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I would like to do a little replay of this Gospel to understand it better. I would like the people on the right side of the church to be sinners and the people on the left side to be Pharisees. I am going to tell a story, the gospel story again, using different words. When I ask you to stand, one side at a time, please stand.
One time Jesus told this story about those who considered themselves to be better than anyone else and were always comparing themselves to everyone. One time two people came to the church to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other was a public sinner. The Pharisee came to the front of the church, genuflected and then prayed to God this way (will everyone on this side of the church please stand today in this play you are the Pharisees). The Pharisees prayed in this way, “O Lord I give you thanks that I am not like everyone else. I give you thanks that I am a Catholic, that I come to Mass on Sunday, and that I am better than others. I give you thanks that I am a registered member and I am better than others. Especially I give you thanks that I am better than those sinners on the other side of the church. (Now look at those sinners on the other side of the church.) Pharisees please sit down.
Time for the sinners to pray (will everyone on this side of the church please stand), without even raising their eyes to heaven they said, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus said, “It is a shame, but the Pharisees return to their homes without grace while the sinners return to their homes full of God’s mercy.” Please be seated.
A question for us is: what was the sin of the Pharisees? There are probably good people, they are involved in the church, they go to meetings, they abstain from serious sin, but they do one thing that is very wrong. The sin they committed is that they compared themselves to others.
In a large family sorrows and heartbreak come when the children begin comparing themselves to one another. One says, “I am better than the rest of my brothers and sisters.” Or one says, “I am not as good as my brothers and sisters.” God loves and respects each one of us. God does not compare people one to another, and in the parable today Jesus asks us not to compare ourselves. Problems come when religion says, “my religion is better. I am better than you are because I belong to this religion.”
On my hand there are five fingers. Each finger is a different shape.
Each finger has different strengths. Each finger has a different size. My thumb is stronger than my little finger. One of my fingers is longer than the others, yet every finger is important on my hand. What foolishness, if my fingers have a fight amongst themselves, comparing themselves to each other and trying to decide who is better or who is worse. All of them are needed. We are all fingers on God’s hand. God needs each one of us. Each person has gifts and weaknesses. Some of the fingers on God’s hands are full of sins and troubles. Some of the fingers on God’s hands might have diseases, but each finger is important and God loves each finger equally.
We are all supposed to fit together. Let us respect each other, let us accept each other and let us not give in to the temptation of comparing ourselves to one another.
I close with this story about a person who thought he was better than anyone else.
A modern-day, self-righteous, self-appointed saint went to the doctor for a check-up. “I’m not feeling very well these days,” he said. “Please examine me thoroughly, and tell me what’s wrong.” Whereupon, the doctor began with a few questions…
“Do you drink a lot?”
“No, I never touch the stuff. I’m a teetotaler, and proud of it.”
“Do you smoke?”
“No. I’ve never gone near tobacco, and I’m proud of it.”
“What about your sleeping habits?”
“I go to bed early. While others are out carousing late at night, I’m in bed by 10:30, and I’m proud of it.”
“Well, what is your complaint at this time?”
“I have terrible pains in my head.”
“Aha! That’s your trouble. Your halo is on too tight!”

And elderly couple, John and Mary, was driving through their small town. They stopped at a red light behind another car. In the car ahead of them was a young couple – much younger, and things were a little different in that car. The young man was driving and the young woman was sitting right next to him, snuggled up close. They were even smooching!

Mary looked longingly at the young couple and sighed. She remembered the days when she and John had been just like that young couple. She looked over at John and just shook her head. Finally she said, “John, you see that young couple up ahead? Why don’t we do that anymore?”

John looked over at his wife, smiled and said, “Well, Mary, I haven’t moved!”

There are many images in the Bible that the prophets and evangelists and Jesus used to describe the relationship between God and his people: vine and branches, vine grower and vine, shepherd and sheep, king and subjects. But the ultimate one is that of the Bridegroom and his Bride.

The intimacy between a bridegroom and bride is the closest thing that God could find in our human experience to describe what is possible between us and God. It describes the surprising, almost shocking intimacy that God desires with us. Isaiah wrote, “As a young man marries a virgin, so shall your builder marry you; and as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride so shall your God rejoice in you.” (Is. 62:5)

Jesus is the Bridegroom and we the Church are his bride. Now that can seem a little weird for us guys – but relax! It’s just a metaphor! Jesus is just telling us that what he really wants is intimacy with us. It’s a unique intimacy that goes even beyond that which a husband and wife experience, but marriage is still the closest thing that we have in human relationships.

Now back to John and Mary, still sitting at the stoplight. We have to ask ourselves, is our intimacy with God like the first couple, snuggled up close, or more like John and Mary? Are we in the same car, sharing life with God, but just not that close, maybe even alienated?

Well, like John, God hasn’t moved! We are as close to God as we choose to be, and sometimes that’s not too close.

But think about that: we are as close to God as we choose to be. God is ready to be fully intimate with us, “as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride…”, but we avoid intimacy. We allow things to come between us and God, especially lies, like “God is angry with me, God doesn’t like me, I’m not good enough for God, my sins disqualify me.” We allow things to pull us away from God, like our many addictions – alcohol, drugs, television, busyness, wrong relationships, possessions.

A relationship with God is not really possible without prayer. And certainly intimacy with God won’t happen without it. Prayer is our movement toward God. It’s when we choose to move away from other things and slide over there and snuggle up with God.

There are many types of prayer, but basically they all boil down to three kinds: talking to God, listening to God, and being with God – just like intimate couples do. In an intimate relationship we spend time talking to our partner, sharing both the big things and the little things. And we spend time listening to our partner, getting to know them more and more deeply as we hear what’s going on in them. And sometimes we move beyond words and simply commune in being together in a very rich and profound silence.

We should be in the habit of talking to God throughout the day, noticing all the little and big blessings that God is giving us, and thanking God for them. When we’re facing some difficulty and we feel we’re going to fail, we can simply ask God to help us. This is especially important when we have to be with people that we don’t like to be around or when we have to do things that we don’t want to do.

In our Gospel today Jesus also tells us that we should be constantly asking God for justice for those who suffer injustice. He promises us that God will answer our prayers for justice. Justice – making things right for people – is what God is all about. Our prayers for justice bring us closer to the heart of God.

And we should often simply rest in God, God, as St. Paul writes, “in whom we live and move and have our being.” When we find ourselves with a few moments, we can choose to spend them in communion with God.

You know, one of the reasons that we come to mass is to “go to communion.” That’s an interesting expression, isn’t it? To go to communion. We choose to move towards communion with God. It’s a wonderful thing, but sometimes we’re not very conscious about it. We may go through the motions of going to communion, but our hearts and minds are far from communion with God. Perhaps we can practice being more conscious about it, beginning today. And we can go to spiritual communion with God whenever we want, whenever we choose to open our heart and mind to God and move toward him.

Intimacy, whether it’s with God or with another human being, doesn’t happen automatically. It requires desire, commitment, consistency, effort and sacrifice. It also requires mutuality – both people have to want it and work at it. While this doesn’t always work out with other human beings, it can always work out with God if we want it to, because God always wants it to.

Finally, in exhorting us to pray and never give up praying, Jesus mentions faith: “But when the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?” Jesus knows that faith cannot exist without prayer. Without prayer and the intimacy that comes from consistent prayer, faith will weaken, and even die. So Jesus exhorts us to pray, that our faith in him will be strong and grow even stronger. Then we will be able to assure him with confidence: “Yes, Lord. When you return, you will find faith, for you will find me.”

So let us recommit ourselves to the practices of daily prayer, so that we may enjoy the intimacy with God that God so desires with us.

There was once a stonecutter who was very happy with his life and work. He had a wonderful family whom he loved; he made a good living cutting and preparing stone for beautiful buildings.
Then one day he delivered a piece of stone to a merchant. The merchant owned many lavish possessions. The stonecutter began to feel he was missing out on something in his life. “I wish I were a merchant with such fine things,” the stonecutter thought to himself.
Amazingly, the stonecutter’s wish came to be. Suddenly he was a merchant who wore fancy clothes and lived in a beautiful home. His shop was filled with ornate trinkets and fine goods. The onetime stonecutter thought that life couldn’t get any better – until he saw the prince passing through town.
Then he began thinking that to be of noble birth would be much better than being a simple merchant. And so it came to be: He found himself dressed in royal garb, sitting atop a fine stallion, parading through the village. But under the hot sun and heavy clothing, he grew weary and cranky.
The stonecutter-merchant-prince thought that if he were the sun, he could have a profound effect on the entire universe. So he became the sun. And it was wonderful – until a cloud blocked his rays from getting to the land.
So he wished he could be a cloud to bring rain to water the earth. And so he became a cloud. He found himself looming over a desolate mountain valley. He showered the area day and night, creating lakes and rivers. In time, springs of life began to sprout up on the landscape. But the mountain itself remained immovable and unchanged. It was solid and more powerful than his cloud.
So the cloud wanted, instead to be the mountain. And so he became the mountain. For a while the mountain was happy to be such a powerful presence – until a young stonecutter came along and began to chisel away at him.
And the mountain wished to be a stonecutter again.
Some of us never know that moment of realization experienced by the grateful leper: we never realize how much we have received from God. Instead, we whine about what we do not have; we are mired in disappointment because they have more than me. We become cynical, distrustful, isolated and self-absorbed. As the Samaritan leper discovers, as the stonecutter eventually comes to understand, each one of us has been given much by God, and realizing those gifts, that spirit of gratitude, is the beginning of faith.
Rabbi Herald S. Kushner writing in his latest book, The Lord is My Shepherd: Healing Wisdom of the 23rd Psalm, reminds us that gratitude is a conscious and intentional perspective of looking at our lives and our world.
“Each night as I prepare for bed, I put drops in my eyes to fend off the threat of glaucoma that would rob me of my sight and take from me the pleasure of reading. Each morning at breakfast, I take a pill to control by blood pressure, and each evening at dinner I take another to lower my cholesterol level. But instead of lamenting the ailments that come with growing older, instead of wishing that I were as young and fit as I once was, I take my medicine with a prayer of thanks that modern science has found ways to help me cope with these ailments. I think of all my ancestors who didn’t live long enough to develop the complications of old age, and did not have pills to take when they did.”
Gratitude is a conscious and intentional perspective of looking at our lives and our world. Gratitude is the beginning of faith. Let us be a grateful people.