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Tuesday – Twenty-first Week – OT2
Readings: 2 Thes 2:1-3a, 14-17; Mt 23:23-26.
Reading 1 (2 Thes 2:1-3a, 14-17):
We ask you, brothers and sisters,
with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
and our assembling with him,
not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly,
or to be alarmed either by a ‘spirit,’ or by an oral statement,
or by a letter allegedly from us
to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.
Let no one deceive you in any way.
To this end he has also called you through our Gospel
to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm
and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught,
either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.
May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father,
who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement
and good hope through his grace,
encourage your hearts and strengthen them
in every good deed and word.
Gospel (Mt 23:23-26):
Jesus said:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin,
and have neglected the weightier things of the law:
judgment and mercy and fidelity.
But these you should have done, without neglecting the others.
Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You cleanse the outside of cup and dish,
but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup,
so that the outside also may be clean.”
Fr. Anthony Dinh Minh Tien, O.P.
I. THEME: The need to keep balance in life
Many people pay too much attention to the present and forget about their future. Others concern too much about the little things and ignore the big tasks. Both these kinds of people shall not be successful because they need to be balanced in life. A wise and virtuous person is the one in the middle; they fully live in the present with a look to the future; they pay attention to small things with a view of them in a big picture.
Today readings help us to understand the reasons why we need to be balanced in our life. In the first reading, St. Paul, after had experience about the Last Day in his First Letter to the Thessalonians, advised the faithful to have a correct understanding about this Day. Since they can’t know when it will happen so they must always be ready for it. When they are ready, they should not worry too much about them. In the second reading, Jesus corrected scribes and Pharisees because they paid too much attention to small things in the law and forgot about how to live and to teach people according to the spirit of the law.
II. ANALYSIS:
1/ Reading I: Don’t worry too much about the future to the point of being deceived.
1.1/ No one knows when the Last Day shall come, except God: Human beings have a tendency to be bored with what is old and to like what is exciting and thrilling. Many people used this tendency to deceive others. For example, they predict when the Last Day shall happen, even though many of them already knew Jesus’ teaching about this Day, “But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone” (Mt 24:36). Through the course of history, almost in every generation, there were some who predicted about that Day. Most recently is the year of 2000 AD, many people believed that Day shall surely happen, and they prepared for that, but the year of 2000 was already passed, and the Last Day does still not happen yet. The same thing happened in St. Paul’s time, even Paul himself might believe that Day shall happen soon (cf. 1 Thes 4:15-17); but he learned a lesson and advised his faithful to be careful about the prediction of this Day as follows: “We ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling with him, not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly, or to be alarmed either by a “spirit,” or by an oral statement, or by a letter allegedly from us to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand. Let no one deceive you in any way.”
1.2/ The proper attitudes which one needs to have about this day: Many are frightened about the Last Day because they aren’t prepared for it. Some shall stop what they are doing daily to wait for the Lord; some shall waste all what they had to enjoy life because they shall not have many more days to do it, etc. St. Paul wanted his faithful to live in peace, and not be afraid about this Day due to the following reasons:
(1) God loves people. He wants for people to enjoy a happy and eternal life with Him in heaven, not to eternally destroy them.
(2) With a hope in God’s love, people must try to live their present time in His grace so that they are always ready for that Day.
(3) People don’t have to worry about getting lost because they already have the Gospel to guide them and the Church’s teaching about what they need to do while they wait for that Day to come.
2/ Gospel: If they worry too much about little things, they shall forget about important ones.
Jesus continued to reprimand scribes and Pharisees about their hypocrisy and concern for small things so that they forgot about the more important things: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. (But) these you should have done, without neglecting the others.”
2.1/ People should pay attention to important tasks: The mints which the Jews used in their daily meals are too small for paying tax. They used to grow them around their house so they can have them when they need, not to grow them for commercial use in big green houses as we have today. Jesus reminded scribes and Pharisees to pay attention to the weightier things in the law which they ignored such as: justice, mercy and fidelity. These are the three important things which God shall use to judge people on the Last Day, not to count how many mints people have to collect tax from them.
Jesus condemned them, “Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!” Both of them, gnats and camels, are dirty animals to the Jews. When a gnat falls into the container of water which used for purity, they shall strain the water to get it out. The main thing which Jesus wanted to highlight here is the contrast about size. A camel is a big animal while a gnat is a very small insect. Scribes and Pharisees paid too much attention to small things such as to collect tax on mints and forgot about other very important things of the law which are justice, mercy and fidelity.
2.2/ People should pay attention to inside purity: Jesus also rebuked them of their hypocrisy: they paid too much attention to outside ceremonies and forgot about cultivating their inside virtues: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”
Washing hands before eating is a right thing to do, but it isn’t important than the purification of sins in their heart. We heard what Jesus explained before that not what are from outside defile people, but what are from inside defile them, such as: “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy” (Mt 15:19).
III. APPLICATION IN LIFE:
– Many times, we also worried about our future as the Thessalonians, but when the time passed, we returned to our daily routine with our bad habits and injustice and forgot about what Jesus warned us, “Stay awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.” (Mt 24:42).
– Many times, we acted as scribes and Pharisees. We cited our prayer according to an order and didn’t miss any prayer, but we didn’t pay attention to injustice through the slandering of others or to help others in need.
– We need to pay attention to the overall picture of our life, what the important things we must do first before the small things which can be done later.
– Many times, we neglected opportunities to study God’s words, retreats to recognize our sins needed to get rid of and virtues needed to acquire, to bring our children to the church for mass, for CCD and group activities. Instead, we chase after passing values such as to be rich and to enjoy life. If parents do such things, they aren’t different with blind guides which Jesus warned today.