The gospel clearly wasn’t written as a bedtime story for children… Good luck with explaining to them the professions Jesus mentioned in today’s passage, and why he praised them. I guess it’s no less shocking to adult regular churchgoers, although sometimes it goes unnoticed – so used to listening to this gospel as we are that we no longer pay much attention to it. Or perhaps we automatically identify ourselves with those praised by Jesus, not those rebuked by him. If that’s the case, we identify ourselves as scum, low-life or vermin… You see, however we look at this passage, it makes for uncomfortable reading; it challenges us to look into the spiritual mirror and to reflect on our attitudes. The gospel isn’t a children’s bedtime story; neither should it be so for us, adults. When the gospel doesn’t wake us up from our spiritual slumber, something’s wrong with it; or with us.
Starting today, for the three consecutive Sundays, we will listen to Jesus debating with the Jewish metropolitan religious elite, described as ‘the chief priests and the elders of the people’ by St Matthew. For certain topical conspiracy theorists, it’s very tempting to see the Church’s authorities today reflected in that category. But that would be an extremely narrow and largely erroneous interpretation. In a much broader sense today’s gospel is a clash between two opposite attitudes: humility and self-importance, represented respectively by ‘the tax collectors and prostitutes’ and ‘the chief priests and the elders of the people.’
Firstly, let’s get one thing out of the way. Jesus doesn’t praise ‘the tax collectors and prostitutes’ for holding onto their professions. From the start of his public ministry, he made it clear that sin is bad and must be dealt with mercilessly. However, from that very beginning, he also made it clear that sinners must be dealt with mercifully. That’s an extremely important distinction. Jesus sees sin as the ultimate illness affecting humankind in general and each person in particular. His mission is to bring healing of the disease and freedom from slavery to sinful habits. The way to do it is by His calling to repentance and acceptance of God’s plan of love: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’ (Matthew 4:17) The question is how to get this message across to those who are most in need of hearing it? The answer is dead simple; you need to talk to those people. But that was unacceptable to the Jewish religious elite of the time; you don’t mix with the scum or you can get filthy by association. Such separation serves two purposes: you keep yourself away from people of bad name and reputation; and you feel so much better about yourself.
This kind of religiosity tends to develop ever more sophisticated, complex and intricate rituals, traditions and practices. Although not inherently wrong, such intricate systems purport to serve their proponents’ sense of spiritual development, while in fact more often they feed their self-regard and self-importance. Consequently, taking such a high moral ground effectively denigrates those who have a seemingly lower spiritual or moral stance. Even if such attitudes develop unintentionally, they obscure the true purpose of being a Christian: ‘Go, make disciples of all the nations, baptise them […] and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.’ (Matthew 28:19) Fulfilling this mission, given us by Jesus, is to do the Father’s will, as mentioned in today’s gospel.
Does this then invalidate any religious practice or observance, including this celebration? Of course not, far from it! Here we stop in our tracks to listen to the word of God, to reflect on it and to confront our attitudes and habits. Then we receive the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ himself into our hearts as the spiritual food to strengthen and to support us in courageously living our lives. Having been spiritually instructed and fed, we are sent out into the world to carry out the mission of spreading the gospel by living out our faith, giving testimony by our words and our actions. If you want to know whether you are doing it right, think about those less fortunate than you. If you feel better than them it’s time for your conversion. If you feel compassion for them, go and help them discover Jesus as the answer to their troubled lives.
Image by Łukasz Dyłka from Pixabay