Tuesday in the 15th Week of Ordinary Time, July 16, 2024

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.”

The Lord is speaking after he has spent several months or even more than a year living, preaching, and performing miracles in Capernaum, a fishing town on the coast of the Sea of Galilee.  The town stands in for the world into which he has come and dwelt, taught and performed miracles.  As Capernaum largely rejected him, so has the world.  His rebuke of the town should then be read as his rebuke of the world he had come to save from sin.

“Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented.”  The people of the towns of Galilee had seen his abundant miracles.  Indeed, many had been cured or even been fed by him.  And yet so many of these had gone back to their normal lives as though he had never touched them.  The Lord was not asking them to give something back to him — indeed, the people whom he cured seemed hardly ever to have thanked him — but to do what they ought to have done on their own account : to turn away from sin. 

“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.”  Tyre and Sidon, ancient cities on the Mediterranean cost, steeped in their pagan worship and renowned for riotous living, would have repented and turned to the true God if the people had witnessed such miracles, just as Nineveh, the capital of a fabulous empire, had repented at the preaching of an Israelite prophet.  “But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.”  As the Lord teaches, “Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required” (Luke 12, 48).

“Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the netherworld.”  The Lord Jesus is here referring to the judgment on Lucifer in Isaiah 14, 12-17.  “Lucifer” is the Latin word for “light-bearer” and is used for the Morning Star that announces the dawn.  The Jews reading Isaiah in the time of the Lord would have understood “Lucifer” to mean the king of Babylon, or even ancient Babylon itself, which was threatening the whole Middle East during Isaiah’s lifetime.  The Fathers understood this name to mean the devil, and these verses to describe his fall from heaven into hell: “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven.’ . . . But you are brought down to hell, to the depths of the Pit” (Isaiah 14, 13 and 15).  With this perspective, we can see the horrific gravity and the consequence of Capernaum’s rejection of the Son of God.

Capernaum and the other Galilean towns and cities were not hotbeds of sin as the Gentile cities were, but the people did not pay much attention to God and they went about their business without dedicating it to him, without looking to encourage one another in the practice of virtue, without looking ahead to the day of judgment.  We should never think that we are good enough for heaven, or that we have done enough to be rewarded with it.