{"id":3474,"date":"2007-11-25T13:56:06","date_gmt":"2007-11-25T18:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2007\/11\/25\/the-parable-of-the-pharisee-and-the-pharisee\/"},"modified":"2007-11-25T13:56:06","modified_gmt":"2007-11-25T18:56:06","slug":"the-parable-of-the-pharisee-and-the-pharisee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2007\/11\/the-parable-of-the-pharisee-and-the-pharisee\/","title":{"rendered":"The Parable of the Pharisee and the Pharisee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week Archbishop John C. Nienstedt
\nwrote a column called Four points on the church’s teaching about
\nhomosexuality<\/a> that was a
\nresponse to his denying permission for  Carol Curoe and her
\nfather to speak at the Church of St. Francis Cabrini in Minneapolis on
\ntheir book “Are There Closets in Heaven?; A Catholic Father and Lesbian
\nDaughter Share their Story.”  His column met with the normal
\noutcry from both secular quarters and those within the Church who
\ndissent from the Church’s teaching on human sexuality.<\/p>\n

A reader sent me a text from a homily
\nfrom Father Leo Tibesar who is the priest of this parish and has
\ndecided to use his homily to score points on this issue. <\/span>
\n <\/p>\n

What would Jesus say today if he were
\ntelling the parable in our Gospel
\nof Luke?
\n 
\n4 versions:<\/p>\n

First \ufffd two people came into Church to pray, one was a Border Patrol
\nAgent who prayed \ufffd “I give you thanks oh God that I am not like others
\n\ufffd greedy, dishonest, or like those on the run in order to make a
\nliving.” <\/p>\n

The other was a Mexican unlawful immigrant standing off to the side who
\nprayed “Oh God, be merciful to me for leaving my family behind as I try
\nto relieve their poverty by working in this country.” <\/p>\n

Jesus concluded \ufffd the last person went home more worthy in God’s sight
\nthan the first.<\/p>\n

Version 2:<\/p>\n

Two  people came into Church to pray, one was a Roman Catholic
\nCardinal in Charge of Church doctrine who prayed “I give you thanks oh
\nGod that I am not like others   – greedy dishonest or
\nlike those living in Africa where AIDS is killing everyone even there
\nwe can never allow condoms to be used.”<\/p>\n

The other was an African widow dying of AIDS who stood off to the side
\nand prayed “Oh God, be merciful to me for not refusing the advances of
\nmy husband without a condom, soon I will follow him to the grave and
\nleave our six children orphans. <\/p>\n

Jesus concluded \ufffd the last person went home more worthy in God’s sight
\nthan the first.<\/p>\n

Version 3:<\/p>\n

Two people came into Church to pray, one was a Catholic Archbishop who
\nrefuses communion to Rainbow Sash people at the Cathedral on Pentecost
\nSunday who prayed ” I give you thanks oh God that I am not like others
\n\ufffd greedy, dishonest or like others who need to make their dissent from
\nofficial Church teaching so public and divisive.” <\/p>\n

The other were Rainbow parents of GLBT people at the Cathedral on
\nPentecost who stood off on the side and prayed, “Oh God be merciful to
\nus for failing to attend our own Churches more often; they say they
\nlove God then turn there backs on us in hate directly contrary to
\n1:John,4 \ufffd whoever loves God must also love the neighbor.”<\/p>\n

Jesus concluded the last ones went home more worthy in God’s sight than
\nthe first.<\/p>\n

Version 4:<\/p>\n

Two people came into Church to pray.  One was an Evangelical
\npastor whose regional services are broadcast nationally who prayed ” I
\ngive you thanks oh God that I am not like others   –
\ngreedy, dishonest or like others who give into same gender sex drives
\nwhich the bible calls an abomination.”<\/p>\n

The others who came into Church to pray for a same sex couple raising
\nchildren born by way of  donor insemination who prayed: “Oh
\ngod, be merciful to us for not finding our own medium to share with the
\nbroader audience the biblical passage of 1 John 4:16 \ufffd God is love and
\nwhen we abide in love we abide in God and God in us.” <\/p>\n

Jesus concluded the last ones went home more worthy in God’s sight than
\nthe first.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, the line from the verse of  Psalm 34 are so
\npowerful:<\/p>\n

“Those who are crushed in spirit God saves.” <\/p>\n

Using this parable as a rhetorical device
\nin this case is one where you can just slip into any to categories of
\npeople to make the point that you want.  Cast anybody you
\ndon’t like as the pharisee and then just add favorite cause and you to
\ncan deliver a parable recipe of your choosing.   For example:<\/p>\n

Two
\npeople came into a Church to pray.  One was the pastor of
\na  Church who said “I give you thanks oh God that I am not
\nlike others – like those who are not inclusive to the GLBT community,
\nwho will not deny Communion to those mocking the Church,  who
\nwon’t conform themselves to the society around them and instead hold to
\ntruth passed down from the Church.  Like those who would dare
\nto call homosexuality a sin and use scripture and tradition to defend
\ntheir positions. Like those who would call people with homosexual
\nattractions to a life of chastity instead of accepting and encouraging
\ntheir behaviors as I do.”<\/p>\n

The
\nother who came to the Church to pray had same-sex attraction and was
\nstruggling to remain Chaste as a member of Courage –  standing
\nfar off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his
\nbreast, saying, `God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ “. <\/span><\/p>\n

The homily probably sounded like profound
\nwisdom to his parishioners but is
\nmisguided at best and dishonest otherwise since in his examples not one
\nof the people he casts as the publican called themselves a sinners and
\nin fact they sounded more like the Pharisee justifying their actions or accusing others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week Archbishop John C. Nienstedt wrote a column called Four points on the church’s teaching about homosexuality that was a response to his denying permission for  Carol Curoe and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punditry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}