Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18 2^nd Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18 Luke 18:9-14

We make a great mistake to automatically equate the idea of “justice” with “fairness.” The justice we attribute to God is one in which everyone has necessary needs fulfilled and no one has to do without because of another’s selfishness, thoughtlessness or accident. God’s desire is presumed to be that we share the blessings we’ve received with any and all who have received less than necessary, especially if we have received more than sufficiently ourselves. So, sometimes fairness is indeed justice; sometimes justice requires unfairness to provide for the necessity of human dignity. For whatever reason, we embrace fairness rather easily; justice we find frightening and off-putting, possibly because it demands that we engage thoughtfully and very possibly change radically that with which we have become comfortable.

But, we are not mean or hateful people by nature, so what impedes us from being joyfully generous to others in need? Let me propose two (there are likely more) reasons. The first is that upon being blessed, it is tempting to begin to think that “I deserved” the blessing. Yet, God blesses freely, joyfully, generously and because of Divine Love. God’s blessing is bestowed on me not because I’ve earned it or deserved it otherwise. God is good first; I am blessed because of God’s goodness. Secondly, upon being blessed after having expended some energy and effort at being virtuous, we might, by comparison and contrast, come to believe that the poor have not worked sufficiently hard to move themselves out of poverty as we seem to have done. The idea is planted that since I am blessed, God must favor me. Since those others are poor, they must be in disfavor with God and thus, they have somehow chosen their impoverished lot. Such a simplistic moral equation is actually very arrogant, judgmental, condemnatory – and wrong. Today’s parable against self-righteousness in Luke’s Gospel is about these two ideas as often lived by and among us who are believing Christians in the 21^st Christian Century. To the extent that we are self-righteous (i.e., that we rationalize and justify ourselves in order to protect or defend our power, possessions and position) over against others who might benefit by sharing in our blessedness, we are actively working against the Gospel of Jesus. The first step to genuine justification (another word for “righteousness” which translates more effectively as “being made worthy” by God) is to admit our fundamentally imperfect state and situation. Our daily opening prayer might well be, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” This line of humble admission of membership in the human race is not equating the speaker with the worst of the career criminal class, but rather merely starting at the very beginning a profound and constructive Gospel insight into one’s own self. Don’t forget, the Church only admits sinners into membership. If you are already perfect, chances are you don’t need the Gospel or the Church!

Today’s passage from Sirach is a confident assertion that God is just. Sometimes we attribute fairness to Divine Wisdom. Sometimes we attribute a compassionate and just bias for the underdog, the needy, the poor, to this God who will be described as “God is love” only a few centuries after Sirach writes. The confidence expressed in this text is difficult to believe absolutely because it certainly appears to many that God’s Wisdom is much too silent, excessively slow and often too late in the midst of many crises in human history. But, this is not a dogmatic description of the Unknowable Divine Mystery. Rather, Sirach has made a profession of complete and humble faith in this God who has so often saved the Jewish People, who still saved in Sirach’s day, and who (he was confident) would continue to save further in the future. Hence, from a later Christian perspective, Sirach was a prophetic herald of the Gospel yet to come.

Paul’s words in today’s second reading continue prophetic exhortation as well. In last week’s installment he commanded Timothy to preach the Word of God faithfully, “whether convenient or inconvenient.” That was not merely an instruction to keep talking about the Gospel, but rather that Timothy do much more, that he engage life fully and energetically at every level. In today’s text, Paul imagined that the end of his earthly apostolic life was drawing near. He believed that he had been faithful and done well, even as he counseled that Timothy continue on regardless of discouragements. He looked forward to what his imagination metaphorically described as ultimate salvation, “the crown of righteousness.” That was a description of what he believed “heaven” to be. Indeed, each of us individually and by way of our various religious cultures, has some religious imagination. None of us has yet much by way of accurate detailed information about “heaven” other than it means to finally meet and be with God. So your imagination might be just as encouraging to you as Paul’s was to him. It is that imagination which elaborates and strengthens the confidence which we heard from Sirach, and which allows for Gospel justice to tease us into living lives of joyful and generous care for each other, especially for those needier than we.