Just a Word...Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time...November 5, 2023
Who hasn’t heard the admonition, “Do as I say, not as I do”? If not in so many words, then perhaps by the example of some authority figure, be that a parent, a teacher, a member of the clergy or a politician.
In this week’s Gospel, Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the religious leaders by speaking directly to his followers about the way they are to live, by not following their duplicitous leaders, but by allowing his own example to guide the living of their lives. Jesus gives them, and us, guideposts to help on the journey, here and earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, in the marvelous Beatitudes.
Through these nine teachings, Jesus is calling the people to a new way of being and of worshipping, in contrast to the lessons from those leaders who did not practice what they preached, but who, crippled by their shortcomings and failures, were consumed with the external, the pursuit of social standing. Jesus, in appealing to the internal, the inner life of virtue, of caring for the well-being of others, calls forth the religious imagination of the crowd, inspiring them to envision a more compassionate, inclusive and non-judgmental way of being. (We find this same wisdom in the Thessalonian reading, wherein Paul, perhaps inadvertently, compares the desired approach to ministry to the mindset and heart light of a nursing mother, pouring oneself out for the good of the other, in this case, the community.) Again, Pope Francis echoes Jesus with his words, “blessed are the simple, the humble who make room for God, who are able to weep for others and for their own mistakes, who remain meek, fight for justice, are merciful to all…(those who) always work for peace and abide in joy, do not hate, and even when suffering, respond to evil with good...this is how the saints are: like everyone, they breathe air polluted by the evil there is in the world, but on the journey, they never lose sight of Jesus’ roadmap.”
If we choose to follow it, the roadmap set out by Jesus today will also result in externals, albeit of a far different sort from those of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Beatitude living has the power of goodness within it, a goodness that can change the world into one more reflective of the kingdom Jesus preached. And isn’t that what we all aspire to, a sharing in the flow of grace from God to all, the establishment of a community which honors the covenant with God to love God and neighbor, and to replace the quest for social standing with the goal of standing shoulder to shoulder in solidarity in the pursuit of the common good?
This is a tall order, I know, but one that is worth our efforts. Will we always succeed? Of course not, we are human after all. But when we fall short, the God of seventy-seventh chances will pick us up, dust us off, and inspire us to do as he says, and do as he does.