Homily for the Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C) October 26, 2025
The following transcript of the homily is in the original formatting that was used for the sake of live delivery with all cues, emphasis, and notes included.
Readings for Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year C)
- 1st Reading: Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18
- 2nd Reading: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
- Gospel: Luke 18:9-14 [Focus of Homily]
Transcript:
“The Pharisee spoke this prayer to himself: ‘’O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity.’ But the tax collector beat his breast and prayed: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’” Words from the Gospel According to Luke.
In the Name of the Father + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This past week I enjoyed some time away.
And during my time off I was doing a lot of one of my favorite activities: chillin’.
During my chill time I discovered an interesting page on Facebook.
This page is run by the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office in Florence, Arizona, and they have a weekly show called “Fridays with Frank”.
The host of the show is Deputy Sheriff Frank Sloup, and his whole law enforcement job is to police the traffic laws in Pinal County.
The show follows him as he engages with real-life traffic stops, and that’s about it. That’s the whole show.
Pretty simple – the perfect type of entertainment for chill time.
(This is what your associate pastor does on his time off, apparently).
But, anyway, yeah, he meets all sorts of characters on the mean streets of Pinal County doing traffic stops, but most of them kind of get stopped and ticketed for the same grab bag of violations:
– 20, 30, sometimes even 40 miles over the speed limit
Which leads to the discovery of other violations:
– No seat belt on,
– Suspended or no driver’s license at all,
– Expired registration,
– No insurance,
– Sometimes even a random warrant for arrest in a different county is discovered.
Plus, they can’t seem to find the right documents even if they do have something in the car to show Deputy Frank.
– Old receipts from Wal-Mart all in the car, McDonald’s wrappers with Big Mac stains still on them, and even expired registration cards.
– Everything but the few things the cop actually cares about.
Different car, different driver, but the same thing over and over – with the same excuses, too.
Then I begin to think to myself: “Do I got my crap together?”
I check my Tennessee driver’s license – alright, good, I got 2 more years.
Is my insurance paid? – alright, good, they just took the $99 out of my account.
I’m pretty sure my registration is good and is in my glove box along with my proof of “financial responsibility.” (Watching the show, I learned that means “insurance”)
I’m out on the road. Let me check the speed limit.
Yep! 55 in a 55. Not getting stopped today!
Plus, I know where all my documents are at, homie.
Mind you, I’m not trying to get stopped.
That’s the last thing I want out here.
But if I do, I am ready for ol’ Deputy Frank! (Not really ready for that ticket, tho.)
With all that in check, I sit back and watch “Fridays with Frank” in peace on a Monday, if I want too.
So, you know, as I’m watching I can start feeling pretty good about myself.
And then there’s a certain temptation that sneaks in.
If you’ve ever watched the TV show “Cops”, then you know what I’m talking about, and it comes in the form of thoughts that start creeping in:
“I’m glad I’m not like them.”
“I got my stuff together.”
“O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of the drivers on the road – speeding, law breaking, uninsured – or even like this guy that’s getting stopped on ‘Fridays with Frank’ right now. I stop at all stop signs, and I pay the insurance company on my whole income.”
Mind you, again – I am on the side of the people getting stopped insofar as I hope Deputy Frank lets most of them go off with a warning.
But then I remember the couple of times I got stopped a handful of times several years back with my old car with the back lights that were always out.
I got warnings too – all the way up to that one cop.
That one cop who gave me a ticket on the very day I was leaving to go back to seminary for the year.
Only then did I actually spend time replacing the old circuit board and mess with the old wiring to get the lights working again in order to get out of that fix-it ticket.
– Never got stopped again.
But regardless, I was one of the so-called “them”.
I could have been on “Fridays with Frank” if this was Pinal County, Arizona,
Or if there was a guy with a camera.
And I can always be a step away from not having my stuff together one day through my own fault.
But even if I’m never on “Fridays with Frank” on Facebook,
– because of my sins and shortcomings I am always on “Days-Ending-In-Y with Jesus” in the spiritual life.
As a sinner, I have committed many violations that have had me pulled over after making a wrong turn on to the broad way that leads to destruction,
Especially, when I should have kept right on the narrow way that leads to life.
I’ve done my time in the holding cell of the confessional.
I’ve been a familiar face before the Judge who is just but full of mercy.
And as long as I simply stated my wrongdoing and said:
“O God be merciful to me a sinner”
He has always unlocked the door, threw off my chains, and sent me home justified
– Every time.
But don’t ever think I can, like the Pharisee in the gospel, hold up my collar like it’s some sort of holy driver’s license to the Lord, and think I have it all good.
Don’t think I can parade my good deeds before Goodness itself and say “thank you God that I am not like them on the other side of the confessional”,
For after you are done, I, too, must step to the other side and take your place.
For none of us should ever place our trust in the deceitful words: “I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity” for we ARE the rest!
And don’t commit the mistake of thinking “they not like us” like this is a Kendrick Lamar rap song.
The problem with the Pharisee,
(besides the fact that even when talking to God he addresses the prayer mainly to himself),
Is that any good that he actually had done up to that point would be overshadowed by the chief fault of his pride, and all his good works would count for nothing.
He could have had the lion’s share of all the virtues, but since he lacked the virtue of humility – it is as if he possessed no virtue at all.
He could have had all his good deeds strung from his neck and flashing like the lights on Deputy Frank’s police car with a sign that said:
“God’s blessings please park here.”
But the Pharisee would be humbled for presuming that all his adherence to traditional forms of piety was an automatic guarantee of divine blessings as he overlooked the blessing he needed before all else – God’s mercy.
God is the one who justifies, but if someone comes to God believing he or she is already justified, then there is no justification that could ever be truly accepted.
– And he who is not justified cannot obtain mercy
– For, spurning the need for mercy also spurns all justification that could ever flow from that mercy.
But there is one thing we cannot overlook ourselves.
There is a trap that we can fall into every time we hear this parable.
Like the Pharisee, we can end up saying: “O God, I thank you that I am not like the Pharisee.”
“I go to Mass every week and say ‘Lord have mercy’”
“I go to confession say: ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’”
“I always do my penance. Plus, I fast on Fridays in Lent.”
“I’m good. So let me take my place with the tax collector in the story.
In fact, because of my outward show of repentance, I deserve that spot practically.”
If we think like this, are we really “not like the Pharisee”?
Or do we become Pharisees ourselves and still not come close to being the tax collector.”
Do we still end up standing tall over the tax collector when we think in our minds that we are really low to the ground like him?
We must ponder and accept that sometimes, yes, we can be like the tax collector,
But we can easily become the Pharisee in the parable as well without knowing it.
We must instead see ourselves in both so that we do not make the mistake of fooling ourselves in thinking we have never or could never be both
– especially as religious people.
And so, to end, we must take the words of St. Therese of Lisieux to be our own words. [1]
Before the God who made everything – we come with nothing!
Before the God who gave us everything – we come with nothing that we can return to him.
For, even if we have good deeds, we must never string them around our neck as if we did them on our own.
Instead we must pray for the grace to come before God at the end of our lives with NOTHING of ourselves that we can show to God.
We must pray for the grace of coming before God with NOTHING of this world that we can give to Him who already has everything.
Instead may our hands be hollowed out like our Savior’s hands were hollowed out by the nails of the Cross so that we can lift them up and say to the Father and say: “HALLOWED BY THY NAME!”
Let all the goods of this words fall through the holes in our hands so that we grab on to Christ alone, and say: ‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner’,
And go to our heavenly home – HUMBLED and yet JUSTIFIED!
In the Name of the Father + the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Given at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Hendersonville, TN.
[1] “After earth’s exile, I hope to go and enjoy you in the fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for your love alone…. In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church no. 2011 quoting St. Therese of Lisieux, “Act of Offering” in Story of a Soul, tr. John Clarke (Washington Dc: ICS, 1981), 277.)