WHAT IS INSIDE YOU

October 12, Tuesday

TWENTY-EIGHTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

      What really matters for us, what makes us what we should be, is faith. “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” Faith will make us live. But for Paul too faith is not just a belief in tenets. Faith expresses itself in deeds.

      In today’s gospel Jesus reacts against pious Jews who stress the observance of the externals – laws, rules, customs – without inspiration and motivation from inside. Most probably the Pharisees were sincere in practicing these outward regulations, but they easily gave the ones practicing them the conviction of saving themselves through them. In fact, in today’s world too externals count heavily. People buy things for their wrappings. Appearances are often all that matters… It is not the shining cup that matters but the contents. Indeed, the contents must be first-rate.

 

First Reading: Romans 1:16-25

It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him, starting with Jews and then right on to everyone else! God’s way of putting people right shows up in the acts of faith, confirming what Scripture has said all along: “The person in right standing before God by trusting him really lives.”

But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse. What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.

So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them—the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!

 

Gospel: Luke 11:37-41

When he finished that talk, a Pharisee asked him to dinner. He entered his house and sat right down at the table. The Pharisee was shocked and somewhat offended when he saw that Jesus didn’t wash up before the meal. But the Master said to him, “I know you Pharisees burnish the surface of your cups and plates so they sparkle in the sun, but I also know your insides are maggoty with greed and secret evil. Stupid Pharisees! Didn’t the One who made the outside also make the inside? Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.

 

Prayer

Lord, our God,
Jesus touched the dead and unclean lepers

to raise them to life and to heal them.
Let us not be afraid
of dirtying our hands to help people
but of soiling our tongues to tell lies
and to besmear the good name
of our brothers and sisters,
to quarrel with them and to hurt them.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Mercy, not Sacrifice
When St. Luke wrote the Gospel, his concerns were to introduce Jesus the Son of God who became a human being. His audience were gentiles, who had no clue of the Jewish customs and traditions. Therefore, the ritual washings and other purification rites of the Jews would mean nothing to them. But yet, Luke used this story, in order to teach his community not to judge others.

This is another dinner scene. Jesus is invited to dinner by a Pharisee. He goes in without following the custom of ritual washing. Was it because Jesus did not care for the traditions, which his host followed meticulously? How come he goes on the offensive towards the Pharisees after being invited for a dinner? Jesus uses the occasion to tell the Pharisees that practice of external rituals does not make anyone holier than the rest.

Certainly, St. Luke is giving a catechesis here. He draws the attention of his readers on the false religion. Through the narration of the incident, he teaches his readers not to judge a person’s virtues by his performance or non-performance of an external ritual. Such pharisaic attitudes are visible in today’s Church too. In recent times we witness serious divisions in the Church on account of the liturgical rubrics and rituals. Bishops, priests and faithful are divided over how to celebrate the Mass. Ironically, we are fighting over the rituals used in the Eucharist – the ultimate expression of Jesus’ love for humanity!

The last verse of today’s Gospel suggests us what should be our priority. Jesus suggests us that we give alms to the poor. An act of love and compassion to the needy is more pleasing for God than all the observations of rituals and traditions. Our participation in Sunday Mass, Bible studies, retreats are all meaningful only when these religious practices help us to be a better person, better father, mother, sister, brother or a better wife or husband who brings the love and mercy of God to the people who are around us in our families, churches and society.

It is so easy to judge people, including our fellow-Catholics, by their observance or non-observance of certain customs. Most of the passages in the Gospel attacking Pharisees are really directed against us – the modern-day Pharisees

Elsewhere, Jesus has told us not to judge because it is very difficult for us to know what is going on in the life of the other. Let us not forget the Word of God: “What I want is mercy and not sacrifice.”

 

Video available on Youtube: Mercy, not Sacrifice