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!
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus sharply criticizes the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees. “Blind Pharisee,” Jesus says, “cleanse first the inside of the cup.” In calling them hypocrites, by association he also calls out anybody who neglects, as he says, “the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity.” Twice Jesus calls them blind guides, and I can only imagine their reaction when Jesus says to them, “Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!”
God, help me understand that your son addresses the scribes and Pharisees and others but also addresses me, calling me to greater self-discernment and dependence on you. Lord, thank you for Matthew’s account of the words Jesus directed to the scribes and Pharisees. In them, I see that I also have been the one “full of plunder and self-indulgence” and that to discern this is to rely more and more on your grace working in my life. I find in saying this that I put myself in check, as if to question whether I participate in some kind of off-the-rails scrupulosity. But to fail to profess that I invite God into every moment of my day with joy and hopeful expectation and that I am broken and a sinner is complete detachment from reality, pure fantasy.
Jesus, stay quietly within me today. Be that voice reminding me not to put on a show for others or myself. At the crucial moments of the day, place in my heart a spirit that is faithful, loving, and merciful.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.