“God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
Leonard Bernstein, the great conductor of
the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, was once asked,
“What was the hardest instrument to play?”
And without a second of a doubt, he said,
“The second fiddle.”
He said, “I can always get somebody to play the first violin;
I cannot always get somebody to play the second violin;
if you can find someone to play that with enthusiasm is hard.
If we do not have the second fiddle then we never have any harmony.
We need the second fiddle;
it is the hardest instrument to play.”
That is emblematic of our society especially here in Silicon Valley.
Nobody wants to be second fiddle.
Everyone wants to be on top.
Furthermore, the whole of our society is driven by
being the strongest, the biggest, the fastest, the smartest.
Here in Silicon Valley that is probably on steroids.
Striving to be our best is not a bad thing in itself.
When we think it define us, it becomes problematic.
The great Fr. Thomas Merton once called it the false ego;
this idea that we are what we do;
we are what we have;
we are what we consume.
He says that is a false ego.
The true ego knows that we are a child of God.
It is who we are that matters
not what we do or what we have; or what we consume.
Thomas Merton is right.
The deeper struggle for us is that
we even bring this competitiveness into our prayer life.
We, who are good Catholics,
being here we are on a Sunday morning at Church
and those at home watching, we are striving to be good Christians
and yet we find ourselves in the same sort of
competitive environment of trying to be the best version of ourselves.
It’s almost like we believe more in
the economy of merit and sacrifice
when God’s economy is more mercy and grace.
Fundamentally, we still are tempted to believe
that we are going to earn our way to salvation;
that the better we do the better chance we have of getting into heaven.
The Church has been to blame for this partly
because we taught that way.
But eternal life is a gift.
Salvation is all a gift.
We can never merit it.
We can never earn it.
This Pharisee in today’s scripture is a good person;
this is not a bad person;
this is a person who is faithful to the scriptures;
he fasts twice a week;
he tithes his income and he prays regularly.
But his prayer is conceited.
His prayer is self-centered.
The prayer is focused on the false ego.
Because he says, “Look what I have done,” taping his chest.
I am not like them.
I’m great. I deserve salvation.
Whereas Jesus comes on and says he’s not justified at all.
The one who is justified is the one who is humble.
This tax collector would be the one
who is known to be collaborating with the occupiers.
This was despicable in their minds.
He was collecting money and taking some on the side.
Yet he is justified because he was humble;
because he didn’t claim merit.
He claimed humility.
He recognized the limitation of his own actions;
that who he was sinful,
he relied on the economy of God’s grace and mercy.
That is what we are called to do.
We are called to be humble.
I don’t want us to not strive to be our best version of ourselves;
I think we ought to strive to be the best version of ourselves
in business and in our personal lives
and also in our spiritual lives.
But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking
that is what is getting us ahead.
What is getting us ahead is that is grace;
and we ought to be grateful for the grace
that even allows us to strive for that.
Let me give you an example:
Sometimes, we have something taken away from us
before we realize that it is a grace.
This is a quick example:
I remember when I was living down in my old parish in Almaden.
I used to have to put out the trash each Thursday night.
I am sure there are children who have to take out the trash as a chore.
There were some days when I didn’t want to put out the trash
and I’m sure some of you boys and girls here can relate to that.
I would say, “Ah the trash again. Okay.
I’ve got to go out and do the trash.”
I would get frustrated and
wonder why don’t the other priests do the trash?
Why am I always doing the trash? I’m the pastor.
Why do I always have to do the trash?
Why can’t I get the other guy to do it?
But I would go out and do it.
Then one week, I hurt myself badly.
I couldn’t go out and do the trash.
Not unlike this week when I hurt my knee.
I wasn’t even able to walk to the curbside.
And I remembered the trash.
And I longed to do the trash.
Isn’t that strange?
I longed to do the trash because I longed to be able to do the trash.
Sometimes, things have to be taken away from us
before we realize what is grace.
Grace is the ability to be able to do something.
Grace is given to us; God gives us the ability to do good
so it is not because we are a better person
because we do good.
It is a grace that we do it;
and therefore, we ought to do it.
Does that make sense?
How do we get to this mindset all the time
instead of just one inspirational moment on a Sunday morning
and then we go home and forget about it?
It is the mindset that this tax collector has in prayer;
it is of humility.
One of the best ways of humility in prayer
is one of silence and listening;
that we do not fill our prayer life with all these words
telling God what to do;
how to run our lives and
more importantly how to run other people’s lives.
But instead, we say something simple:
“Oh Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
And then pause and listen to what God has to say.
One of the humbler things we can do in our prayer life
is to listen to God in the silence.
The silence is God’s primary language behind love.
Silence is how he speaks to us.
But we have to, I know it sounds funny,
but we have to listen in the silence.
And in the silence comes the wisdom
and the insight into our lives.
I hope if we can do this in our prayer life
then we can do it with one another.
We tend to fill the air with words between us;
and instead it would be better to ask a question
and let somebody else have the words;
to learn to listen to other people’s stories;
learn to listen to their pain, their struggles,
their successes, their joys;
and in doing so we become humble and
recognize the gift of God’s grace right in front of us.
Today my hope is that when we come to the table
that we recognize that we are no better off
than somebody else next to us;
and we are certainly not better off than a homeless person
or the person who drank too much, who is not here.
It is not because of merit that we are here.
It is because of grace.
It is a joy to be able to come;
to be able to be here.
Not out of merit but out of grace and mercy;
and from here, we share the joy by being humble,
listening to each other’s stories,
most of all listening to God in the silence of our heart.
“God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
