Tuesday in the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time, July18, 2023

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.”

“Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented.”  In the verses prior to those of today’s Gospel Reading, the Lord has upbraided the Jews for not repenting at the preaching of John the Baptist, then the Jews in general for not repenting at his own preaching, and now he reproaches specific towns for not having repented despite not only his preaching but his miracles which powerfully validate his calls to repent.  The Lord’s exclamations show his great hurt at the complacency of the people of these towns.  We get the sense from his words that if anything could shock God, this was it: this complete absence of interest in their eternal welfare.

“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida!”  The Lord’s use of “woe” here brings to mind the “woes” pronounced by the Prophets of old, especially that of the late Prophet Zephaniah: “Woe to her that is rebellious and defiled, the oppressing city!  She listens to no voice, she accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord, she does not draw near to her God” (Zephaniah 3, 1-2).   

“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.”  The Lord compares the great and ancient cities of Tyre and Sidon with the insignificant fishing towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida.  Tyre and Sidon were thriving hubs of civilization and trade.  The residents of these cities were steeped in their polytheism, but they would have been far more open to the Lord’s message, he is saying, than had been the Jewish inhabitants of the towns that ringed the Sea of Galilee.  We should keep in mind the utter contempt in which the Jews held these pagan cities.  Those who lived in them were unclean “dogs”.

“But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.”  A few centuries before, God had spoken through Ezekiel against Tyre and described its condemnation: “I will make you like a naked rock, you shall be a drying place for nets, neither shall you be built any more: for I have spoken it, says the Lord God” (Ezekiel 26, 14).  The unrepentant citizens of these Jewish towns would suffer both destruction and shame, as the pagans would be punished more lightly than they.  

“And as for you, Capernaum: Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.”  The people of the very town where the Lord had come to live and where so many had heard his preaching and been cured of their incurable illnesses would go down to “the netherworld”.  Since the Greeks did not believe in a hell, they had no proper word for it and the translated of St. Matthew’s Gospel had used the only available word, “Hades”, for “the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” forever (Matthew 25, 30).  “For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.”  Sodom, the city destroyed by the Lord by the pouring of fire and brimstone upon it (cf. Genesis 19, 24), was emblematic for the most wicked deeds a human could commit.  And yet, the Lord says, if it’s residents had seen the miracles performed there that the Jewish people of Capernaum had seen, they would have repented.  The Lord is saying that complacency and indifference are worse than abominable wickedness.  “But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”  All sinners will hear these terrible words directed to them on the day of judgment: “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25, 41).  All will go into the fire, but for the most wretched of them — those who strutted about in their sin despite years of chances to repent — the fire will blaze the hottest.