Once upon a time, there was a small girl named Maria who had a wooden doll. Maria treasured her wooden doll for three important reasons:
In the small town where Maria lived, there was no rain for months. Because there was no rain, they had no water to drink, no water to grow food, no water to wash themselves or their clothes. The people were beginning to die because of the lack of water.
The town’s people got together and all agreed that they would gather in the town square, bring with them their most precious treasures and sacrifice their treasures to God, so their God would send them rain.
The next day, the people gathered in the town square. One by one, each person presented their treasured items and threw them into a fire. But in reality, they were not sacrificing their most treasured things, but instead, things that didn’t mean much to them. But God knew that, and knew their intentions, so God didn’t send the rain.
But when it came time for Maria to give up her most treasured wooden doll, she tenderly kissed her doll goodbye with tears in her eyes, but a smile on her face. She knew her parents were in heaven and in the eternal presence of God, and they would ask God to send the rain. As she confidently gave up her doll, the rain began to fall.
It is only a story, but doesn’t it teach a similar lesson as the lesson that Jesus taught about the two people who were in the temple praying? One pretended to pray and the other admitted he was a sinner. God knows our real intentions. We can pretend to be prayerful, but you cannot fool God.
It is all too easy to forget to whom we are praying. One of the many attributes of God is that He already knows everything. So, when we pray, we don’t need to impress God with how great we are. Showing off does not impress God. That is what the Pharisee did.
Nor do we have to waste a lot of time telling God our problems. God already knows our problems. It is safe to say that God knows our problems even better than we do. I’m not saying we should not bring our problems to God, but we don’t have to spend all our time in prayer doing that.
So how should we pray? In today’s Gospel from Luke, Jesus gives us two totally different examples of people praying. He encourages us to pray like the tax collector and not the Pharisee.
While a lot of us have problems with our iPhones or iPads, hopefully we don’t have an “I problem” like the Pharisee. Turn to the gospel and count the number of times the Pharisee used the pronoun “I” in his short prayer. Note the way Luke begins the Pharisee’s prayer, “The Pharisee took up his position and spoke the prayer to himself…”
The Pharisee does have an impressive record and everything he says is true. He thanks God that he is not like the other man; he evidently did have a high standard of morality. He fasts twice a week; Pharisees fasted on Monday and Thursday. He tithes on his gross income, not his net income.
Anyone in a Twelve Step recovery program used by Alcoholics Anonymous knows the importance of examining your conscience so you can own up to your shortcomings, the ones that are causing you to self-medicate by abusing alcohol or drugs.
It is the fourth step of AA that involves making a search and fearless moral inventory of oneself, then admitting to God, to oneself and to another human being, the exact nature of one’s wrongs. That way, you are not blaming another person for your drinking or addiction problem. You are taking full responsibility.
The Pharisee certainly did not do that. He examined the conscience of the tax collector and not his own. “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity, greedy, dishonest and adulterous.”
What about the tax collector? Notice the way Luke has the tax collector praying: “But the tax collector stood off at a distance, wouldn’t raise his eyes, but beat his breast.”
So, let’s pray his prayer together: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
This is known as the “Jesus Prayer.” There is an art to praying the Jesus prayer. First, take a deep breath in, hold it and slowly let it out. So, let’s try that, take a deep breath in, hold it and then slowly let it out. Again! This time, as you breathe in, say the words to yourself, “Jesus Son of the Living God.” And as you breathe out, say to yourself, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.”
In this way, we symbolically “breathe in” God and “breathe out” our sins. Said slowly over a period of several minutes, this prayer can bring a gentle feeling of tranquility and peace. The important thing about this way of praying is that it leaves behind all our preoccupations and anxieties and allows us to focus solely on God and on God’s saving works.
This Jesus prayer can be prayed any time, anywhere and any place. It is so brief that it can be prayed in the very midst of dissensions and at times of temptation or despair.
The trick to praying this Jesus prayer is to listen to God. You will need some silence, and that is hard to find. You have to create this silence in your heart, so you can listen to God speaking to you.
This silence is in the heart, but don’t confuse it with the silent treatment.
I am sure you have heard the story of Mike and Joan, who were having troubles in their marriage. They were giving each other the silent treatment. Mike realized that he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 in the morning to go golfing, and not wanting to break the silence, wrote a note to Joan. “Please wake me at 5:00 am.”
The next morning, Mike woke up only to discover it was after 9:00.
Furious, he got out of bed and went to the bathroom to find a note on the mirror that read, “It’s 5:00; wake up.”
That is not the way to communicate with your spouse, or with God, either.
Recall last week’s gospel, it was another parable about prayer. The purpose of that parable was to persevere in prayer, to pray continually and never lose heart. The Jesus prayer is one way we can persevere in prayer, and it only takes a few minutes each day.
The tax collector didn’t dwell on his sins. He simply acknowledged his sinfulness and his desire for God’s mercy. Asking for God’s mercy will not make us arrogant or self-centered but will keep us humble and truthful.
We will see and love ourselves as we are. We will not compare ourselves to others. We will recognize and accept our limitations and failures. We will appreciate the good qualities in others. We will be happy that others have the qualities we lack.
Later this week, we celebrate Halloween. There will be lots of pretending by putting on masks and costumes. This celebration dates back to the fifth century before Christ. It wasn’t Halloween as we know it today, but it was the Celtic (Irish, Scottish and Welsh) New Year’s. The Celtic people believed that the dead wanted to come back to life and that the dead would try to enter the bodies of the living. Therefore, the living people would wear masks and costumes to frighten away the dead spirits.
The custom of trick or treating is thought to have originated in Europe in the ninth century. Beggars would promise to pray for people’s deceased relatives if they were given treats to eat.
Strangely enough, Halloween has become one of the most celebrated festivals in contemporary America. It is a fun day of disguising oneself and pretending.
One of the people in the gospel tonight wore the mask and costume of the Great Pretender and the other person wore no mask or costume and was the Great Sinner. The Great Sinner’s prayer was earnest and simple. So let us kneel and pray his prayer once again:
As we breathe in, we pray silently, “Jesus, Son of the Living God.”
And as we breathe out, we pray silently, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.”
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