What a good Christian I am
Preacher: His Excellency Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti
Readings: 2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18; Luke 18: 9-14
It is very interesting to observe where we choose to place ourselves when we enter into a church and why. From this we can often understand our relationship with faith and with God. We sometimes stand far from the place of prayer, and then we are invited to come closer. I wonder why? Do we not feel fully part of the assembly? Or are we afraid that we will be judged presumptuous and proud, and so we prefer to remain in the shadows?
One of the reasons, is society. It is difficult for us to immediately rush ahead and rise to the top. But this does not happen to the Pharisee in the parable. He immediately runs ahead, because he has to tell God about all his good deeds.
You see, this happens especially in situations where being a religious person is also a social advantage; maybe some of you come from countries where some religions are still marked by a certain sense of belonging and also reward. However, we do not live in a world in which being ‘religious’ is a reason to be esteemed. On the contrary. Society, the media, portray the religious person as strange, a little bit awkward, a conformist, not very critical, not very free, tied to old and no longer valid norms and above all of minorities, which is the new “logos”, the new word of our society.
This is why Jesus’ parable must be adapted to our times. ‘Coming to this church’ does not mean to be applauded by people – probably not. One hardly goes to church to boast. Those who go to church are really seekers of God, pilgrims towards a goal of peace, serenity, love.
Yet the content of the parable is still very valid. It refers to our ego. There are those who have an immense ego, a swollen ego, and consider themselves the centre of the world, the criterion of truth: what I think, the way I live is the only right, correct way. All others are inferior beings, who have not understood or who do not have the strength to be consistent with their own (i.e. our) ideas.
So, the danger of being judgemental is still very present and it is very present also in the Western part of the world. We always think we have something to export. When I lived in the Eastern countries, I always received various delegations and they came showing local people great tenderness, that they were fond of these people, they even read in Wikipedia to know what happened there in history, what the financial situation is which is much more important at present. So, they tend to be nice with the local authorities, but then the point arrives: ‘we love you, we appreciate you, we esteem you, but please do the way we say.’ And all of a sudden you realise that in the Parliament there appears some drafts of laws that are completely inconceivable for the local people, but this is given in exchange for the money they receive. This is the condition: ‘do you want our money? Then approve the law, because this is a law of civilisation. You tend to be still barbarians, so now we come and teach you the way you have to behave if you want to be serious people.’
This is the risk of the Pharisee. It is not so much the problem of going to church but the problem of telling the others the way they have to behave. It is more a social problem than a religious one.
The fact that religion does not give social prestige today, helps us by this very fact, not to cultivate this feeling. But then we run the risk of falling into a second attitude: that of those who despise themselves, who do not esteem themselves, who heap the negative looks of people on themselves. Sometimes this leads us to lose faith. We perceive that perhaps the others are correct, they are right, and we, the Church, are an institution which is absolutely obsolete. And this losing faith is a more frequent risk today than boasting because one has it.
Many of you are young and this is for you a very strong risk. You know that we, the clergy, in general speak to those that come to church in order to score the absent ones, but I don’t want to scold you at all, and I don’t want to speak to the others, but I want to speak to you and say thank you for being here, in spite of the pressure, in spite of a certain kind of ‘rejection’ from maybe your university fellows or your friends. It is very important that you keep the roots and the reason why you are here. Otherwise, step by step, you will come to lose the sense of your being Christians.
Jesus does not give us the guarantee of being perfect. By the way, people who think they are perfect are terribly tiresome. If we were perfect, we would not need to be saved. But we Christians are definitely saved. To be saved is the very reason of being Christian. We are saved because we are deeply, tenderly, personally loved by God.
We do not present ourselves before God as full of our merits (and it is a Catholic that says that); we are conscious of our weaknesses, but not sad for that. We are not a creature that moves around with the perception that we are a living and moving failure. The world insists on pointing out to us, and reproaches us frequently that we are inconsistent, and maybe rightly so, perhaps even losers in life, with respect to success, career, and wealth, the new trinity of the modern world.
If the status quo does not exalt those who believe in God, it makes us similar to the publican, who is aware of only one thing: that he is poor and fragile and has only one chance in life: that of being forgiven, supported, sustained by God and his love.
You see the reason why we smile: that we are sure that we are supported, sustained, and loved by God. And this is the reason why we are not wanderers, looking for the nearest pub in which to just ingest something that makes us feel more comfortable with life.
How strange this world is! We are in a great world crisis, on the brink of war, in a humanity laden with misery and hunger. And yet, instead of living united, as we are now such a small flock of Christians. We forget that we may change the world, because in the beginning the flock was even smaller, but they conquered the world, unfortunately also military but mainly spiritually. So being united is the only possible answer because what unites us is overwhelmingly more than what divides us. Instead of being together united in the common search for a fraternity that would make this world fairer, more beautiful in the eyes of God who created it and entrusted it to us, we retain our prejudices and hurl condemnations and rejections as if they were weapons against others.
We Christians learn to know each other and love each other – it is not difficult. It is much more of a cultural problem than a religious problem. I lived with the Orthodox and I can assure you it is very interesting how I am here, with my brothers, belonging to the reform, in one way or another with different nuances, but we understand each other. I spent my life studying the Orthodox tradition – difficult, very difficult – and not because they are Orthodox but because they are oriental. They belong to a different way of conceiving life – a very interesting one. Maybe sometimes they can speak more easily with Muslims than with Western Christians. This is civilisation, where state, culture, religion is the same thing. We knew it in Europe quite well up until not many centuries ago.
Today, believing in God means that we are particularly conscious that our lives will have an end in death and that the resurrection is never the fruit of our achievements.
Do you know that you will die? I say this because it is difficult to think of it when you are very young. Death is something that seems very remote, but we know that we will all die, and I will die earlier than you probably. We are not and will never be immortal because we alone can conquer death. We will only be eternal because God has willed it so, and because evil will not be able to have the last word in our lives.
This is our hope because it is a certainty. Christians use the word ‘hope’ in a double-phrased meaning. St Paul is difficult to be translated into our modern languages because he frequently uses the word ‘hope’ but not in the sense that, for example ‘I hope it will not rain today.’ When he says, ‘I hope’, he says ‘I am sure it is like that’, ‘my hope is my certainty’. So, we have to revise the philology in our interpretation of the word ‘hope’.
Dear friends, today we are called, like the publican, to be the voice of humanity that cries out for help for everybody. We are not the examples for anybody, we are not the best, just because wealth has given us more means. God gives and takes away. Look at the history of humanity. A country that was absolutely outstanding, famous, an Empire, disappears. And another group of people, who seemed completely irrelevant in history became an extraordinary power. Think of the Roman Empire, we have the others whom we call the barbarians who became Christians and took over the heritage of Rome when it disappeared. So, nobody writes that we are eternal as a culture or as a dominant culture.
Being Christians keeps us humble and makes us lend our voice to those who cry out for justice, to be respected in their rights, to be loved, and not crushed.
Do you think we perceive this vocation in our life? That you are the voice of the voice-less? Exactly! Because you are in a university, your brain is open, your mind is capable of a general approach to the world, you become the voice of justice. And this happens because whatever their cry is, we collect it and present it to the Lord.
If we think of God when we have this attitude, we will go home justified. Whereas all those who display wealth and power, who trust in themselves and their own rules, cultures, achievements, will not be heard by the Lord.
It is a difficult logic, often contradictory to what society thinks. But if this were not the only right rule, God would not have emptied Himself, would not have taken upon Himself in Christ our toil of living, would not have offered it out of love to the last drop of his blood. What a strange God, a crucified God – it doesn’t sound very nice to many other religions, because it is the religion of failure and a religion must be a religion of success. A few people had the opportunity of seeing Jesus risen from the dead, for them, it is a triumph, but it is a triumph that always passes through the cross.
Dear friends, God is not a magician, nor a juggler who amazed the world with miracles. Miracles happen of course, but it is very difficult to discover them. We are the followers of a God, to whom we approach saying: ‘have mercy on this sinful humanity, you who love humanity even in its imperfections and weaknesses’.