In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus condemns the religious legalism of the Pharisees, and their hypocrisy, “for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men... and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men.”
The Pharisees went around being conspicuously religious, desiring to be seen and to be honored. Is it wrong then to be conspicuously religious? Not necessarily, but it all depends on your MOTIVE – and your motive, contrary to how it may seem, will color how your actions appear to others. If we are publicly pious so that others may see us and approve of us, then we do wrong. Then we have become pharisaical. But if we are publicly pious in order that JESUS may be seen, then we do well.
For example, consider pausing for prayer and crossing yourself before you eat in a restaurant. In our culture, there is not much danger of being approved by people for doing this. At best, most people will be indifferent. At worst, they will scoff. But if your prayer and the sign of the cross well up out of your devotion to the Crucified, then it honors and glorifies the Lord, and it brings before others not only the cross, but also that honor and glory which the Church and her members render to the Lord. Such a thing can edify and even convict others.
This is the broad point for every aspect of our “cultic” life – the life of our external devotion: vestments, candles, genuflecting, and everything else. The whole point of these beautiful things is not to make the priest and ministers look like anything. But rather, perhaps counterintuitively, to render the priest and ministers invisible, and to lift up Jesus. I am not wearing any of this and prancing around up here because I am anything but a priest. And God knows I’ve done nothing to deserve any of this. I’m just an “earthen vessel” (2 Cor. 4.7), a mud creature (Gen. 2.7). Its all grace – no one but Jesus is worthy of anything.
And that’s just it: every religious practice, indeed EVERYTHING WE DO, must flow from our trust in Jesus, our love of him, and our hope in his promises. Its why we sing, its why we kneel, its why we pray, its why we turn up at mass when we’re supposed to, its what these vestments are about, and it should be the reason we climb out of bed every morning: because the Lamb who was slain is worthy “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5.12). And if anything in our lives whatsoever does NOT spring from our trust in Jesus, our love of him, and our hope in his promises, then those things become useless to us, or even worse: doing things, even otherwise good things, out of impure motives, to be seen by men, or to exalt ourselves, or even perhaps because “its just what you do” – then they become a hindrance to us, and they can even send us to hell.
This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” Actions are important, and they have consequences: this is especially true of the sacraments. But our doing them must proceed from a heart given to the Lord, who said “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (Matt. 15.18-20).
This applies too to what the Lord says further down in today’s Gospel: “But you are not to be called teacher, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ.” If we read these as injunctions about external behavior, then we fall immediately back into what Jesus has just rebuked: thinking that obeying injunctions is anything whatsoever in itself. And many Christians think this way; many cite this passage as the reason why they don’t call their pastors “Father”. (But I would note that these same people refer to their biological fathers as “father” – which is also ruled out on such a superficial reading, because it enjoins us to call NO MAN ON EARTH our father.)
But the truth is that like every other act of external religiousness: this too must spring from our trust in Jesus, our love for him, and our hope in his promises. This is what St. Paul means in speaking of the permissibility or impermissibility of other religious acts in 1 Corinthians: “If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” So I call priests “Father” – because I believe that God sent his only Son to die for our sins, and that the Son has given us the Church as the sacrament of that salvation.
Lastly: Today’s Gospel reading should draw our attention to the importance of constantly examining ourselves and checking our motives. Why do we do the things we do? Why do we abstain from the things from which we abstain? If we are motivated out of trust in Jesus, love of him, and hope in his promises, then we will do well. But if we are motivated by selfishness or pride or concupiscent desire or other such things, we have room for improvement, and we must resolve to root those things out of our consciousness by confessing them, and confessing those actions that have sprung from such motives. For most of us, when we take the time honestly to examine ourselves in this way, we will find a mixture of motives, some more or less pure than others.
The question is how we may instill in ourselves trust in the Lord, love of him, and hope in his promises, so that we may act out of THOSE motives. Self-examination and confession is half of the method. The other half is first positively and intentionally devoting ourselves to prayer, then to the moral disciplines of the Church and to works of mercy. This is what it is, as St. Paul says in today’s Epistle: to receive the word of God AS the word of God (1 Thess. 2.13) and “to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (v. 12).
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
NOTES:
Chrysostom: Again, He brings a further charge against them, that they oppress those that are put under them; They bind heavy burdens; in this He shows a double evil in them; that they exacted without any allowance the utmost rigor of life from those that were put under them, while they allowed themselves large license herein. But a good ruler should do the contrary of this, to be to himself a severe judge, to others a merciful one.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Also, if we should be wrong in imposing too light a penance, is it not better to have to answer for mercy than for severity? Where the master of the household is liberal, the steward should not be oppressive. If God be kind, should His Priest be harsh? Do you seek thereby the character of sanctity? Be strict in ordering your own life, in that of others lenient; let men hear of you as enjoining little, and performing much. The Priest who gives license to himself, and exacts the utmost from others, is like a corrupt tax-gatherer in the state, who to ease himself taxes others heavily…. Every substance breeds in itself that which destroys it, as wood the worm, and garments the moth; so the Devil strives to corrupt the ministry of the Priests, who are ordained for the edification of holiness, endeavoring that this good, while it is done to be seen of men, should be turned into evil. Take away this fault from the clergy, and you will have no further labor in their reform…
Pseudo-Chrysostom: “For some vain men hearing that it was a commendable thing to seat himself in the lowest place, chooses so to do; and thus not only does not put away the vanity of his heart, but adds this additional vain ostentation of his humility, as one who would be thought righteous and humble. For many proud men take the lowest place in their bodies, but in haughtiness of heart think themselves to be seated among the highest; and there are many humble men who, placed among the highest, are inwardly in their own esteem among the lowest.”
Jerome: It is a difficulty that the Apostle against this command calls himself the teacher of the Gentiles; and that in monasteries in their common conversation, they call one another, Father. It is to be cleared thus. It is one thing to be father or master by nature, another by sufferance. Thus when we call any man our father, we do it to show respect to his age, not as regarding him as the author of our being. We also call men 'Master,' from resemblance to a real master; and, not to use tedious repetition, as the One God and One Son, who are by nature, do not preclude us from calling others gods and sons by adoption, so the One Father and One Master, do not preclude us from speaking of other fathers and masters by an abuse of the terms.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus condemns the religious legalism of the Pharisees, and their hypocrisy, “for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men... and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men.”
The Pharisees went around being conspicuously religious, desiring to be seen and to be honored. Is it wrong then to be conspicuously religious? Not necessarily, but it all depends on your MOTIVE – and your motive, contrary to how it may seem, will color how your actions appear to others. If we are publicly pious so that others may see us and approve of us, then we do wrong. Then we have become pharisaical. But if we are publicly pious in order that JESUS may be seen, then we do well.
For example, consider pausing for prayer and crossing yourself before you eat in a restaurant. In our culture, there is not much danger of being approved by people for doing this. At best, most people will be indifferent. At worst, they will scoff. But if your prayer and the sign of the cross well up out of your devotion to the Crucified, then it honors and glorifies the Lord, and it brings before others not only the cross, but also that honor and glory which the Church and her members render to the Lord. Such a thing can edify and even convict others.
This is the broad point for every aspect of our “cultic” life – the life of our external devotion: vestments, candles, genuflecting, and everything else. The whole point of these beautiful things is not to make the priest and ministers look like anything. But rather, perhaps counterintuitively, to render the priest and ministers invisible, and to lift up Jesus. I am not wearing any of this and prancing around up here because I am anything but a priest. And God knows I’ve done nothing to deserve any of this. I’m just an “earthen vessel” (2 Cor. 4.7), a mud creature (Gen. 2.7). Its all grace – no one but Jesus is worthy of anything.
And that’s just it: every religious practice, indeed EVERYTHING WE DO, must flow from our trust in Jesus, our love of him, and our hope in his promises. Its why we sing, its why we kneel, its why we pray, its why we turn up at mass when we’re supposed to, its what these vestments are about, and it should be the reason we climb out of bed every morning: because the Lamb who was slain is worthy “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5.12). And if anything in our lives whatsoever does NOT spring from our trust in Jesus, our love of him, and our hope in his promises, then those things become useless to us, or even worse: doing things, even otherwise good things, out of impure motives, to be seen by men, or to exalt ourselves, or even perhaps because “its just what you do” – then they become a hindrance to us, and they can even send us to hell.
This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians: “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” Actions are important, and they have consequences: this is especially true of the sacraments. But our doing them must proceed from a heart given to the Lord, who said “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man” (Matt. 15.18-20).
This applies too to what the Lord says further down in today’s Gospel: “But you are not to be called teacher, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ.” If we read these as injunctions about external behavior, then we fall immediately back into what Jesus has just rebuked: thinking that obeying injunctions is anything whatsoever in itself. And many Christians think this way; many cite this passage as the reason why they don’t call their pastors “Father”. (But I would note that these same people refer to their biological fathers as “father” – which is also ruled out on such a superficial reading, because it enjoins us to call NO MAN ON EARTH our father.)
But the truth is that like every other act of external religiousness: this too must spring from our trust in Jesus, our love for him, and our hope in his promises. This is what St. Paul means in speaking of the permissibility or impermissibility of other religious acts in 1 Corinthians: “If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” So I call priests “Father” – because I believe that God sent his only Son to die for our sins, and that the Son has given us the Church as the sacrament of that salvation.
Lastly: Today’s Gospel reading should draw our attention to the importance of constantly examining ourselves and checking our motives. Why do we do the things we do? Why do we abstain from the things from which we abstain? If we are motivated out of trust in Jesus, love of him, and hope in his promises, then we will do well. But if we are motivated by selfishness or pride or concupiscent desire or other such things, we have room for improvement, and we must resolve to root those things out of our consciousness by confessing them, and confessing those actions that have sprung from such motives. For most of us, when we take the time honestly to examine ourselves in this way, we will find a mixture of motives, some more or less pure than others.
The question is how we may instill in ourselves trust in the Lord, love of him, and hope in his promises, so that we may act out of THOSE motives. Self-examination and confession is half of the method. The other half is first positively and intentionally devoting ourselves to prayer, then to the moral disciplines of the Church and to works of mercy. This is what it is, as St. Paul says in today’s Epistle: to receive the word of God AS the word of God (1 Thess. 2.13) and “to lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (v. 12).
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
NOTES:
Chrysostom: Again, He brings a further charge against them, that they oppress those that are put under them; They bind heavy burdens; in this He shows a double evil in them; that they exacted without any allowance the utmost rigor of life from those that were put under them, while they allowed themselves large license herein. But a good ruler should do the contrary of this, to be to himself a severe judge, to others a merciful one.
Pseudo-Chrysostom: Also, if we should be wrong in imposing too light a penance, is it not better to have to answer for mercy than for severity? Where the master of the household is liberal, the steward should not be oppressive. If God be kind, should His Priest be harsh? Do you seek thereby the character of sanctity? Be strict in ordering your own life, in that of others lenient; let men hear of you as enjoining little, and performing much. The Priest who gives license to himself, and exacts the utmost from others, is like a corrupt tax-gatherer in the state, who to ease himself taxes others heavily…. Every substance breeds in itself that which destroys it, as wood the worm, and garments the moth; so the Devil strives to corrupt the ministry of the Priests, who are ordained for the edification of holiness, endeavoring that this good, while it is done to be seen of men, should be turned into evil. Take away this fault from the clergy, and you will have no further labor in their reform…
Pseudo-Chrysostom: “For some vain men hearing that it was a commendable thing to seat himself in the lowest place, chooses so to do; and thus not only does not put away the vanity of his heart, but adds this additional vain ostentation of his humility, as one who would be thought righteous and humble. For many proud men take the lowest place in their bodies, but in haughtiness of heart think themselves to be seated among the highest; and there are many humble men who, placed among the highest, are inwardly in their own esteem among the lowest.”
Jerome: It is a difficulty that the Apostle against this command calls himself the teacher of the Gentiles; and that in monasteries in their common conversation, they call one another, Father. It is to be cleared thus. It is one thing to be father or master by nature, another by sufferance. Thus when we call any man our father, we do it to show respect to his age, not as regarding him as the author of our being. We also call men 'Master,' from resemblance to a real master; and, not to use tedious repetition, as the One God and One Son, who are by nature, do not preclude us from calling others gods and sons by adoption, so the One Father and One Master, do not preclude us from speaking of other fathers and masters by an abuse of the terms.
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