{"id":633,"date":"2014-09-18T19:45:44","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T00:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=633"},"modified":"2014-10-19T19:47:44","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T00:47:44","slug":"recognizing-who-we-really-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=633","title":{"rendered":"Recognizing Who We Really Are"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the Twenty Fourth Week of Ordinary Time<\/span><\/h2>\n

1 Cor 15: 1-11; Luke 7: 36-50<\/span><\/h2>\n

Dc. Larry Brockman<\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, who do you identify with in the Gospel story this morning?\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>I\u2019ll bet that few of you can identify with the Pharisee, especially after Jesus\u2019 clear and unmistakable retribution of the Pharisee.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And I\u2019ll bet that even fewer of you would identify with the Woman.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So, what are we then, just outside observers who are not involved in the story?<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s take a closer look at both of the main characters in the story- the Pharisee and the woman.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll start with the Pharisee.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Here\u2019s a stable and good man by all of society\u2019s standards at the time- religious, well respected, popular, a man of means, even generous as the host of the dinner party.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>But despite these appearances, the Pharisee has problems.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>He is just focused on himself.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Jesus makes that abundantly clear to the Pharisee.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>For even though he is the host, he has not served his main guest very well; rather, he has concerned himself with making judgments about others.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Second, we have the woman.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>She is described as a great sinner, and apparently is a well-known sinner at that.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>All of us probably have a mental image of her \u201csins\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>To be sure, our image is probably the worst of images as well, the kind of evil that immediately comes to mind when we see \u201cwoman\u201d and \u201csinner\u201d in the same sentence.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>There is no explanation for how such an undesirable person got in to the party, either.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>So yes indeed, this is a brazen, no good, woman who has lost respect from the community at large.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>Certainly, nobody here wants to identify with such a person.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>We all consider ourselves better than that!<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, this woman is totally focused on serving Jesus!\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>She exhibits humility, kindness, generosity, and love in the way her behavior is described.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The truth is that all of us want to identify with the good parts of the Pharisee and the good parts of the woman.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>We all want to be regarded as stable, well regarded, religious persons who are well liked.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>And we want to be seen as humble, kind, and generous to those around us.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But the sad truth is actually this.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>We all share in the worst parts of the woman and the Pharisee because all of us are sinners, and a great deal of the time our primary focus is on ourselves,<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>not serving others; and by following the allegory, not serving God either.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And so this story is about us, each and every one of us.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>It\u2019s a story about who we really are- the Pharisee who hides his sin; and it is a story about who we are invited to be- a sinner who repents and turns to the Lord.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Today, all of us are attending a banquet- the supper of the Lord, the Mass.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>Rather than focus on all the other evil people of the world who need to repent, in all humility, we need to focus on the evil parts of ourselves that need change,<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As Paul points out in our first reading,\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>We need to recognize that whatever we do that is good and beneficial is done by the grace of God that is within us.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>When we come to that realization, then we will come to God with humility, tears, and generosity as the woman did in the Gospel.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday of the Twenty Fourth Week of Ordinary Time 1 Cor 15: 1-11; Luke 7: 36-50 Dc. Larry Brockman \u00a0 So, who do you identify with in the Gospel story this morning?\u00a0 I\u2019ll bet that few of you can identify with the Pharisee, especially after Jesus\u2019 clear and unmistakable retribution of the Pharisee.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[308],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=633"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":635,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633\/revisions\/635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}