A Sermon preached on October 23, 2022, at St. Augustine’s and St. Christoph
Sirach 35:12-17, Timothy 4:6-8,16-18, Luke 18:9-14
When I first looked at today’s reading from Sirach, or Ecclesiasticus as the book is sometime also called, I thought this is a perfect text for a stewardship sermon: “Give to the Most High as he has given to you, and as generously as you can afford.” (35:12) That could sum up the theology of stewardship. We are giving back to God from what we have received, and we do so as generously as we can. God is the origin of all life, the giver of everything that we have and are, and so our response must be to thank God in prayer and praise, by serving God and God's people, and by sharing our financial resources. Unfortunately, I can’t finish there, and you only have Jesus to blame!
The parable of the pharisee and the tax collector in our Gospel reading today seems to contradict Sirach. We don’t know much about this particular tax collector, but we know that they were not paid by the Romans and instead had to take extra money and keep some for themselves. The temptation was to abuse this system by taking far too much. Next Sunday we will encounter Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, who at least acknowledges this possibility: “If I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much,” he will tell Jesus. (Luke 19:8) Not surprisingly therefore, tax collector were anything but popular. Yet it is the tax collector who is declared righteous, who is justified rather than the Pharisee, who is particularly strong in his religious devotions and who tithes, that is gives a tenth of his income. So generous giving is not such a good thing? No, it’s not a simple as that either. Jesus does not condemn the Pharisee for his behaviour and certainly not for him tithing! We often find Jesus recommending generosity or praising those who give even of the little they have.
The problem is not the Pharisee’s behaviour, but his attitude. He may well have kept the ritual and religious provisions of the Law, but here we see him ignoring that whole section of the Law that has to do with the love of the other. Remember Jesus’s summary of all the law and the prophets: Love God and love your neighbour as yourself. We do not love our neighbour by looking down on them, despising them, and especially not by thanking God that we are not like other people. Nor by the way would that part of the Great Commandment be fulfilled if we were to look down on the Pharisee and pray “God, I thank you that I am like this Pharisee!” (Luke 18:11)
Sirach also teaches that it is not just about behaviour, generous giving, but about attitude. He criticises those who try to bribe God, to buy God’s favour through generous donations and extravagant sacrifices. And he rejects what he calls “dishonest sacrifices,” those that are supposed to hide or heal bad behaviour. In Sirach’s case, in his society the problem was oppression – the powerful oppressing the poor and weak. There can be no true sacrifice, no genuine generosity without justice. Sirach calls on his people to give as the Most High has given. And God, the Most High is a merciful, just and loving God. If we give as God has given, we must do so with the same attitude and motivation!
That brings us back to the Pharisee and his problematic attitude. On the one hand, as I said, he ignores the commandment to love his neighbour by regarding them with contempt. On the other hand, he seems to trust entirely in himself. He may have thought he was praying, but the only person he was really praising, and exalting was himself, for not being like other people, and for his good deeds of fasting and tithing. He does not see that his situation, his relative wealth and privilege is a gift from God, and he also forgets that many of those he criticises may not have had a lot of choice: poverty and the need to feed their families may have pushed them into working with the Romans, or into crime. Instead, the Pharisee speaks as if his own accomplishments, his “lawful” behaviour are what have earned him God’s grace – as if he has effectively bribed God.
The tax collector on the other hand knows that he is entirely reliant on God’s mercy. He acknowledges his sinfulness, does not try to buy his way out of trouble with a generous donation, and simply prays “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13) He shows humility and for that he will be exalted and forgiven. It recalls Jesus’ saying that “The last will be first, and the first will be last” from the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:16)
These two readings contrast those who give generously and selflessly, with those who seek to purchase divine favour. They compare those who are sure of their place in God’s kingdom on their own merit, “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (Luke 18:9) with those who rely on God’s mercy and in turn show mercy to others. They speak of a generous God and of a virtuous cycle of giving. And they declare that we are justified by our attitude to God and other people, rather than by our deeds alone.
It's a pity that our reading from Sirach only begins at verse 12. Verse 11 says: “With every gift show a cheerful face, and dedicate your tithe with gladness,” which could well have been an inspiration for Paul’s teaching in 2 Corinthians 9:7 that “God loves a cheerful giver.” Please smile therefore when you out your pledge forms in the plate or in the mail!
My initial instinct was not wrong. Today’s readings do lend themselves to a stewardship sermon, if we understand stewardship as being about both our attitude and our behaviour. Borrowing from a document that the National Conference of Catholic Bishops Roman once published[1], good stewards:
- receive God's gifts gratefully,
- nurture God's gifts responsibly,
- share God's gifts justly and charitably, and
- return those gifts to God abundantly.
Our right behaviour is to receive God’s gifts – and sometimes we are reluctant to receive them, if their use is challenging! To nurture and grow them – and one way of doing so, as we learn in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), is by putting them to good use. To share them with others, they were never meant just for us, and to return them to God and, yes, to God’s church. The appropriate attitude, as we have learned in today’s readings, is gratitude and humility, responsibility and solidarity, justice and love, and joy in their abundance.
Amen.
[1] Stewardship: A Disciple's Response, National Conference of Catholic Bishops (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1993).
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