|
When Jesus speaks, his message shifts depending on the audience. He teaches in ways his listeners can actually digest—even if the lesson is hard to swallow. In today’s Gospel, his parable is aimed at those who are certain of their own righteousness and look down on others. They are convinced they are “holier than thou”—holier than everyone else, perhaps even holier than Jesus himself.
To such hearts, Jesus prescribes a medicine that is both provocative and radical. Those they despise—the very people they regard as beneath them—become their teachers. In particular, the tax collector becomes the model. He embodies the heart Jesus commends: not self-justifying, not comparing himself with others, but throwing himself entirely upon God’s mercy. He knows he has done wrong. He knows he cannot save himself. His only cry is: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Here lies the fundamental truth: righteousness is never the result of comparison. Nor is it a prize one claims for oneself. True righteousness does not dwell on perceived goodness at all; it lives in continual recognition of need, in humble longing for God’s saving mercy. This is what makes it possible—even necessary—for the tax collector to name himself a sinner. To admit sin is to confess that a way forward exists, that sin is not the end of our story. The word itself means “to miss the mark.” We recognize the marks we’ve missed, and we pray for strength, for discernment, to aim more skillfully next time. By contrast, those who claim they have hit every mark deceive themselves into believing life can be managed by some “magic formula.” But life never unfolds according to formula. It throws curve balls. What we need is not control, but a discerning heart—one that returns, again and again, to God’s mercy along every twist and turn. But let us not mistake the parable. The tax collector is not automatically more righteous than the Pharisee simply because he prays differently. The Pharisee is, after all, more morally and ethically disciplined than the tax collector. A parallel comes from John’s Gospel: the woman caught in adultery. Jesus averts her stoning with the words, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” And then—grace upon grace—he declares, “Neither do I condemn you.” But he doesn’t stop there. He adds: “Go, and from now on do not sin again.” Mercy here is inseparable from the call to change. So context matters. Who is Jesus addressing? To the self-righteous, he calls for humility. To those broken by their failures, he calls for commitment. The lesson shifts depending on the heart in front of him. Which means we must ask ourselves: what about us? For what are we examining our lives? What do we need to hear? At heart, both the Pharisee and the tax collector are turned inward. Their focus is almost entirely on “me.” The Pharisee’s “me” is inflated with pride. The tax collector’s “me” is deflated in shame. Both, in their own way, are trapped by the self. The deeper invitation of Jesus’ parable is to make room for the Other—for God, and for neighbor. How might we learn this balance? Strikingly, our own breath can serve as a teacher. With each inhalation, the body inflates. With each exhalation, it deflates. Breath keeps the rhythm, the balance of life. When we are beating ourselves down, we may need a breath of inflation. When we are puffed up, we need the humility of exhalation. Learning to live with this rhythm—with the rising and falling of breath—is a way of being “me” skillfully: not inflated, not deflated, but open to God. “...when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” asks Jesus.
It is a haunting question, one that unsettles us. What kind of faith is being spoken of here? Do I have it? Could I ever embody it? As usual, Jesus does not offer us a neat theological definition but instead tells a story. His parable does not provide a concept, but an image. And this story is both paradoxical and almost comical. It is not about God rushing in to save, but about a widow who refuses to give up. Notice what is strikingly absent: God. The parable never says that God intervenes on behalf of the widow. Instead, the one who finally does justice is an unjust judge—a man who neither fears God nor respects people. It is not divine lightning from on high that forces his hand, but the widow’s relentless persistence. Her continual coming—her refusal to let go—compels him to give her justice. And that persistence, Jesus tells us, is what prayer looks like: “pray always and do not lose heart.” The widow’s strength does not come from wealth, position, or influence. She has none of those. Her power lies only in her perseverance, in her refusal to quit. And it is precisely within that persistence that God works. For though unnamed, unacknowledged, even seemingly absent, God becomes most present in her grit, her courage, her faithfulness. Perhaps this is the deep mystery of the parable: God’s presence is revealed in and through the widow’s stubborn, ceaseless demand for justice. Her continual coming is not just her own striving—it is God’s continual coming, God’s own persistence embodied in her. In her voice crying “Grant me justice!” there rings the voice of God’s own longing for justice. Those who cry out day and night are already manifesting God, and in that action justice begins to take flesh. So when Jesus asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”—might it mean this: will he find anyone like the widow? Anyone who, despite the silence of heaven and the injustice of the world, persists in prayer, persists in seeking justice, persists in making God present through their refusal to lose heart? This question cuts into our own moment. Looking around, can we honestly say that our world has grown more compassionate, more just, more loving? We struggle to be generous. We fail to welcome strangers. We cannot even endure a minute’s patience with one another. If we are honest, something is deeply fractured within us and all around us. And so, Jesus’ question remains urgent. Will the Son of Man find faith on earth? Not faith as theory, but faith as persistence. Not faith as wishful thinking, but faith as continual coming. Faith that insists, again and again, that God’s justice must break into the world—even if it looks like foolishness, even if everything seems absent, even if the only thing left is to cry out: “Grant me justice.” For in that cry, God comes. Today’s gospel lesson highlights the profound importance of gratitude toward God—not merely as a polite virtue but as an essential spiritual attitude that shapes healing and wholeness. Despite his marginalized status as a Samaritan, a foreigner, an outsider excluded from Israel’s social and religious circles, he alone returns to give thanks, recognizing and honoring the true source of his healing. While this depiction of gratitude is often regarded as straightforward, its spiritual depth goes beyond mere thankfulness; indeed, gratitude is frequently linked by researchers to mental and emotional well-being.
Jesus’ question underscores this deeper expectation: “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none found to return and give praise except this foreigner?” His response to the Samaritan, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well,” draws an important distinction between cure and healing. The nine were physically cured—their skin disease removed—but only the Samaritan is truly healed, made whole and holy through faith rooted in gratitude. This returning figure evokes the philosophical notion of the ‘second naivete,’ a concept developed by French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. It signifies a post-critical stage of faith achieved after wrestling with doubt and skepticism. This second naivete is not a naive innocence but a mature stance that embraces ambiguity and integrates complexity, creating meaningful understanding from it. We can see this second naiveté embodied in the Samaritan’s journey. He complies with Jesus’ instructions, presenting himself to the priests for ritual examination—a recognition not only of his physical cure but also a reintegration into the religious and social community, where his skin disease had marked him as impure and sinful. Yet, crucially, the Samaritan returns not merely to the community but to Jesus himself—the source of his healing. Jesus’ commendation and sending him on his way signify empowerment: the Samaritan is entrusted to live out his restored life in faith and gratitude. This return is grounded in realism, not naive optimism. Though cured, he remains mortal and vulnerable to illness and death. Like Lazarus, who experienced resuscitation, not resurrection to be clear, yet faced eventual death anew, the Samaritan’s faith is one of mature hope—shaped by the ‘second naivete’—that acknowledges life’s fragility while affirming wholeness through faith. In our own spiritual practices—whether in contemplation, silent prayer, or meditation through mindful breathing—we return to Jesus again and again: second, third, and countless times, facing life’s hardships with faith rooted in gratitude and hope, continually embracing life as lived in the spirit of the nth naiveté. Let us pay close attention to the dialogue between the apostles and Jesus in today’s gospel lesson. The apostles ask Jesus, “Increase our faith!” At first glance, this request sounds humble, as if they recognize that their faith is insufficient and needs growth. Such expressions are common in church settings, where people often confess their struggle with trusting God fully because their faith feels so small.
However, this request reveals not humility but rather a misunderstanding of faith. Jesus’ response is unexpectedly sharp, even seemingly sarcastic: “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed...” The size of a mustard seed is famously tiny—almost insignificant. Jesus implies that the apostles don’t truly grasp what faith is. They don’t need more faith; it’s not about having a larger quantity or degree of faith. Faith, in this passage, is better understood as the profound experience of being uprooted, cast, and then planted in the vast presence of God. It’s the effort of making sense of life by clinging tightly and being deeply grounded in God’s presence within, even when life feels chaotic and mysterious. Faith has no size; it is a continuous movement inward toward God’s presence. This understanding of faith contrasts two forms: one passive and one active. The passive view sees faith as a gift to be received or grown in quantity. The active view sees faith as a dynamic process—an ongoing action in which trust and doubt intertwine and coexist. Life’s struggles are real, and faith is the means by which we navigate and make meaning out of those hardships. We live in a world often marked by aimlessness and nihilism—the fear that life lacks inherent meaning. But for those who live in faithfulness, life transcends any fixed or ultimate meaning, whether given or created. We live not because of meanings, but because life itself is greater than any meaning we assign. Meaning arises as a consequence of living faithfully rooted in God’s presence. It is an interpretation of life lived to the fullest or wasted. Life is experienced most closely and tangibly through breath. Breath is the means by which we encounter life here and now. With each breath, we carry on, training our minds by adapting the way we breathe to the circumstances we face. When we need to slow down, we breathe gently to ease tension in body and mind. When we need to press forward, we breathe in a way that is energizing yet steady, so we are not extinguished or exhausted. This practice finds its place in our silent prayers and meditation, where we rest in God’s presence. This movement of faithfulness is active, energizing, and does not seek recognition or reward. Social acknowledgment is irrelevant; what matters is perseverance—continuing to live forward faithfully in God’s presence, regardless of external validation. So, the words of the slaves in Jesus’ parable are spoken out of true freedom and humor rooted in humility, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!” In today's parable, Jesus presents us with a dishonest manager facing lay-off. Accused of squandering his employer's property, he knows his career is over. But rather than despair, he acts with remarkable strategic clarity.
The manager makes three shrewd assessments: First, he accurately recognizes his dire situation. Second, he understands that his current employer won't rehire him. Third, he realizes his best hope lies with his employer's debtors—those who might offer him future employment. Clever! His solution is ingenious: he reduces what the debtors owe, likely forgiving accumulated interest while preserving the principal. This creates goodwill without actually costing his employer money, ensuring continued cash flow. The employer, surprisingly, praises this shrewd action. What drives the manager's discernment? A single, clarifying question: "What matters most?" Facing professional death, he sees clearly. Money becomes merely a tool for securing his future, not an end in itself. This crisis reveals Jesus' deeper teaching: "If you have not been faithful with dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?... You cannot serve God and wealth." But what does faithfulness with "dishonest wealth" actually mean? Surely Jesus isn't advocating for better financial planning or stock market success. The answer lies in the manager's transformative moment of crisis. The manager's impending career death awakens him to what truly matters. This is Jesus' profound insight: the reality of death—whether literal, professional, or spiritual—strips away illusions and reveals priorities with startling clarity. Death is the great equalizer, coming to all without discrimination. Yet we often treat it as someone else's reality, not our own. As your priest, I believe we must engage more honestly with mortality—not as morbid fascination, but as a pathway to authentic living. Meditation on death need not depress us; rather, it cultivates gratitude and humility about life itself. We too easily assume our daily existence simply continues naturally, forgetting life's unpredictable turns. In meditation, we actually practice dying. We focus on breath—our most fundamental life source—while cutting away mental noise in silence. This mirrors our dying moment: facing the end of our plans and possibilities, stripped to essentials. Our Christian tradition embraces this wisdom. In Compline, which means completion, the church's final daily prayer, we use the language of sleep as death's metaphor: "Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace." The popular saying "You only live once" (YOLO) misses the mark twice. The first mistake is that we live every day, every moment—but we die only once. The second mistake which applies to us as Christians is that we not only live every day but also die every night. So that our every day and night is consisted of death and resurrection. Daily contemplation of mortality makes us faithful with "dishonest wealth"—whatever we're tempted to serve instead of God. When we truly grasp our finite nature, we naturally prioritize what matters most over what merely glitters temporarily. This practice of dying isn't meant to leave us in despair, but to prepare us for resurrection. We die daily to false securities so we might rise with Christ, discovering what it means to serve God rather than wealth, to choose eternal treasures over temporary ones. The dishonest manager, facing his crisis, chose wisely. When we face our mortality honestly, we too can choose what matters most—not just once, but every day we're given to live. Between 1 and 99, which number is greater? When I hear Jesus’ parable of the shepherd who abandons ninety-nine sheep to search for one that is lost, I confess that I worry about those left behind. What if they wander off? Who’s watching them? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to cut our losses—to let one go in order to keep the rest safe?
This concern reveals something about how I think, how we think. It operates within a particular narrative of loss and gain, risk and return—the very logic that shapes our economic reasoning. As critic Mark Fisher observed, one of capitalism’s greatest achievements is not just its dominance, but our inability to imagine alternatives. We either accept the system as inevitable or, forgetting history’s lessons, nostalgically reach for failed experiments. But Jesus operates from an entirely different narrative framework. When I calculate what’s most effective with least effort—maximizing profit while minimizing investment—those hundred sheep become mere numbers. Nameless units. One represents an acceptable loss if I can preserve the ninety-nine. This utilitarian calculus mirrors the thinking of the Pharisees and scribes in our passage, though theirs is actually worse than mine. Why worse? They don’t simply write off the lost—they actively name them as “sinners.” This act of naming carries profound power. Words don’t merely point to reality; they shape and create it. These people dining with Jesus aren’t inherently sinful by some inner essence, but the religious leaders’ narrative renders them unclean. They’re not just statistics to be discarded, but human beings labeled as failures—symptoms of systemic breakdown that the establishment would rather hide than heal. Jesus’ response is revolutionary: he renames them as God’s own beloved. Here lies the parable’s stunning reversal. In Jesus’ narrative of grace, the very act of pursuing the lost one ensures that the ninety-nine remain secure. Why? Because they know with certainty that if they themselves become lost, they too will be sought and found. The shepherd’s relentless love for the one guarantees the security of all. This parable offers us two transformative insights. First, we must learn to name gracefully. Naming is an act of creation—bringing beings into relationship with one another and with God. Our society is filled with people we’ve labeled as lost, failed, or disposable. What names do we use? How might we rename them with grace? This practice of graceful naming is fundamentally democratic work, requiring the maturity to recognize that in any healthy community, some will always be struggling, and yet we continue to support and carry one another. Second, this parable transforms our understanding of prayer and spiritual life. We discover ourselves in both roles—as the shepherd who joins God’s persistent search for the lost, and as the beloved sheep who are perpetually sought and desired by God. In prayer, we participate in divine love that never abandons anyone, while simultaneously resting in the assurance that we ourselves are never beyond the reach of that same pursuing grace. The economics of grace operates by entirely different mathematics than the systems of this world. In God’s kingdom, the value of one is never calculated against the value of ninety-nine, because love multiplies rather than divides, seeks rather than abandons, and names with grace rather than condemnation. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
October 2025
|