Saturday in the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time, August 22, 2020

One of our priests here at Blessed Sacrament has tested positive for the Coronavirus.  This means that he is quarantined to his room for the next two weeks, and we three others will be quarantined to the parish campus for the length of that time.  We will be tested in the next couple of days.  Please keep us in your prayers!

Matthew 23:1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

The Lord Jesus continues to explain to the people that the scribes and Pharisees have taught them merely their own interpretation of the law, which serves to provide these men with a certain authority over them.  Particularly, they shape the people’s expectations of the Messiah.  Yet their school of thought had only existed for a couple of hundred years, and certainly had no claim to have been founded by the prophets, let alone by Moses.  Nor can the scribes and Pharisees point to any signs of divine sanction or favor, as by miracles.  They became the dominant school for the interpretation of the law and the prophets largely through political maneuvering.  For this reason, the Lord Jesus says that they “have taken their seat on the chair of Moses”, as though to say that they have usurped it.  Because of the void that would exist without them, the Lord counsels the people to “do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you”, that is, that which is not plainly contrary to belief in God and to morals.  However, “Do not follow their example” — do not act as they do, for “they preach but they do not practice.”  In doing this, he offers himself as the one for whom God does show his signs of divine sanction and favor, and who does practice what he preaches.  He shows that he is not simply one alternative to the Pharisees, but the divinely approved successor to Moses and the prophets — indeed, the one who would fulfill them.  The Lord does not simply spout “human traditions” (Mark 7, 8) but tells what he has “seen with my Father”, rebuking the Pharisees for doing “the things that you have seen with your father”, the devil (John 8, 38).  

The Lord gives examples of the abuses the Pharisees commit as teachers in order to give themselves an air of authority: they interpret the law in such a way that it becomes onerous to keep, they make it a practice to flaunt good works, they parade around in exaggerated religious costume, they seek the best places at feasts as though they deserved them, and they enjoy being addressed as “rabbi”.  In reality they make a parody of themselves as “teachers”.  The Lord Jesus then turns to his disciples and instructs them that they are to sharply contrast themselves with these men.  The disciples are not to put on a show with their behavior.  They are to keep in mind that they are servants, not masters, and that they exist to preach the word not of men for their own advantage, but of God for the eternal profit of those to whom they speak.  To emphasize this, Jesus uses the common device of hyperbole: “Do not be called ‘Rabbi’, for you have but one teacher.”  That is to say, they are not to teach their own doctrines or opinions, but only those of Christ: they are teachers in the Teacher.  Likewise, “Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven.”  God is the Father.  All others are fathers in the Father.  God is the only true Father, “from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named” (Ephesians 3, 15).  Finally, having spoken in specifics, the Lord lays down the general principle: “The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”  The work of the teacher, the father, and the master, is service to others: “Freely have you received, freely give” (Matthew 10, 8).  This is done not in imitation of mere men such as the scribes and the Pharisees, but in imitation of the Son of God: “For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also” (John 13, 15).

All the Lord’s followers are called to teach in various ways, according to their calling.  Let us keep in mind as we do so, by word and example, that we are offering service in the Service of our Lord.