"You have Searched Me and You Know Me, Lord"


Today's Mass Readings

In today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is upset. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus demonstrates the utmost patience when dealing with common sinners, when dealing with His own suffering, etc., Jesus’ righteous anger, however, is kindled again and again by the sins of the religious leaders of His time. Jesus is particularly upset, in this instance, when some of the religious leaders of His time are acting hypocritically. Notice, however, that Jesus does not rebuke these leaders for being hypocritical in what they teach. Nowhere does Jesus yell at the leaders, “how dare you teach us to do that when you yourself don’t do that,” or “how can you tell us not to do that when you in fact do that.” Jesus does not rebuke them for what they preach, at least in this instance. Rather, Jesus is rebuking these leaders for how they live their lives. They correctly teach the necessary commandments of the Jewish ceremonial law of the time, but they do not follow the deeper law that these ceremonial laws represent. The hypocrisy we find criticized in Scripture is not the hypocrisy of words but of deeds.

If a mother tells her young child not to steal, but the mother herself has stolen in the past, she is not being a hypocrite for correctly teaching her child not to steal, even though her words have not matched her own actions. Rather, her act of stealing is where the hypocrisy lies. Jesus criticizes hypocrites for their hypocritical actions, not for teaching and preaching what should be taught and preached.

We should all take Jesus’ rebukes to heart, even if we do not see ourselves as religious “leaders.” Each one of us is called to witness God to each other, to our neighbors, and to the world. Let us inspect our lives to make sure we are living as we ought to live. If we claim to be Christians then let us live so that our lives bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Otherwise, we too are hypocrites like the religious leaders Jesus rebukes in today’s Gospel reading.