Photo: Canva.comHave you ever had the experience, when washing the dishes, of finding a little spot at the bottom of your cup and you just can’t get rid of it or wash it clean with the help of the dishwashing liquid? And it annoys you! Well, that is what Jesus is saying to the scribes and the Pharisees, in today’s gospel reading from Matthew 23:23-26, about how they view what are the more important things we need to take care of in our lives. Don’t worry about whether you are being fair to your neighbour, about how you forgive your friends or about the need to trust in the goodness of others, is what the Pharisees would say. What is important is a law or commandment written down in some obscure little book of laws that have come to us from some strange religious movement.
It reminds me of the people in a community where I said mass each month back in the 70s. They had been ordered by some priests in the past that they had to go to confession every time time before receiving communion. It was exhausting sitting through hours of confessions, when it seemed that people would make up sins just in order to fulfil the command of some priest in the past who had said or they thought had said, “Confession before communion!”
It gradually changed over time and the people began to view reconciliation as a way of dealing with more weightier matters in their lives, such as their relationships with others in the family or the community. As one priest reminded me not so long ago, we Catholics were often raised with the burden of guilt. This reminds me of the old parish missions where we left the church with the burning sensation that we were destined for hell if we didn’t go to confession! What notion of God were we brought up with? A God who was constantly seeking out some small fault for which he would condemn us to hell! I hope we have learnt to move on. I hope we have taken note of what Jesus said to the Pharisees and the scribes. Let us deepen our faith in the God of love.
That little spot at the bottom of the cup may still remain there. But there are more important things to worry about: how we can stand up for the people of Gaza and other worn-torn communities around the world, the way we treat recent migrants or the way we care for or fail to care for our earth.
Tom Rouse
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