“Long Robes, Long Prayers”
11 November 2012
Proper 27B
Homily preached at Trinity Episcopal Church
Ashland, Oregon
8:00 a.m. spoken Mass, 10:00 a.m. Sung Mass
"Teaching
in the temple, Jesus said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around
in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have
the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour
widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will
receive the greater condemnation."
He
sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the
treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two
small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and
said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all
those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed
out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she
had, all she had to live on." (Mark 12:38-44)
God, take away our hearts of stone, and
give us hearts of flesh. Amen
I remember the moment
when I, as a young man, lost my idealism about the U.S. system of government. I was a Ph.D. student at Catholic University
in Washington, D.C., and worked nights sorting Congressional mail to help pay
the bills for our growing family. I
worked in the House Post Office as a patronage employee, and I needed that job
so I could go to classes during the day.
One night, I inadvertently witnessed a medical emergency involving a
federal crime. I called 911, but by the
time the medical team arrived, the evidence of the crime—the drug works
scattered about the men’s room floor and the hypodermic dangling from an
unconscious co-worker’s arm—had been cleaned up, evidently by one of my
co-workers while I called the emergency responders. At the end of the shift, I was told to wait.
The House Postmaster wanted to talk with me.
He asked me what happened, and I told him. And then he told me that I had only seen my
coworker unconscious, but that there had been no drug works or needles. If I were questioned by the capitol police,
he said, I was to leave out any mention of these because they simply had not
existed.
I looked at him in
shock. I had no intention of perjuring myself. “There are bigger issues here,
sir. We’ve got to get this guy help for
his addiction. You can’t suppress this just
to maintain appearances.” And then he
said, with complete conviction, “Tony, don’t be naïve. The
only thing that matters is appearances. The hospitalized guy is the son of a key
majority staffer and is under the direct patronage of the Speaker of the
House. If you say anything that would
embarrass him or cause political problems, I will make sure you lose your job
and never work again in D.C.”
“The only thing that matters is
appearances.” With those words, the scales fell from my eyes and I saw how corrupt and self-serving much of Washington life was. I
happily did not lose my job. The Postmaster saw to it that I was never
questioned about the matter. It would
take several years before I regained some trust in the system. This very Postmaster was implicated in a
great embezzlement scandal. He and his
office staff were sent to federal penitentiaries for long sentences.
“The only thing that matters is
appearances.” This cynical take on the world is
common enough, and is what today’s Gospel reading is about. Jesus criticizes those who specialize in
religious law, who desire “to walk about in long robes (think: tailored suits,
name brand accessories), to be greeted with respect in the marketplace
(presumably where anything can be bought for a price), to have the best seats
in houses of worship (that is, those most front and center, where everyone can
see you), and seats in banquets held in honor of them.” Jesus adds that the menus at such banquets of
honor include something other than food:
“they devour the houses of widows.” And then he gives the real reason for their piety and worship,
the long prayers that go with their long robes, “they do it all for appearance’
sake.” While they appear to be buying
influence, honor, power, and the respect of others, he concludes, all they
really are buying is “more and more condemnation.”
“The only thing that matters is
appearances.” This is not the same thing as having a
decent respect for the opinion that others may have of you and being open to
their suggestions and correction. There
are many, many things more important than appearances. Integrity, honesty, kindness, assistance and
love are values in and of themselves, wholly apart from appearances. These higher values are only cheapened and
demeaned if they are put into the service of trying to gain the approbation of
others.
The difference
between merely keeping up appearances and actually doing the right and
honorable thing is this—keeping up appearances is done to control others, to manipulate
them. It objectifies them and in the process
separates you from them, no matter how much closer to you they may seem. Being open to the impressions of others is
an act of community, and brings you closer to them.
I have to admit that
there is a certain allure to embracing “image management.” I grew up wanting
the approval of my parents, my teachers, my sisters and brothers, and my
classmates. I based my good view of
myself on the view that others had of me, and so I was always hungry for
approbation, praise, and applause. Good
grades, admiring comments, ego strokes.
By the time I was a young adult, I was very much a people pleaser.
My run in with the
Postmaster forced me to reconsider my people-pleasing ways. In the end, I realized that what other people
think of me is, strictly speaking, none of my business. But this did not come quickly.
Just after this I
became a practitioner of public diplomacy for the U.S. My job was to mold public opinion overseas in
the favor of my country, through press relations or through cultural, educational,
or professional exchanges. I had to
advance my career as a Foreign Service officer through maintaining my
supervisors’ and colleagues’ good opinion of me and my work.
I learned that
openness, honesty and effectiveness were great tools in managing the opinions
of others. But when I treated these qualities simply as
tools for making a good impression, in reality they became increasingly
impossible to reach.
In Lincoln’s famous
phrase, you cannot fool all the people all the time. Well, you can’t please all the people all the
time either. If your self-esteem is
based on praise from others, you will be doomed to always feeling like a fraud,
always having to catch up or cover up, never at peace, always struggling to
manipulate your image and spin things.
Jesus in the Gospel
today says that such manipulation of
others goes hand in hand with exploitation
of others. What the scribes are
eating at their feast of honor is actually the houses of widows.
Jesus juxtaposes this
image of alienation and oppression with the view of a poor widow giving her
last penny to the temple treasury.
We are in Stewardship
pledge season, and the temptation is always to preach this text as an example
Jesus gave us to follow—the Widow’s Mite, the great example to us. She gave her last penny, and so we should be
willing also to give until it hurts. But
that is decidedly not what Jesus is
getting at here.
His point is that
this poor woman is so controlled and brain-washed by the teaching of the
scribes—those ultimate image managers, those complete maintainers of
appearances, those devourers of widows’ houses—that she gives willingly all her livelihood while those who
oppress her give only a tiny portion of their abundance.
In a world where “all
that matters is appearances,” the widow’s mite is laughable in comparison with
the lordly sums of the scribes’ contributions.
As things really are, her contribution is greater than all of
theirs. She sacrificed while they did
not.
The contrast is very
much like that in Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector—both go
and pray, but the Pharisee thanks God (loudly, for an audience) that he is not
a sinner like all those about him and that he gives all sorts of devotions and
money to the Temple. The Tax Collector
stands off by himself, can’t even bring himself to lift his eyes, and prays, ‘Have
mercy on me, a sinner.’ The Tax
Collector, says Jesus, went away from the Temple closer to God, while the
Pharisee left further away.
The Widow’s Mite, if
applied to Stewardship campaigns, if anything, talks about the Church’s
responsibility to be open in its accounts, responsible in its use of
contributions, and fixed on the task of helping and standing with the poor and
the oppressed.
It also talks about the
real issue at heart in our giving to the Church.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT APPEARANCES. It
is not about trying to impress others, or gain control over them. It is not about soothing a bad conscience or
boosting a bad self-image by doing one more great, praiseworthy act. It is not about people pleasing, or even
God-pleasing.
It is about true
honor, not the honor we gain from the praise of others. It is about offering true meals to the
hungry, not about meals where we impress others and receive their praise. It is about real prayer, not prayer to
impress.
Our giving to the
Church must come from a thankful heart, a vision that the Church’s ministry is
God’s work, and a sense that all that we enjoy comes as a free gift from the
parent of us all.
Some of us tithe, or
pay a tenth of our increase, as a way of trying to avoid being like the scribes
whose offerings, though great, were less that the Widow’s penny. Presumably she would only have paid a tenth
of that penny coin.
Don’t let scruples
get in your way here. “If I gave that much, it would only be because I am
trying to impress someone.” Remember the
words of St. Julian of Norwich when she doubted that she should do something
because she might have unworthy motives in doing it. She said God told her, “Do
the right thing, and I will redeem your motives.”
Our giving to the
Church must be an act of community, where we draw nearer to our sisters and
brothers, not an act of competition or objectification, where we draw away from
them. It must be an act where we take
responsibility for God’s work, not where we try to take control.
When all is said and
done, it is about faith. John Wesley
famously used to inquire into the spiritual health of the faith communities he
had founded when he would visit them. A
regular question he would ask, to help them determine the quality of their
faith was this: has your faith affected
your pockets? If it hasn’t, then it probably is weak and
feeble.
This week, please
pray and consider where you are perhaps like my Postmaster—do you ever act as
if the only thing that matters is appearances?
If so, just have faith and drop that burden. Stop that particular rat race. Get up off your knees from that particular
idol. You’ll be much, much happier.
Also, if you have not
already done so, take a good hour or so and consider your obligations to the
Church. Give not to impress anyone, and
least not to impress yourself. Make a
pledge that adequately expresses your thanks and gratitude, one that will
require sacrifice from you. If it is not
big enough to cause you to simplify your life and wonder about your financial
wisdom, it probably is not big enough to express real gratitude, thanks, and
faith. But this is between you and
God. It is not for appearances.
In the name of Christ, Amen.
