Tuesday in the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, August 27, 2024

Matthew 23, 23-26

Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. 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! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”

The Jewish law of tithing is found in two places in the Old Testament: in Numbers 18, 21-26, which directs the tithe to the priests for their sustenance; and in Deuteronomy 14, 22-29, where it is declared, “Every year you shall set aside the tithes of all your fruits that the earth brings forth.”  These fruits, though, are specified: “The  tenth of your corn, and your wine, and your oil, and the firstborn of your herds and your sheep.”  These things were to be brought “to the place which the Lord shall choose”, which eventually meant the Temple in Jerusalem, unless doing so proved excessively burdensome, in which case their worth in coin would be brought there.  The Pharisees exceeded the demands of the Law by teaching that even the smallest herbs and seeds should be tithed, just as they exceeded it in their teaching on the Sabbath and when they extended to the common people the laws for cleansing that were supposed to apply only to the priests on duty in the Temple.  Yet they did not teach that which undergirded the Mosaic Law for which they professed to have so much zeal: “judgment — that is, “divine judgment” — “mercy and fidelity”.  

For this grave omission, the Lord Jesus accuses the Pharisees and scribes of being “hypocrites”, from the Greek word used to translate the Hebrew word “ungodly” or “godless” in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Law and the Prophets used by the Pharisees, including Saul of Tarsus.  And as the Lord demonstrated that the ancient priesthood of Aaron had come to an end by driving out of the Temple courtyard the animals to be sacrificed, so the Lord here shows the emptiness of the teaching of the Pharisees.  They are “blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!”  We note here that the Lord goes beyond criticizing their teaching and rebukes them personally.  They will hear this again on the Last  Day when the Lord comes to judge the living and the dead.  “You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.”  This can be understood as a metaphor for their bodies, which they adorn — “They make their phylacteries broad and widen their fringes” (Matthew 23, 5) — and their souls, which are rotted out.  This can also be seen as the contrary sign of the Law in reality: ordinary practices not much different from those of their neighbors, but motivated by the love of God and neighbor.  

“Cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”  The Lord offers practical advice that is meant to convey spiritual counsel.  A cup which has been used is most in need of cleansing within, which held the beverage, and so it is cleansed first.  Of secondary consideration is its exterior, which may only need to be wiped off.  Jesus means for the Pharisee to examine his heart and confess his sins.  Penitent, the Pharisee may now put on the distinctive clothing of the Jew of that time.  Jesus uses irony here, for the Pharisees were obsessed with ritual cleansing and knew very well how to wash cups, though they did so through a misinterpretation of the Law.

Jesus calls the Pharisees “blind” several times, as recounted by the Evangelists.  Another example of this is found in John 9, 40-41, when, after he had healed the man born blind he said that he had come to give sight to the blind and to take it from the sighted, whereupon “some of the Pharisees, who were with him, heard: and they said unto him: Are we also blind?”  To which the Lord answered, “If you were blind, you should not have sin: but now you say: We see. Your sin remains.”  That is, they are spiritually blind but they pretend to others that they can see, leading them into their own darkness.  We gather, then, that the Pharisees knew that they were not the guides to the Law they made themselves out to be.  We can get hints of this awareness when they make such patently absurd claims that the Lord Jesus cast out demons by the prince of demons (cf. Matthew 9, 34), and when they admitted to themselves the poverty of their judgments (cf. Mark 11, 31-33).  

All that we do in our lives should have at its core the love of God and neighbor.  St. Paul reminds us that we may do many great and hard things in this life, but unless they have this love as their origin and guiding principle, we are digging our own graves: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13, 1-3).