“Woe to you
Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and of rue and of every garden herb, but you
pay no attention to judgment and to love for God. These you should have done,
without overlooking the others. Woe to you Pharisees! You love the seat of
honor in synagogues and greetings in marketplaces. Woe to you! You are like
unseen graves over which people unknowingly walk.”
Then one of
the scholars of the law said to him in reply, “Teacher, by saying this you are
insulting us too. And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose
on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to
touch them.
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Reflection:
Is Jesus
angry in the gospel?
Seldom do we
see Jesus angry and this gospel episode is one of the rare ones. What made
Jesus angry? He was angry with the Pharisees, (the learned ruling class during
that time) for the reason that they imposed so much religious requirements to
their people.
However, they
were only good on imposing those requirements. They were not actually willing
to live what they wanted their people to do. The Pharisees were religious
leaders in name only, they love to display their religiosity. But they did not
live their religiosity, it was simply a superficial display of faith.
Some if not
many of us are like the Pharisees. We love to give orders: do this and to that
but it ends there. We don’t lift a finger to do it ourselves, we want others to
do things for us while we watch and relax. How could we become good examples,
good leaders and ideal followers of Jesus if we are not willing to walk our
talk? How could we make Jesus happy if we are not living our faith?
Effective
faith in Jesus is faith that is alive and kicking and faith that is leading and
working. This is the most effective faith, let us therefore live our faith. Not
because we want others to see us living it. We live our faith because this is
our obligation as true followers of Jesus. – Marino J. Dasmarinas
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