“MORE MERCY”
Saint Luke 18. 9-14
The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity: 7 August Anno Domini 2005
Fr Watson
The Lord's words are spoken to you if you are sons of Adam. If you're angels, spirits, or rocks then you need not listen. If you have flesh and blood the words of the parable apply. Your old natures trust in themselves. You think you are righteous. You despise others. Pharisee is another name to label our fallen natures. Because one does not sin with tongue, hands, or mind during a sixty minute long Sunday Mass does not mean he no longer has a sinful "old Adam." One's trust is demonstrated in where reliance is placed and the resulting fruit. If you "fear, love and trust in God above all things," that is, if you kept the First Table of the Law, you would spend more time with God's Word than you spend with your own "words." If you trusted the Lord the way you are supposed to, you would cling to His sure promises even when things are bad, hopeless, dark, and contrary. But, you find yourselves relying on your own resources, wealth, work ethic, discipline, savings, and meticulously laid out plans for the "future." The only future you have is now! the day of your Salvation. The only future that matters is where eternity is spent. If you trusted in God for your "daily bread" you would be more willing to share it with others who don't even have a crust, or a crumb. Alas, we are stingy, scrooge-like, hoarders. It's a problem of trust; it's a problem of a woman in a garden wanting something and not trusting God and His Word. Because we can't trust God the way we are commanded to, we trust ourselves; this is self-righteousness. Yes, you think, your Pharisee thinks, that you are righteous. You think (mentally 'praying with your hands in the air') I do belong to a congregation that worships the Lord; I do pray daily; I do come to Advent and Lenten Vespers, I do follow the Divine Service Rubrics; I do come to "Bible" Class; I do put money in the basket; I do believe intellectually, and can articulate, "Salvation by Grace through faith in Christ alone." The words "I do" are the problem. If one trusts one's own religious life style, even if one trusts one's own liturgical and theological knowledge, as, "things unto themselves," one will not be trusting in the Righteous One, but rather be idolatrously praising the self-righteous self.
Yes, extortioners are thieves... just like we are. Lord have Mercy upon us both. The unjust are cruel, unfair, prejudiced...just like we are. Lord have Mercy upon us both. The adulterers are promiscuous with their actions even as we are with our thoughts and desires. Lord have Mercy.
The real prayer, is the honest and true self-aware prayer, the prayer that comes from a heart broken by the Law, a publican heart, a heart turned by the spirit to the only Righteous One, the only Right One, Jesus the Christ.
As you genuflect, kneel, and prostrate yourselves on the ground under the Hand of Almighty God; as your lips are opened by His Word alone to utter the cry of the miserable, of them being saved: "Lord have Mercy," He does. He Does! You look up to see not the Pharisee in the Temple with his arms stretched wide in pompous pride, but rather you view the Lord of Life with His scarred, shredded and bleeding arms spread wide upon the Tree. His arms are spread wide to carry your burdens, your badness. His arms are spread wide to always pray for you, to talk with you and to gather you in to His fold. And He bleeds so much for you, the Right Blood, the Righteous Liquid of Life, so that you would always remain washed and watered and with Him. You see, that is you believe, in and on, the "humbled One" Who makes you exalted in Him. His Mercy allows you to pray the blessed Kyrie. His perfect Life for you allows Him to comfort and strengthen you as you drown the old Pharisee daily; when you repent of all those times of self-righteousness and lack of trust. His death on your behalf on the cross, and even more directly at the Baptismal Font, picks you up, you the miserable one, and places you into His red wounds of victory, into His pierced heart via blood and water, and makes you too Righteous In Him. Kyrie Elieson. Amen.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost