Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent
Let’s set a scene
You arrive at your doctor’s office, check in with the receptionist, and sit in the waiting room, awaiting your annual checkup. Eventually, your name is called, and you go into the back. A kind nurse takes your temperature, blood pressure, height, weight, and all the other medical stuff that they do. Eventually your doctor comes in, and you have a nice chat about all the things you probably should be doing - maybe he refers you to a specialist for some aches and pains, or perhaps he tells you to improve your diet and exercise so you can lose the “Covid Nineteen” that you picked up over the last two years. Regardless, eventually you leave, talk to the receptionist, and head out the door. On your way to your car, you see your doctor in the parking lot, lighting a cigarette on his break.
Do you still listen to your doctor, knowing that he smokes?
It’s not as if he gave you bad advice in your checkup. You’ve been seeing this doctor for some time, so you know that his advice is good and generally in line with what a normal doctor would say. At the same time, it’d be a little uncomfortable to take health advice from someone who very clearly and blatantly is doing something adverse to his own health.
In the first half of today’s Gospel (Matthew 23:1-12), Jesus tells us that we should still listen to our doctors, even if we know they smoke. Only Jesus doesn’t talk about doctors, but about folks in religious authority. Even in the face of hypocrisy, we should “do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example.” Obviously, just because your doctor smokes, that doesn’t mean that it is in your best interest to pick up a pack of cigarettes next time you’re at the store.
In Matthew 23:1-8, Jesus tells us to obey the scribes and Pharisees, not because of their example, but because of their position. For us today, this would probably translate into our local priests and our Pope. Priests are not perfect. My boss is a priest so I can say this with a decent amount of certainty (I guess this is how I’ll find out if he reads my reflections…). As tempting as it is to write off a priest who says something that I find disagreeable, or does something that doesn’t line up with what he says, those discrepancies don’t invalidate his priestly-ness. There is a reason to follow him in his position - odds are he was entrusted with it for a good reason. The same goes for the Pope. No one who has seen more than one Pope is entirely in line with everything the papacy has said or declared - after all, even Popes can be in opposition to one another. We are not called to follow an individual person to the ends of the earth, but to respect and follow their position, as it is their position that their authority lies. I once was talking to someone at a conference, and they were complaining about how their parish doesn’t list their pastor on the front page of the bulletin. She said “even if I disagree with him - and we butt heads regularly - he’s still the pastor, and he deserves respect as such.” I think that kind of understanding is what Jesus encourages in us today.
All this said, it is easy to write off simple times that I disagree with a priest or the Pope, and encourage me to remember that their legitimacy is not threatened by my disagreement. However, there are times when priests do and say things that are egregiously out of line with the expectations we hold for them, and sometimes, priests misuse and abuse their power. This is, of course, unacceptable, and understandably can shake the willingness of many to follow and be a part of the church. This pain naturally shakes anyone who suffers it, and in drastic and horrible moments like this, the question of “would you trust a doctor who smokes?” falls apart. After all, it’s one thing to not trust a doctor who does harm to himself, but another (and far more understandable) to not trust a doctor who uses his position to harm others. I have never had an experience with a priest who has done these sorts of things, so I am not the best equipped to speak to that experience.
In the face of colossal abuses of power by the church, I always find myself returning to Matthew 16:13-28. There are two stories. The first is Jesus asking the disciples who people say that he is. Peter, correctly, states that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus declares that “you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church.” Immediately after that, Jesus starts to teach about his death, and Peter rebukes him, which prompts Jesus to say “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
It is through these two stories that I think we must view the Gospel today. In the first, Jesus institutes the papacy, and declares that Peter will guide the Church when Jesus leaves. Jesus then immediately rebukes Peter for his “human concerns.” In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes note of the fact that the ‘scribes and Pharisees' sit in the chair of Moses. This is not a commentary on their legitimacy as people, but on their legitimacy in the position. I believe this parallels the naming of Peter as the successor of the Church - we are to follow him, but not as individuals. Instead we are to follow them as their position - after all, the “human concerns” did not mean that Peter was no longer the Pope. The distinction, both in today’s Gospel and Matthew 16, is between the position and the man who holds it.
This is not an easy distinction to make in the face of the great pain and suffering some cause through their position. I wish it were not so, but the reality is unavoidable. We must all grapple with what this means and how this affects our relationship to the clergy - it is dangerous to follow a single individual person when he, like us, is imperfect. In trying to sort out feelings surrounding these complicating moments and crises of faith, I want to encourage you all with some wise words from my best friend. She was confirmed by a bishop who was later revealed to be part of the abuse crisis, and when we talked about it, she said “I’m glad I know that the state of grace of the priest does not in any way affect the sacrament I received.”
No amount of hurt or pain inflicted by one person, no matter their position, can inhibit us from the love that God freely offers us in the sacraments. No man is powerful enough to invalidate what God creates and does for us. We need the priesthood because someone must mediate between us and God, but the individual qualities of that person can never take away what God does for us. Let us remember this as we continue to grapple with what it means to be a part of a Church which exists in the world.
-Marty Bagatti