Are You Revolving Around God—Or God Around You? - Bishop Barron’s Sunday Sermon

0:00 Peace be with you. Friends, for this 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time, we are treated to this wonderful and deeply challenging parable from the 18th chapter of Luke, the famous parable of the Pharisee and the publican, the Pharisee and the tax collector. We're meant to see in this deceptively simple story, it's actually chock full of spiritual insight, we're meant to see a basic principle in the spiritual order, one that is extremely clarifying. And let me just state it right at the outset here. Here's the principle.

0:34 The ego is meant to revolve around God, not God around the ego. Let me say that again. So the ego, think of like a Copernican revolution here. The ego is meant to revolve around God, not God around the ego. And just as you know, they say, if you went out in deep space and all that, and you're trying to determine, now, what's going around what? It might not be immediately clear. It can be deceptive. You know, now, what's circling what? And the same is true in the spiritual order, I think, is sometimes the people that look the most religious actually aren't very religious. And the people that look, boy, he's a million miles from God, they're actually the ones who are in the right spiritual space. And now, looking at ourselves, to ask that very simple but very penetrating question. Now, be honest, be honest.

1:30 Is God revolving around me? Or am I revolving around God? See, if God's revolving around me, that means that my ego, my life project, my desires, my plans come first. They're the center of gravity. Everything else is contributing to that or threatening it in some way Now if I believe in God, you say, okay, great God can be very helpful to my plans I want to do X, Y, and Z And God can really be useful to me in this regard And maybe God will help me And if things aren't going well Well, I can get pretty mad at him Because you're supposed to be helping my ego project All right, may I suggest that's the wrong way to go through life What's the right way? And again, it's a Copernican revolution, which can be very wrenching.

2:27 It has to be the case that I, with my projects and plans and desires and hopes and all that, I, my ego, revolves around God. God is the proper center of gravity for my life. My life makes sense in terms of God. The question, therefore, is not, well, are things going according to my plan? Rather, the question becomes, is my life going according to God's plan? Now, again, I'm addressing only sinners here, and I'm one of you. We're all sinners, which means we are very, very easily drawn out of this right relationship into the wrong relationship. And I'll suggest to you, when you go to confession or if you talk to a spiritual friend or a spiritual director or in your own prayer, ask this question with brutal honesty. Am I revolving around God or is God revolving around me?

3:34 Everything else will flow from that. Okay, that's the principle. Now, let's look at this parable with the principle in mind because it's bringing out various dimensions of it in a very clarifying way. So we hear Jesus address the parable to whom? To those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. Well, see, right away, that gives away the game. If you say, well, boy, thank God for religion, because the one thing it's done is convinced me of my own righteousness. Well, then your moral project and your ego project is at the center of gravity, and they despised everybody else. Well, now my religion is becoming a source of aggression toward others. All right, two important clues that you are in the wrong relationship vis-a-vis God. Okay, so then here's the parable. Two people went up to the temple area to pray.

4:27 You say, okay, that's a good thing, to pray. Yes, it is, indeed. One was a Pharisee, the other was a tax collector. I mentioned this before. Right away, we think, oh, Pharisee, bad guy. No, no, you have to reverse this thing. In Jesus' time, just the opposite. If you saw a Pharisee, the presumption would be, well, this is a good person. This is someone who's taking religion and the law very seriously. And then a tax collector, again, we're kind of conditioned by so many centuries of reading the New Testament that, oh, tax collectors are really good guys. No, they're not. They're bad guys. And they were indeed bad people. Jews collaborating with the Romans, skimming off the top for their own benefit. They were deeply abusive to their own people. So you've got what everyone took to be a good man going in to pray, the Pharisee, and a bad man going in to pray. Okay. Now listen, the Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself.

5:24 Both are really interesting details, I think. So look, he's a Pharisee. He's a professional religious person. So he walks into the temple, this very holy place, God's dwelling place. But he's not overwhelmed by that. He feels pretty cocky, pretty confident. I'll just take up my position. I belong here. Well, see, here's an interesting question, and I pose it to you and to me. When's the last time that you walked into a church, you know, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, where Jesus is really present? Last time you walked into a church and really felt unworthy?

5:58 Maybe you genuflected, and that's kind of, it's a gesture of that, of deference to the Lord. But when's the last time that you almost felt a sense of, like, fear? and I don't belong here. I'm in the holy presence of God. See, the Pharisee gives every indication of being in the wrong space. He just walks in with a blithe confidence.

6:21 I don't know. Who's revolving around whom at this point? Is religion becoming a way for him to aggrandize his own ego? And then that beautiful detail, and so subtly expressed, that he spoke this prayer to himself. So prayer, the raising of the mind and heart to God Is meant to get you out of your ego Break free of the black hole of your self-preoccupation And get you in touch with God It's meant to leave the ego behind It's meant to put the ego into this relationship of revolution around God But see, all his prayer does is aggrandize himself So he spoke the prayer to himself Ask yourself the question. I'll ask it of myself, too. When we pray, is the prayer going up to God? Is it drawing us up like incense to the Lord?

7:18 Or is the prayer turning in? In other words, is it self-serving, self-preoccupied, aggrandizing to the ego? Well, in his case, we hear, because here's how he prays, Okay, so it's exaggerated here to make the point, but you get it. He's someone who is really enjoying being religious. Why? Because it's making him truly happy. It's really putting him in touch with God. No, no, no, no. because it's elevating his ego.

8:06 Look, I'm not like the rest of humanity, and my knowledge and practice of the law is serving the end of the elevation of my ego. And the giveaway is that he's comparing himself to everybody. Now, do you ever know religious people like this? Yeah, I've known a few, and maybe once or twice I've been that religious person. When my knowledge of the law is used not to break free of the black hole of egotism, but is used precisely as a weapon of aggression, a means of comparing myself to others. See, that's the giveaway. Okay, so we see him. He's someone whose ego is the center, and God, at best, is kind of a little satellite revolving around his ego. Now, secondly, but the tax collector stood off at a distance, would not even raise his eyes to heaven.

9:03 Go back again to the question I just asked about coming into church, a Catholic church where the Lord is really, truly, and substantially present. When is the last time you felt unworthy to be in his presence? If it's been a long time, that's a problem. When have you felt truly and in a beautiful sense ashamed before God? And again, I'm not trying to urge you to play a game of, oh, God is a horrible tyrant. I mean, that salutary feeling that you're not where you're supposed to be, and in the presence of the all-holy God, you're unworthy.

9:46 When's the last time? Here's a little detail I find really interesting. You know in the liturgy at the beginning when we're seeking God's mercy and we say, Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. It's been referred to as a liturgical stammer. How somebody might act in the presence of a great king. Imagine a very ordinary person coming in suddenly to the presence of the great king. He's not going to stand there like the Pharisee and give this really cocky, confident speech. No, no, he's going to bow down and probably stammer out what he wants. And so we do that. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Just wrote words or reflective of a real attitude.

10:30 He beat his breast and prayed, Oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I've talked to you before about the Jesus prayer, which I love. In fact, I have a little Jesus prayer rope. They use them in the Eastern Christian traditions, where you just count the Jesus prayer. And it's mimicking this man. You say, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. That's the whole prayer. And you pray it once, you pray it twice, you pray it ten times, you pray it fifty times. The rope I have is a hundred. And I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and that's a way I have of kind of lulling myself to sleep. But I'll pray the Jesus prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God have mercy on me, a sinner that's a great corrective to the pharisaical tendency when you can begin your relationship with God like this man look, he's a bad man, and he is we're all bad people, okay we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God we're all bad people so how do we start?

11:39 if you want to get the spiritual life now in right order You want to reverse this Copernican relationship. You want your own ego revolving around God's purposes. A really good place to start is right there. Start praying it today, tonight. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. St. Bernard talks about the kiss of the feet, followed by the kiss of the hand, and only finally the kiss of the mouth. What he means is spiritual life begins with this abject request for mercy. That's the kiss of the Lord's feet. It continues with the kiss of the hand, which means walking the difficult and challenging path of discipleship. And only after that long period are you perhaps ready for that kiss of intimacy with the Lord. Okay, if you find yourself like the Pharisee, and we all are to some degree, You find yourself in this wrong Copernican relationship, and you want to turn it around.

12:41 That's a really good place to start. Go into church. Maybe as you genuflect, be very aware of your unworthiness before the Lord. And then begin praying, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of a living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. You'll find the center of gravity in your spiritual life begin to change. And God bless you.