I am a sucker for many things. I love videos of  soldiers coming home and  surprising their kids; I’ll always stop for a lemonade stand that kids  are running;  and military honors  at the end of  funerals always get me. Another phenomenon that has  begun to pull on my heartstrings in recent years is the star athlete/performer/musician finally getting the long sought-after feather in their cap. Seeing a ballplayer perform incredibly well for years on a terrible team, and then finally get to ride off into the sunset with a World Series ring  is one of the things that makes me believe in goodness in the world. It speaks to the             communitarian nature of teamwork; one man does not a team make, and they won’t go very far without everyone working together towards the same goal. 

In much the same way, there is a communitarian nature to faith and to salvation. As much as we are an elbow grease, hard work, and bootstraps kind of nation, the exercise of our faith dictates that we put aside individualism and grow in our concern with how we are doing as a people, as a church. For the high-octane overachiever,   imagine it’s challenging to function at an  incredibly high level, achieve one’s goals, and  outdo expectations, only to find that God isn’t  focused as much on that as He is on how well you loved those around you. But right here in the  Gospel for this weekend we see Jesus say point blank that a man who has followed the rules, done his civic and religious duties, and been an overall example of how to get one’s business together is not justified, but a notable public sinner who is hated by those around him, is indeed justified. In turning to the Lord in his weakness and begging for mercy, he achieves more than someone who works diligently and doesn’t seem to need help.

I often fall into the trap of comparing myself to other priests, either to feel good about myself in sinful pride, or to beat myself up, which is probably also rooted in pride and a lack of trust in God to actually minister to my people. It is a trap, and it is poisonous to do so. The pharisee in today’s Gospel is a good person by most      objective standards of his day. The tax collector was a traitorous outcast, hated by any Israelite with self-respect. But the way that the pharisee saw himself, and the complete lack of concern for the spiritual well-being of those around him, even and especially those struggling, like the  tax collector, tanked his chances of justification and growth in holiness through prayer. Your spiritual life, and mine, must be bound up with the people around us. We must care about our neighbors, our brothers and sisters in the parish, and really anyone that God places in our lives for us to walk alongside. The spiritual life is not a zero-sum game where we are all  battling for a finite quantity of love and attention from Our Loving Father in Heaven. Blessings for one person or group are always a victory for the entire Body of Christ, when we allow them to be. 
 
This week, as we draw closer to the end of the year, perhaps is an opportunity to think about whether our prayer life is closed off and uncaring about those around us, or if we are  attentive to the ways we can pray with and for others. To ignore others or to compare ourselves to them in the spiritual life is a trap. But to acknowledge our weakness like the tax collector and to receive God’s mercy is to make ourselves more capable of sharing that mercy with others. May we live in the fullness of God’s mercy this week, and always. 
 
Prayers always, 
Fr. McC