption? 

Responding to the Word

When I am tempted to be boastful in my prayer, O God, help me to recall that  I always stand before you as a sinner.

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Scripture Study for

Sirach insists that the justice of God is an established fact. He also states that  God knows no favorites, neither the privileged nor the dispossessed. By making this statement he indirectly shows that, if there is any partiality, it is ours and not  God’s. According to covenant theology, we are all responsible for each other. The well-off are obliged to address the needs of those who suffer misfortune. This is a matter of justice, not charity. As a covenant partner, God will intervene on behalf of the poor when other covenant partners disregard their responsibilities. Sirach assures these forlorn people that their entreaties will not go unheeded. 

Paul is aware that his days are numbered. His death is imminent. He faces it with the calm resignation that springs from deep faith. He states that he is being poured out like sacrificial blood. He also views his death as a departure like that of sailors weighing anchor or soldiers breaking camp. Like them, Paul has completed a demanding tour of service and is now preparing to return home. Finally,  employing imagery from athletic competition, he claims that he has competed well; he has finished the race. He is confident that just as God previously rescued him from peril, so God will rescue him again. 

The story of the Pharisee and the tax collector is an example of divine reversal.  The Pharisee is a model of religious observance. His practices of piety exceed the requirements of the law. The tax collector, despised because he is part of the economic system put in place by the occupying Romans, asks God for mercy. He stands at a distance, not raising his eyes to heaven. The tax collector prays that his sins be expiated, and his prayer is answered. The Pharisee asks for nothing,  and he receives nothing. The men’s lives may have been the reverse of each other, but the judgment of Jesus exposes the real reversal. 

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Praying for Justice

Possibly this parable about the widow and the unjust judge was based on a real incident. Since Luke presents Jesus as having loyal women friends who traveled with him, this story might have come from one of them. It has a nice touch of humor when the judge admits he finally gave her justice out of fear she would bop him on the head. 

Earlier in this Gospel, Jesus told another parable about being persistent in prayer (11:5–8), but here persistence is connected with a particular end: to persist in praying for justice. If a powerless widow’s persistence moves even an unjust judge to justice, how much more will the Father of Justice listen to the prayers of his children? Jesus’ words were held up to Luke’s community who lived in a hostile environment, encouraging them not to lose faith that God keeps all promises. Their fulfillment had already begun in Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

Presumably, our first reading was chosen to present a weary Moses as one persisting in prayer with the help of Aaron and Hur. That this prayer results in  Joshua’s successfully “mowing down” the Amalekites may not particularly inspire.  More helpful is Paul’s advice to turn to scripture “for training in righteousness  (justice),” especially keeping the psalms in mind. Today’s responsorial psalm  reminds us that “our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” So persist in praying for justice; let not your hearts grow weary. 

Consider/Discuss

  • What areas of injustice do you see in our world? 
  • Do you pray that God’s justice—understood as the grace to be in right relationship with God, others, oneself, and our world—come more fully into our lives and our world? 

Responding to the Word

O God of justice, we ask that you send the Spirit to give us a greater dedication to bringing your justice into the world. Let our hearts not grow weary asking for this gift of the Holy Spirit. Strengthen our faith in the power of your grace to transform our lives.

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Scripture Study for

Many people have been troubled by the thought that God actually directed aggressive military behavior. However, since the Israelites believed that they were God’s special people, they also looked upon their enemies as God’s enemies. In fighting their own battles they would be fighting God’s battles. The support that Moses gets from Aaron and Hur is probably symbolic. Though Joshua and his selected companions ultimately put the Amalekites to the sword, it was  really the prayer of Moses that wins the battle. However, Joshua’s involvement in this victory established him as a trustworthy leader for the future. 

Paul expounds on the excellence of the sacred scriptures (holy writings) and their usefulness in the lives of Christians. Timothy is reminded of those teachers from whom he learned the message of the scriptures, namely his mother, Eunice;  his grandmother Lois; and more recently, Paul himself. Loyalty to his teachers is one reason for Timothy’s own faithfulness to the teaching of the scriptures.  Paul believed that all scripture was inspired by God and that it played a very important role in the lives of believers. Having expounded on the glories of the sacred scriptures, he solemnly charges Timothy to remain faithful to his ministerial responsibilities. 

Jesus draws a very sharp contrast between a judge and a widow who comes to that judge for justice. The judge is described as fearing neither God nor human beings. By his own admission, he is devoid of such devotion. On the other hand, the woman is a widow, a member of one of the most oppressed classes in  Israelite society. Though vulnerable, she is bold, a real match for the judge. He will not give in; she will not give up. The persistence of the woman becomes the model Jesus uses to describe the resoluteness required of God’s chosen ones.  Like the woman, they do not know when God will respond to their pleas, and so they must persist. 

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Surprising Messengers

First, go to your Bible and read the entire fifth chapter in Second Kings for this most enjoyable story of the prophet and the Gentile general with leprosy,  highlighting the power of God’s word to heal. With today’s familiar Gospel story of Jesus and the ten lepers, the focus is on God’s salvation coming to “outsiders”  like Naaman and the Samaritan as both healing and conversion. We see God’s compassionate outreach for those whose leprosy placed them outside the community, for leprosy was a social stigma as well as a physical condition. What I love in the story of Naaman is the role of the servants, the “little ones.”  A servant girl captured in a raid first tells Naaman’s wife about “the prophet in  Samaria.” After Naaman arrives at Elisha’s door, a servant brings the prophet’s message to wash seven times in the Jordan. And finally, it is the general’s own servants who convince him to follow this command when he gets all huffy about washing in the Jordan instead of the beautiful rivers back home. But down he goes and cured he is. 

Leprosy is a stand-in for the condition of sin that alienates us from God and each other. God’s greatest desire is that we know divine, saving grace, a desire often brought home to us by the surprising messengers God sends us—including the prophet from Nazareth who continues to surprise us after two thousand years. So be on the lookout for how God is working to draw you closer and deepen your faith. 

Consider/Discuss

  • How has God’s word brought healing into your life? How has it deepened your ongoing conversion? 
  • Can you think of any surprising messengers God has used to “get through” to you? 

Responding to the Word

Open our ears, Lord, to hear your word. Open our eyes to see the many ways you reach out to us through those you bring into our lives who help us to know you. Help us to see that all people are your beloved children, and that all earth is holy and bears your presence.

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