Beneath the Masks

Homily for the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
In just a few days, Americans will celebrate what has become one of the most extravagant and expensive party nights of the year – All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween. This night of costumes and candy ranks behind only New Year’s Eve and the Super Bowl as extravagant parties, and Halloween seems to be growing in popularity every year. Just look at the houses and yards decorated with cobwebs and tombstones, some decorated even more elaborately than at Christmas; or look at the ever-more creative costumes worn not just by children, but by people of every age. By one estimate, each person in this country will spend an average of $64 dollars on Halloween this year, with our national total spending topping $5 billion.

At its heart, Halloween thrives on being able to put on a new identity – a costume, a mask – that covers up who we really are. We revel in the opportunity to flee from reality into the realm of imagination – and when violence, war, and even a slow economy are becoming the reality of our lives, we long for any opportunity to escape the harsh truth that fills our evening newscasts. But on a personal level, we might wonder if the desire to put on costumes and masks – the desire to take on a new identity – is a sign that we are unhappy with the person beneath the costume, that we will go to any length to cover up our true identity. Now, watching young children dress up as Harry Potter or a princess can be innocent fun; but with the exponential growth of this fall holiday, we have to wonder.

Think of the Pharisee in today’s gospel. This is a man who looks great on the outside – he fasts twice a week, he pays tithes on his income, he goes to the Temple to pray; he probably even goes to the place in the Temple where the most people will be able to see him pray. He is enthralled with how good he looks in the eyes of God – not greedy, not dishonest, not adulterous. In a sense, he has put on a costume of righteousness – doing all the right things in order to look good from the outside. But it’s clear in today’s parable that this persona is nothing more than a show – a really good show, perhaps – but a show without much substance. He spends all his time looking at himself and complementing himself on how good he is. On the other side of the Temple is the tax collector – a man whose outside appearance is one of greed, dishonesty, and corruption. The difference between these two men is that the tax collector knows what he is really like, he knows his true identity – he knows that he is a sinner, that he has cheated people in his work – he doesn’t try to cover it up with eloquent words or public displays. The tax collector humbly admits his true identity, and then he takes a second, and just as important step: he begs God’s mercy and forgiveness. And only through that mercy, the tax collector has the opportunity to change.

The day after Halloween – and the reason Halloween came into existence in the first place – is All Saints’ Day. On that great feast day, we celebrate those men and women of every time and place who grew out of the necessity for masks and costumes, whose public persona corresponded to their inner identity. A nineteenth-century American author once wrote that a saint is a sinner revised and edited. We are all sinners in need of redemption. Many times, it’s not easy for us to take off our masks and costumes and reveal our true identities, but that is the only way for us to change, to receive God’s mercy, and to become more and more the person God calls us to be. Because if we don’t first of all recognize that we are sinners, then we can never become saints.