There’s a question haunting this Gospel: What happens Monday morning?

The tax collector went home justified. And then what? Did he go back to the booth, back to neglecting widows and orphans, back to the life that required putting his heart to sleep? Because the tax collector knows he’s damaging people. Daily. So what will he do this Monday?

QUICK REFERENCE

• Date: October 26, 2025
• Liturgical Season: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
• Readings:
  • First: Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18
  • Psalm: 34:2-3, 17-18, 19, 23
  • Second: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
  • Gospel: Luke 18:9-14
• Theme: Meeting God the Judge in the place you expect everyone to desert you

THE READINGS IN CONTEXT

FIRST READING: Sirach 35:12-14, 16-18

When & Where:
Written around 180 BCE by Ben Sira, a Jewish scribe in Jerusalem during a time when Jewish identity was under cultural assault. The Seleucid kings were forcing Greek customs on the people, and faithful Jews were asking: What worship does God actually hear?

What’s Happening:
Our reading is the climax of a longer reflection on true versus false worship (Sirach 34:18–35:20). Ben Sira has just finished a biting prophetic critique: you can’t exploit the poor all week and then show up at Temple with perfect sacrifices expecting divine approval. “The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked” (34:19).

Now he answers: Whose prayer DOES God hear? The widow’s. The orphan’s. Those who have been wronged. Not because they’re morally perfect, but because they have no other advocate. Their tears run down their cheeks and cry out against those who caused them to fall.

This is crucial context for the Gospel: The tax collector stands in a Temple built on the poured-out prayers of everyone he’s been oppressing. The widows and orphans whose tithes he’s been skimming have been crying out. Their tears have been piercing the clouds. And somehow, their prayers create the very conditions that allow even their oppressor to access his own heart.

Key Insight:
“The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal” (35:17). The oppressed don’t pray in vain. Their cries CREATE something—a liminal space where even the tax collector can knock on his own heart and ask if anything’s still alive.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM: Psalm 34

When & Where:
Part of Israel’s prayer tradition centering God’s attention on the vulnerable and broken.

What’s Happening:
The refrain—”The Lord hears the cry of the poor”—is the perfect echo of Sirach. It SINGS what Sirach teaches. Notice the embodied, concrete language: “brokenhearted,” “crushed in spirit,” “cry out,” “rescues.” This isn’t abstract theology. This is prayer from people who hurt.

Key Insight:
“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted” (34:18). God draws near to those who know they’re shattered. He doesn’t wait for you to get it together first. The physical proximity language matters—God STANDS BY those who can’t stand on their own.

SECOND READING: 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18

When & Where:
AD 64-67, Paul’s second Roman imprisonment— awaiting Nero’s execution order. This isn’t house arrest anymore. This is loneliness, darkness, and the certainty he won’t leave alive.

What’s Happening:
Paul uses libation imagery: “I am already being poured out” (present tense—it’s happening NOW). In ancient sacrifice, wine was poured out as the final act. Paul sees his life draining away as liturgy, as offering.

Then athletic language: “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith” (4:7). Not boasting—reporting. He’s done what he was given to do.

But here’s the gut punch: “At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf, but everyone deserted me” (4:16).

Everyone.

Abandoned.

Alone in the defendant’s chair facing Nero’s court.

And then: “But the Lord stood by me” (4:17).

Key Insight:
Paul IS the parable. He’s the before-and-after. He started as a Pharisee—proud of his education, his righteousness, his achievements, his bloodline. And he’s ending as the tax collector—aware of his limitations, poured out, having nothing left to prove, held only by God’s presence.

The transformation happened on the Damascus road—but notice what preceded it: Stephen’s blood. Paul had to walk through the gate past where Stephen was stoned. The first martyr’s prayers, his sacrifice, created the space where even the persecutor could meet Jesus. Paul’s conversion wasn’t self-generated. He was held by someone else’s suffering.

GOSPEL: Luke 18:9-14

When & Where:
Part of Luke’s “Journey to Jerusalem” (9:51-19:27)—Jesus deliberately heading toward his death. Every teaching has urgency because time is running out. This parable comes immediately after the persistent widow story (18:1-8), which ends with the question: “When the Son of Man returns, will he find faith on earth?”

So we’re in judgment territory. The Second Coming. Facing God. Being weighed.

What’s Happening:
Luke tells us Jesus’ target audience up front: “those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else” (18:9).

Two men go to the Temple. Both are there for judgment—standing before God’s presence.

The Pharisee: Admired, respected, genuinely devout. Fasts twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays when the market convenes—maximum visibility). Tithes everything meticulously. He’s not faking—he HAS impressive spiritual discipline.

But watch his prayer: “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income” (18:11-12).

His prayer is “to himself” (some translations: “about himself”). It’s a performance review. A résumé. All happening in his head—pure soul-activity, meaning-making, but isolated. Not in relationship TO God, just in the general direction of God.

The tax collector: A Jew collaborating with Roman occupiers, skimming profit, betraying his own people for money. Despised. Unclean. And he KNOWS it—everyone reminds him daily.

Watch the positioning:

• Pharisee: “took up his position” (Greek implies claiming space, staking territory)
• Tax collector: “stood off at a distance”

Watch the bodies:

• Pharisee: chest out, eyes confident, comparing himself to others
• Tax collector: “would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast”

That gesture—beating his breast—isn’t just contrition. It’s knocking. Knocking on his own heart, asking: “Are you still there? Is anything still alive under all these years of compromise?”

His prayer is four words in Greek: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

And Jesus says: “I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former” (18:14).

Key Insight:
Imagine Jesus telling this parable with his eyes on Matthew—the former tax collector sitting right there among the disciples. Matthew DID leave the booth. Matthew IS proof this transformation is possible.

The parable isn’t abstract—it’s Jesus saying: “Remember, Matthew? Remember when you stood far off, couldn’t lift your eyes? And now look—you’re here. You followed me. Something shifted.”

Because here’s what we miss: The tax collector can’t go home justified and then return to the booth Tuesday morning. It’s impossible. Once you access your heart—once you feel the widow’s tears YOUR actions caused, once you allow the knock from both directions (Jesus knocking with mercy, your heart knocking for life)—you can’t go back.

That’s why Matthew left everything.
That’s why Paul became the apostle.
That’s transformation.

THE COMMON THREAD

All three readings answer one question: Who can stand before God the Judge?

Not the self-sufficient. Not the spiritually accomplished. Not those running their soul-machines at full speed, performing righteousness, ticking boxes.

The widow whose tears run down her cheeks. The orphan with no advocate. Paul abandoned in prison. The tax collector standing far off, knocking on his own heart.

But here’s the thread we usually miss: None of them stand alone.

The tax collector’s moment of contrition is HELD by the prayers of those he oppressed. Paul’s conversion is held by Stephen’s blood. The liminal space where transformation happens—where we can access our buried hearts—is created by someone else’s suffering, someone else’s prayers piercing the clouds.

We’re saved through one another. Not just individually before God, but held in a web of prayer, suffering, and sacrifice that makes our awakening possible.

THE HUMAN REALITY

Let’s de-sanitize these characters and feel what’s actually happening in their bodies.

The Pharisee isn’t a cartoon villain. He’s exhausted. He’s been showing up faithfully for YEARS while others flake. He fasts twice a week—do YOU? He tithes on everything—do YOU? His resentment is understandable. His comparison is human.

But his very goodness has become a prison. His disciplines are ARMOR against feeling anything. Against seeing “people like that tax collector” as actual humans whose tears matter. His soul-activity runs at full speed—meaning-making, self-justification, performing—but his HEART is completely inaccessible, buried under decades of deservingness.

He can’t be helped not because he’s bad, but because he has no access to the vulnerable, shamed places in himself. He doesn’t know what’s buried there. He can’t get to it. The knock can’t happen because he won’t open the door.

The tax collector knows he’s damaging people. Daily. He sees the widow’s tears. He hears the orphan’s cry. He collects from his own neighbors, collaborates with the empire, betrays everything that matters.

He can’t fix it. He can’t undo it. He’s stuck in what feels like a choiceless life. So he’s put his heart to sleep—because you CAN’T feel that pain and keep doing it. You have to go numb to survive.

But today, for some reason—maybe it’s the widow’s prayer piercing the clouds, maybe it’s someone else’s suffering creating space—he knocks.

Beats his breast. Asks: “Are you still alive in there?”

And from wherever’s left that’s still capable of feeling, he prays four words: “God, be merciful to me.”

The phenomenological reality: Your body knows what your mind denies. The tax collector’s posture isn’t performance—it’s honest embodiment. Eyes down = shame. Distance = unworthiness. Beating breast = desperation to wake something up. This is HEART speaking, not soul. The vulnerable, unconscious place that only opens in God’s presence.

The Pharisee’s confident stance? That’s soul-armor. Defended. Protected. He’s managing his body as a TOOL for spiritual achievement, but he’s not INHABITING it. Not feeling anything real.

Paul being poured out: His soul-activity is ENDING. He can’t manage anymore. He can’t construct meaning. His body’s failing. Everyone’s deserted him. And in that utter depletion—when he has nothing left to prove—”the Lord stood by me.”

The presence is accessed through dissolution. Through having no defenses left.

BRIEF REFLECTION

There’s a question haunting this Gospel: What happens Monday morning?

The tax collector went home justified. And then what? Did he go back to the booth, back to collecting from widows and orphans, back to the life that required putting his heart to sleep?

I don’t think he could. Once you knock on your own heart and something answers—once you feel the actual human cost of your choices, the widow’s tears YOUR actions caused—you can’t go back. That’s why Matthew left everything. That’s why Paul became the apostle instead of the persecutor.

But here’s what we miss: The tax collector didn’t generate this transformation alone. He stood in a Temple built on the prayers of everyone he’d been oppressing. Their tears had been piercing the clouds, creating the liminal space where even the oppressor could access his buried heart.

We’re not saved individually before God. We’re held in a web of one another’s prayers, one another’s suffering, one another’s blood crying out.

Stephen’s martyrdom made space for Paul’s conversion.
The widow’s tears made space for the tax collector’s awakening.

Whose prayers are holding you right now in the place you think you’d be deserted?

The Lord stands by you there. Not because you deserve it. But because that’s what the Lord does.