Gospel of Matthew, 23:23-26
One of the things I did a few years ago was sign up for daily Gospel reflection on Faith ND, a service of the University of Notre Dame. Generally, they come to my email early in the morning while I’m either at the gym (or in some cases still in bed) and I tend to get to them when I eat breakfast or something of that nature. The mindset was that if I begin my day with the Gospel readings, it will help me focus my day on Christ’s mission in my life. Some days this works to plan and others, well, we all have those days right?
Days such as those days are what today’s Gospel has reminded me of. Our actions toward what REALLY matters in this life versus what matters to us as individuals. Many of us are faced daily with situations that seem to take precedence over the truly important things in our lives. We become overly focused on success or the amount of our paycheck, we get sucked into the negativity and gossip of our places of work, we become aggravated and frustrated with things we cannot change to the point it ruins our day… Does this sound familiar at all? If so, let me be so brave as to offer another scenario:
Jesus offers this in today’s Gospel; “You pay your tithe of mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law-justice, mercy, good faith! These you have practiced, those not neglected.”
As we are caught up in this daily, let’s call it distraction, and lose sight of God’s mission in our lives, do we also still hold ourselves as “good Christians”? Here is an example, all these things are going on and we are catching ourselves getting caught up in it, after our acknowledgement, are we asking for forgiveness….are we going to the sacrament of confession….are we asking others to pray for us? Or, are we simply paying our tithe of mint and dill and cumin and going on about our lives acting as if nothing is wrong? The Lord is reminding us that the life we are supposed to be living isn’t lived only on the outside.
Human nature is a very interesting development in many cases. For example, people often expect out of others what they themselves refuse to do. My grandfather used to say to never attempt to hold someone else accountable without beginning with one’s self. Jesus goes on to talk about the inside of the cup and concept that it doesn’t matter what the outside looks like, the clothes we wear or the car we drive, the house we live in or how much we contribute to the church and school. If the inside is “dirty” no amount of cleanliness or sparkle on the outside will truly make a difference. Thankfully the Lord leaves us in this Gospel with a very direct instruction:
“Blind Pharisee! Clean the inside of cup and dish first so that it and the outside are both clean.”
We must hold ourselves accountable before expecting accountability from others.
Mr. Swann/Principal
OLMC