Tuesday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July 12, 2022

Matthew 11, 20-24

Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld. For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”

Much of how we understand the Gospel Reading for today’s Mass depends upon what we know of the Greek word translated here as “reproached”.  It is not a word found often in the Gospels.  It has the meanings of “to reproach”, “to upbraid”, or “to insult”.  It implies very strong feelings.  For example, one of the few places we encounter this word comes in Matthew 27, 44: “And the selfsame thing [the Lord’s claim to be the Son of God] the thieves also that were crucified with him reproached him with.”  In this instance we find bitterness, anguish, and anger.  In saying that the Lord “reproached” these towns for not converting, St. Matthew shows us the Lord’s grieved state: all he had done for the people of these places and they went about as though nothing had happened.  The Lord reveals something more of the feelings he displayed here in his Parable of the Wedding Feast: a king held a wedding feast for his son and invited many people to it, but they ignored the summons or found excuses so they could not attend.  The king became very angry and told his messengers, “None of those men that were invited shall taste of my supper” (Luke 14, 24).  In a similar parable in Matthew 22, the king even goes out and burns down the city of the guests who refused to come.  Apart from the first four chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, everything he tells about Jesus takes place in the last year of his life on earth so the Lord is reproaching these towns after they have known him and his miracles and teachings for three years.  Yet, in those three years the people did not reform.

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!”  Both towns were located just north of the Sea Of Galilee,  or far from Capernaum.  The Gospels are silent on miracles the Lord performed in Chorazin.  Bethsaida was the native place of the Apostles Peter, Andrew, and Philip.  The Gospels tell us of how the Lord healed a blind man just outside the city, and that he fed a crowd of five thousand people there.  The Lord’s manner of addressing these towns brings to mind God’s reaction to the ingratitude of the Israelites after he had so dramatically saved them from slavery in Egypt: “How long will this people detract me? how long will they not believe me for all the signs that I have wrought before them? I will strike them therefore with pestilence, and will consume them” (Numbers 14, 11-12).  

“It will be more tolerable.”  That is, the pagans in Tyre and Sidon will suffer less punishment for their sins than the Jews in Chorazin and Bethsaida.  As the Lord explains in another place, “And that servant, who knew the will of his lord and prepared not himself and did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.  But he that knew not and did things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes” (Luke 12, 47-48).  That is to say, stealing the property of another person is a sin, no matter who commits it, but a person who has the word of God to warn him against the sin and teaches love of neighbor sins more in stealing than the person who did not have this advantage.  

“You will go down to the netherworld.”  The voice of the verb here is the Greek middle, so this sentence can be more literally translated as, “You will bring yourself down as far as Hades.”  “You will go down” does not imply an agent for the action whereas the Greek middle implies that the subject of the sentence is the agent of his own downfall.  The Greek text uses the word “Hades”, which is the name of the Greek netherworld.  Hades was not necessarily a place of punishment but a person would not want to inhabit it, either.  Shades and shadows dwelt in Hades, enduring a pointless, joyless existence.  The Hebrew equivalent “Sheol” is probably meant here but the word is not transliterated as most Hebrew place names were in the Gospels.

“But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”  We ought to consider that Capernaum had far less to repent of than the notorious Sodom, but far greater wonders that encouraged it to do so.  

In the force of the Lord’s anger here we see his Passion for the saving of souls.  No act to bring us to him is left undone, no word left unsaid.  He would do literally anything for us to prevent one sin.  His Passion comes from his thirst to glorify his Father who created us and from his own thirst for our souls.  He does not wait for us to become saints before we approach him, either.  Let us recall that hanging on the Cross, the Lord said, “I thirst,” his words strained in his agony.  A man brought him a sponge soaked with the common wine (or “vinegar”) that was kept for the condemned men, and the Lord drank that.  He could have transformed it into the “best” wine as he had done at the wedding at Cana, but he drank what was offered to him, as it was.  This common wine is us, repentant, humble, and prepared for the Lord’s purposes.