Pharisees and publicans, sinners and appearances.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, this weekend is time to talk about Pharisees and publicans, sinners and appearances and, you know, Pharisees get a bad press, always trying to trip Jesus, a lot of lobbing tricky questions… Yet, to be fair, many were decent people. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. St Paul was a Pharisee and was proud of it. The one we will hear about in today’s gospel is a real “difficult person”. It’s hard to fault him. But he doesn't pray, he talks to himself, we all do. ”I thank you Lord that I am, not like the rest of people. Greedy, dishonest, adulterous… like this man. I fast twice in the week…. “He is too good to be true. No flaws! Wrong, he does reveal what he is like inside: Conceited, judgmental and contemptuous of others. The second person barely comes in the door, conscious that he is tainted with corruption. He knows it and says it, as it is: O God be merciful to me a sinner - a cry from the heart. And Jesus says -this I understand- this poverty of heart I accept. Schindlers List, the great movie, tells the story of a German business man, a rogue, yet a rogue who put all his energy into saving Jewish people from the extermination camps. A moving story based on the book Schlindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally. There is a frightening incident in the book. The SS, the Gestapo surrounded the synagogue Stara Boznica the oldest synagogue in Poland in the Warsaw Ghetto. There, they found a group of traditional Jews with beards, side locks and prayer shawls, orthodox Jews, good people. But they wanted numbers. They combed the surrounding buildings. Among those who were pushed into the synagogue was a notorious criminal Max Redlicht, a Jew by birth but one who had ceased to practice, a figure in the Warsaw underworld. When the synagogue was full, the doors were locked and an SS broke open the Ark which housed the sacred scrolls and placed the Torah on the ground. The SS then ordered the congregation to line up and file past and spit on it, under the threat that if they failed to do so they would be shot, it must be visible on the calligraphy. In the end, everyone did, except Max Redlicht. When his turn came he walked up and said: No, I will not do this, I have done many things in my life but I will not do this. The SS shot him and then everyone else and burnt the synagogue over them. Whom do we identify with? The sinner in the gospel, Max Redlicht the notorious criminal, Oskar Schindler the rogue business man, or the self righteous Pharisee? Let us think about it, let us meditate about it and let us finish with a deep and sincere act of contrition ■ Fr. Agustin