Monday of Week 2 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 6:36-38
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
This is the last sentence in Luke’s version of Jesus’ teaching on the need to love our enemies. We saw the Matthaean version last Saturday. There the passage ends with:
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
(Matt 5:48)
It is clear that in showing compassion for all, even those who wish us evil, we are to aim at imitating our heavenly Father.
God’s compassion is all-embracing. His love reaches out to all without any discrimination between saint and sinner. Like the rain and sun which fall equally on all, so God’s compassion and mercy are extended to all. We, too, are being called to follow the example of our God and of Jesus his Son. We remember the words of Jesus as he was being nailed to the cross:
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34)
Here is the compassion of God being expressed in an extreme situation. These same words will be repeated by Stephen when he is being stoned to death.
In today’s Gospel, we are told to follow that compassion by not sitting in judgement on others. That in no way means that we are to be blind to the genuine faults of others. But we are not in a position to take the higher moral ground so that we can sit in judgement on the supposed wrongdoer.
If we are honest, we know we judge others a lot—often with very little evidence and even less compassion. Our media, too, are full of judgment. Our conversations, our gossip is full of judgment. We lack compassion for the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters.
At the same time, we do very little to help them correct their ways; in fact, they seldom hear the criticisms we make. It is most often done behind their backs. If they unexpectedly appear, we quickly change the subject. We seem to take pleasure in the backbiting. We might even be disappointed if they reformed! Yet Jesus tells us:
…do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Before receiving the Eucharist we pray,
Forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others.
This is a dangerous prayer to make, yet it trips so easily off our tongues, the same tongues that can be so critical and judgemental.
The Gospel calls for great generosity in our relationship with others. Not just material generosity, but generosity in love, in understanding, in tolerance and acceptance, in compassion and forgiveness. The more generous we are with others the more we will receive in return. And so we pray:
Lord, teach me to be generous,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and to seek no reward
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.
Amen.
Tuesday of Week 2 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 23:1-12
Today’s Gospel looks like an attack on the scribes and Pharisees, but we should really see it as directed towards members of the Christian community, especially its leaders. Jesus levels two criticisms against the Pharisees:
—they don’t practise what they preach, and
—they do what they do to attract the admiration of others.
In fact, the words of Jesus are a warning to all people in authority. Jesus was attacking the scribes and Pharisees, but his words can be applied to many positions in our own society. Executives, managers, doctors, lawyers, bishops, priests, civil servants and parents can all be included here. In so far as they have genuine authority, they should be listened to—the doctor about things medical, the lawyer about things legal, the priest about things spiritual and the parents about family matters.
The Pharisees tried to impress by wearing wider phylacteries and longer tassels. The phylacteries were small boxes containing verses of Scripture which were worn on the left forearm and the forehead. The tassels, worn on the corners of one’s garment, were prescribed by Mosaic law as a reminder to keep the commandments. By making each of these items larger, one drew attention to one’s superior piety and observance. It is not difficult to see parallels in our time.
Unfortunately, it would be wrong to follow the behaviour of such people, especially when they become arrogant and domineering, use their authority to draw attention to themselves and assert their supposedly superior status, or impose burdens on those ‘below’ them, which they themselves do nothing to alleviate.
Authority is not for power, but for empowering and enabling. Real authority is a form of service, not a way of control or domination or a claim to special privileges. So Jesus has no time for people who insist on being addressed by their formal titles. Matthew’s attack on the scribes and Pharisees points to similar weaknesses on the part of church leaders in his time. It is something that again we may be all too familiar with in our own time:
“Hi, John!”…”Mr Jacobs to you, if you don’t mind.”
“Hi, Father Steve!”…”Monsignor McDermott to you.”
As Jesus says, ultimately we are all brothers and sisters. And elsewhere, he tells us that the greatest among us is the one who best serves the needs of those around him, rather than the one who has the most impressive titles, or the biggest desk, or eats in the executive dining room, or has his/her picture on the cover of a magazine. Unfortunately, we contribute a lot to this nonsense because some of us dream of being there ourselves someday.
All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
The perfect model is Jesus himself, who:
…though he existed in the form of God…emptied himself, taking the form of a slave…became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name… (Phil 2:6-9)
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