31st Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Mission as an experience of fraternity
by Romeo Ballan mccj

Matthew 23:1-12

The growing tension between the Scribes and Pharisees allied against Jesus is reaching breaking point – and will result in the passion and death of the Messiah. The evidence is in the Gospel passages of today and of previous Sundays, with repeated clashes and the insidious questions aimed at bringing him down. Following repeated calls to authentic worship, to conversion of heart and of habits, Jesus (Gospel) unmasks the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees “because they do not practise what they preach” (v. 3). While recognising their authority (“do what they tell you…”) he denounces their lust for power (they lay heavy burdens on the shoulders of others, v.4); he exposes their vanity in seeking places of honour, attention and obsequious greetings (v. 5-7). Jesus teaches his disciples that the title Father belongs only to the Heavenly Father, and that the title Master is given only to the Christ. The only honorary titles that belong to disciples are: son, brother, servant: “You are all brothers” (v. 8); “The greatest among you must be your servant” (v. 11).

Only God is great; we are all sons and daughters of the one Father and Creator, as even the prophet Malachi teaches today (First Reading): “Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why, then, do we break faith with one another?” (v. 10). God gives us a responsibility towards our brothers (“where is Abel, your brother?”) and rejects the wickedness of the one who replies: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gn 4:9). The true greatness of a person is to recognise oneself as a child of the heavenly Father, brother/sister to all, servants of all for love. I remember the conviction and the interior joy with which a fellow missionary once said to me: “I have never felt so great as when I felt I was a brother to everyone”.

Whoever experiences brotherhood feels a specific missionary responsibility, and evangelises in a very particular way: he or she feels the urgency to communicate the good news of Christ to others, shares spiritual and material goods with them, respects the worth of the diversity of gifts that the Father gives to each one, helps everyone to overcome the barriers, ideologies, divisions of race, caste, social classes… That is why Pope John Paul II defined a missionary as a universal brother/sister, highlighting this characteristic of missionary spirituality. To live fraternity towards everyone is an urgent necessity in many territories where missionary activities are carried out, given the frequency of conflicts and the urgent need for reconciliation. Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) is an example of missionary witness lived under the banner of universal brotherhood. He decided to spend the last years in the Algerian Sahara desert, first in Béni Abbès and then in Tamanrasset with the Tuareg people of the Hoggar. A life of prayer, meditation on Sacred Scripture, Eucharistic adoration, welcoming and listening to the Bedouins who were passing through, in the incessant desire to be to each one of them a universal brother, a living image of the Love of Jesus. “I wish I could be good so that you may say: If such is the servant, how will the Master be?” He wanted to shout the Gospel with his life. On the evening of December 1st, 1916, he was killed by a gang of roaming robbers.

On World Mission Sunday, we reminded ourselves that the proclamation of the Gospel is the first and most excellent service that the Church can offer humanity. Missionaries are the servants and bearers of this message which is for all peoples! St. Paul (Second Reading) points out the style of mission: with humility, “as God’s message” (v. 13), that is, in the awareness that the message is greater than us; with the total dedication and tenderness of a mother (v. 7-8); proclaiming the Gospel with joy and freedom of heart. And involving everybody to take an active part in the noblest of ventures, for Christ. In a spirit of fraternal collaboration, as suggested by an African proverb from Burkina Faso: “If ants work together, they will be able to carry an elephant!” The task is very demanding, but it is possible, and it is a duty.

Gospel Reflection
Matthew 23:1-12
by Fernando Asmellini

At the time of Jesus, there were many Jewish sects. Some are also mentioned in the Gospels: the Sadducees, the Herodians, the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Zealots…. All of them disappeared except the Pharisees who survived the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the catastrophe of 70 AD. Without the Pharisees, Israel would no longer exist.

When we hear of them, the invective of Jesus immediately resounds in our ears: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” But were the members of this sect really a repository of evil and wickedness? The people worshiped them for their knowledge of the sacred Scriptures and their ascetic austerity. They were considered legitimate masters, enlightened leaders and, without their support, it was not possible to win the sympathy and the consent of the people.

They were faithful to God and respectful of all moral laws which they scrupulously and blamelessly observed. They would have been the religious group closer to Jesus. Instead, they became his fiercest opponents. How so?

Some of them—perhaps many—from the early years of the church, were converted (Acts 15:5). However, entering the Christian community, they brought with them the legalistic mentality, the religious formalism, the moral rigor, the conviction of obtaining salvation by their own good works. Above all, their image of God was that of a stern and strict judge, incompatible with the God preached by Jesus.

The Pharisees are not missing. They will never disappear, because “a Pharisee” is hidden in every disciple. When he re-emerges, he spreads his yeast of death, a yeast against which one must be on guard (Mt 16:6).

Gospel: Matthew 23:1-12

If we read the whole chapter from which this passage is taken, we cannot but remain puzzled by the harsh language used by Jesus. As a mournful refrain, the invective returns to his lips seven times: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” We are not accustomed to hearing him punctuate on people in this way. We also have the impression that his threats are excessive. It does not appear that the scribes and Pharisees could be charged with all the crimes attributed to them. They were proud and fiery of their righteousness, paraded in front of everyone. It is difficult to recognize them in the controversial description Matthew does of them. Paul, educated according to the spirituality of this school, boasted that he was “with regard to the Law, a Pharisee. As for being righteous according to the Law, I was blameless” (Phil 3:4-6); “I have lived as a Pharisee—he declared—in the most rigorous sect of our religion” (Acts 26:5), and he wrote to the Romans: “I can testify that they are zealous for God” (Rom 10:2).

Finally, even if the presentation made of them were correct, we wonder what sense it makes to propose today for Christians to meditate on the long list of accusations against the Pharisees of two thousand years ago.

It is important to be aware of the literary genre of this page if one does not want to lose the message not addressed to the Jews of Jesus’ time, but to Christian communities of today. The Master’s words are harsh because the denounced danger is serious. The “Pharisee” is a typical character: he represents a way of thinking, judging, acting opposite to the Gospel; the arguments and beliefs of the Pharisees infiltrate subtly among the disciples and are easily assimilated.

In order to approach the text correctly, we check first of all to whom Jesus is addressing or directing his seven terrible “woes”. The answer seems obvious: the recipients are the scribes and Pharisees of his time. But it is not so. From the first verse of the chapter, it is clear that Jesus is talking to “the crowds and his disciples.” They are those who are at risk of behaving like “Pharisees.” We are now being called into question by his reproaches.

The passage being proposed today does not include the hardest part of the discourse, that of the seven “Woe to you.” They expose, in a dramatic crescendo, the contradictions of the self-righteous behavior: from shutting the kingdom of heaven in the people’s face, not entering themselves and not allowing others to have access to it, until that of killing the prophets (vv. 13-32). However, these few verses are enough to identify some characteristic aspects of Phariseeism and to verify, as in a mirror, if, where and how the Pharisees persist in our communities.

He is a Pharisee, first of all, who occupies another’s chair (v. 2).

A basalt seat was found in the synagogue of Corozaim. Apparently, it was used by the scribe in charge of explaining the Scriptures. In every synagogue, there was one similar to that. It was called “the chair of Moses” because it was believed that, in the words of the rabbi who was sitting there, the same Moses taught the law to the people.

Jesus uses the image of this chair to outline the first negative characteristic of those belonging to the sect of the Pharisees: the abuse of authority.

The book of Deuteronomy says that Moses’ successors—those given the charge to convey to the people the word of God—are the prophets (Dt 18:15,18). But, in the last centuries before Christ, when the prophets disappeared, their place was quickly and illegally occupied by the scribes. So from prophecy, it passed to the rabbis’ prescriptions and provisions. They were passed on as “word and will of God.”

Those who today reduce the relationship with the Lord to compliance with applicable laws and precepts, who replace the prophecy with the codes of laws, who preach a legalism that stifles spontaneity and takes away the joy of feeling always loved and welcomed by God, are perpetuating the spirituality of the Pharisees.

Verse 3 surprises us because it seems to speak positively of the moral authority of the Pharisees who, in the rest of the gospel, are criticized in a systematic way: “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees!” recommends Jesus to his disciples (Mt 16:12). Here, then, one cannot urge people to assimilate their teaching. The verse is understood in the ironic sense, as if to say, “Follow, follow well as their empty and foolish chatter and you will soon realize how they distance you from God.”

The second characteristic of the Pharisee is thus highlighted: inconsistency. Pharisee is anyone who says and does not do. He presents himself a devout person, speaks fine words on love, peace, respect of others, but cleverly avoids to get involved with these statements of principle.

Well articulated documents and solemn declarations are opportune but there is a need to be also vigilant so as not to fall into errors which are denounced in them. Requests for forgiveness for the crimes of the past are noble but one should also be aware that, from the same roots, today’s evil and reprehensible behaviors also draw sap and force.

The third characteristic of the Pharisees is the loading of unbearable burdens on the shoulders of the people (v. 4). They make a mistake with devastating consequences: they reduce the faith and love of God to the practice of religion. They preach fidelity to the precepts, and once observed—they say—one can safely feel okay and at peace with the Lord. But this is throwing a person in a distressing circle: laws, inevitable transgressions, cleansing rites, then new laws getting more minute and detailed, interpreted in a rigorous way with the result of taking the breath away, making life impossible, provoking anxiety instead of leading to inner peace. Thus the Jewish religion is born represented by empty stone jars. It is a wedding feast without wine, joyless because it lacks the loving, free and confident momentum towards God (Jn 2:1-11).

The scribes who have imposed these laws do not move even a finger to help the people, crushed by the weight of those requirements. “They do not even raise a finger to move them”; they do not consider the actual facts, not suggests less rigid interpretations, nor invite to seek the essential (v. 4). Jesus is moved in front of this situation and takes action to free the people from an unbearable load: “Come to me—he says—all you who work hard and who carry heavy burdens, and I will refresh you” (Mt 11:28-30). It is an invitation to take upon oneself a single, sweet and light yoke, that of love. Even Paul recommends: “Do not be in debt to anyone. Let this be the only debt of one to another: Love” (Rom 13:8).

Those who today try to impose on people “absurd and intolerable loads,” who arbitrarily dictate rules, who are preoccupied with the minutiae of which Jesus never mentioned, who filter out the gnat and swallow the camel (Mt 23:24) behave as a Pharisee.

The fourth Pharisaical characteristic is exhibitionism (vv. 5-7), the desire to show off. This defect was deeply rooted, so Jesus denounces this often: “How can you believe—he one day says—you seek praise from one another instead of seeking the glory which comes from the only God” (Jn 5:44). He called hypocrites those who practice good deeds before people to be seen, those who pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be noted, those who fast with a melancholy air so that everyone is aware that they are mortifying (Mt 6:1,5,16).

In today’s passage, other tricks with which the Pharisees attempt to gain recognition are described: the places of honor at banquets, the chief seats in the synagogues, the widened stripes, and the fringes of vestments used during prayer.

Today the desire to attract attention of the people, the claim to having cameras trained on oneself have not disappeared. They pretend that the good done is emphasized and publicized and are annoyed when they are not. We can safely say that not all Christians do good works, hoping no one talks about it, doing everything possible to ensure “the left does not know what the right is doing” (Mt 6:3).

In the last part of today’s Gospel (vv. 8-12), the image of the authentic Christian community is drawn, one in which every form of superiority and inequality has been eliminated. It is the opposite of society, both civil and religious, in which classes, discrimination, the distinctions between superiors and subjects are recognized and approved.

There are arguments that we consider important and to which Jesus gave little importance. However, on the issue of the first places, the honorary titles, the bows, the hand-kissing, the adulation he makes himself clear, radical and insistent. It becomes clear that this theme is in his heart, a central part of his message.

At the Last Supper, the disciples debated who among them should be accounted the greatest. He said: “The kings of the pagan nations and those hardhearted rulers claim the title ‘Gracious Lord’. But not so with you; let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as the servant” (Lk 22:24-26).

It is the reversal of the criteria of this world. Jesus is so concerned that these criteria could emerge or that they are recovered in the Christian community that explicitly prohibits the use of even seemingly innocuous, the honorary titles. It recalls three, those used in his time for honored and respected persons: Rabbi (which means “my great…”), father (which means “model of life and behavior”) and master (i.e. “spiritual guide”).

It’s needless to devise reductive and conciliatory interpretations or resort to subtle disquisitions trying to justify them. Jesus has spoken unequivocally; his words are among the most clear and perhaps also among the most disregarded. Today he would not be less rigid on this point; he was too allergic to “Phariseeism” and would not tolerate that, among his disciples, even only the appearance of such behavior infiltrates.

In the Christian community, the only blessed titles are brother, sister, disciple, servant and those that indicate a ministry, a service. Others should be banned and should arouse discomfort not only in those who are addressed as such but also in those who receive them. It is no coincidence that in the apostolic fathers (i.e. until the middle of the second century AD), the term “father” was reserved for God. It is significant that at the end of the fourth century AD, Jerome looked again: “The Lord warned not to call anyone father except God alone. I do not understand then who has authorized the superiors of monasteries to be called ‘Abba’ or how we can allow someone to call us in this way.”

The last words of today’s Gospel reproduce at a glance all the displayed message: “Let the greatest among you be the servant of all. For whoever makes himself great shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be made great” (v. 11).
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