Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 12:28-34

This is a familiar gospel, isn't it?  It's because Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell almost the same story.  In Luke’s version he has Jesus answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” with the story of the Good Samaritan.  And maybe today we should look at this familiar gospel in a different way.  In the first part, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy -- the prayer that a Jewish man is supposed to say when he wakes up in the morning.  It’s called the Shmah, because it starts out “smah yashrael” which means “Hear, Israel…” And to the people of Moses’ time who were surrounded by pagans, the commandment meant that only God, only Yaweh, was worthy of my love.  By the time Jesus came along the commandment had taken on some additional meaning -- what is there in your life that takes away from your love of God?  It's said that Jesus appeared to Saint Thomas Aquinas and said, “You have written well of me, Thomas.  What reward can I give you?” and Thomas replied, “Only you, Lord.”  How would you and I answer that question?  I know there are a lot of things I would be reluctant to leave behind when I die.  Certainly, my wife and my family, but my computer, my television set, my Netflix subscription.  And more seriously, my ability to walk, to see, to hear, to think. But like it or not, I will leave all these behind.  So loving God the way Jesus, and before him, Moses told us to, is more of a goal than a present reality for most of us, me included.  I have to work on getting to Saint Thomas' place – only you, Lord!

Love of neighbor also needs to be carefully thought about.  Do you remember when Jesus was approached by a gentile woman who wanted him to heal her daughter?  Jesus replied that he had been sent to the lost sheep of Israel.  But he healed the woman’s daughter.  Jesus was approached by a centurion who asked for healing for his servant -- and Jesus did so. Over and over again, we read about Jesus encountering someone and healing him or her.  

Love of neighbor has to do with action.  This is the time of year when my dear wife sits down and writes checks for the forty or so charities for which she feels sorry.  We pay income taxes, a very small part of which actually helps people in trouble.  We contribute to the bishop’s fund and our favorite college.  Is that what Jesus is talking about?  I don’t think so. In Jesus' time Jewish people recognized that you had an obligation to tithe – and besides the upkeep of the temple tithes were used to help the poor.  You and I still have that obligation -- that’s good, but it's not love of neighbor, it's an obligation.  As Jesus demonstrated in his life and his story about the good Samaritan, a neighbor is someone who crosses your path who needs what you can give.  The word Jesus and the scribe use for love is the word “agape”.  It isn’t just a feeling; it’s the willingness to be inconvenienced, to be put out, to give something up for the person who crosses your path and needs something from you.  It’s really an attitude, a change in how you look at the world.  It has to do with the encounters you have with other people every day.  If you meet someone in pain, what can you do about it?  If you meet someone hungry, what can you do right now for her.  If you meet someone who is anxious or depressed or angry or sad, what can you do? And if you can't see their need, what would you like someone to do for you in that circumstance?  A complement? A thank you? Because you would like those things for yourself if you didn't have them.  Don't love your neighbor in your mind.  Agape your neighbor.

Patrick Wisely, a Presbyterian theologian, says that love of neighbor comes from a broken heart.  When Jesus stood before a large crowd in Galilee, it says he had compassion for them for they were like sheep without a shepherd.  In the Greek words, he felt it in his gut, like a stomach ache.  And of course he was moved to sit them down and feed them. In those days that feeling was what we call a broken heart today.  When you see the young man holding a cardboard sign saying homeless, what do you feel?  When you encounter a displaced person from Ukraine, or Afghanistan or Haiti, does your heart break for him or her?  Walk around a nursing home someday and meet the people who have no families, who are lost in their failing minds, who are never going to walk again, who depend on machines to take the place of their kidneys -- do they break your heart?  If not, is something wrong with you?  Because allowing our hearts to be broken is the first step in loving our neighbor as ourselves.  It’s the power that moves us to agape love.

So in the straightforward commands of Jesus there is a lot to think about.  What could we really leave behind to possess God?  We can say “everything” but do we really mean it?  And when I encounter a person who is suffering, does my heart break?  Because a broken heart is the beginning of love of neighbor, of self-giving love.  It’s not easy to follow Jesus.  I can give away all my money to “the poor” but if I can walk by someone in pain and not feel my heart break, maybe I’m missing the point of his commandment.  Maybe if I walk past you without a smile or a greeting I'm missing the point.  But I probably will, because I have a lot of work to do still.  

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 10:56-52

Matthew and Luke also tell this story; Matthew talks about two blind men.  In Luke’s account it’s almost identical to Mark’s but he does not name the blind man.  Mark, as you may remember, was written about twenty years or more before Matthew and Luke, and some scholars think Mark’s gospel is really an account dictated by Peter because of its detail and because Peter looks bad in Mark’s gospel.  Mark does not tell the story just to amaze us once again.  He wants us to put ourselves, figuratively, in the blind man’s shoes and accompany him to Jesus.

I’ve never, thank God, been blind, but when I had the cataract removed from my right eye, I was totally conscious and could not see out of that eye because of the anesthetic.  It was frightening.  But Bartimeus, if he is like the blind people of that time, was cast off.  He depended for his living on the charity of strangers.  It’s doubtful that he had any close friends or relatives, otherwise he wouldn’t be on the street.  You can picture him sitting cross legged with his cloak folded on his lap to catch coins that were thrown to him.  He knew nothing better, expected nothing more.

Sadly, that’s true of a lot of people, Christians as well as non-Christians.  We don’t expect much.  Sure, we pray, we try to be charitable, but every day is like the day before.  

Bartimeus is not the only beggar on the road.  Since everyone was going to Jerusalem for the Passover, beggars turned out in droves because they expected that the pilgrims would be generous.  But Bartimaeus is different.  He’s restless and he has heard about Jesus.  So he does something totally out of character -- he cries out, "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!”

Once in a while you see someone in church that you haven’t seen before -- a visitor from another town, maybe.  But I remember many years ago I saw such a person.  It was several weeks later that I met him again, because he was married to a woman who had just become a patient of mine.  I told him that I recognized him for the church, and he replied that he’d been to a lot of churches and had decided to sign up with the Vineyard church because he felt welcome there.  

The crowds following Jesus are there for many reasons.  They’ve heard him predict his death, more than once.  Some have turned away.  But crowds continue to follow, hoping that this is the Messiah, the one who will throw off the Roman yoke.  And like many of us “insiders” we are suspicious and not particularly welcoming of outsiders.  So when Bartimeus cries out, they shush him.  

Followers of Christ are of two kinds.  One kind looks for him to solve their problems, to work his miracles, to answer their needs.  But the true follower is sensitive to the cry of the poor, just like Jesus, who hears Bartimeus and demands that he be brought before him.  Notice that Jesus does not go to Bartimeus; he tells his followers to bring him before him.  And some do, some who, like Jesus, are sensitive to the cry of the poor. They say, “Take courage, get up, he is calling you.”

Now if you were a blind beggar, you would get up slowly, pick up your cloak -- because it’s probably your only possession -- and stumble along toward Jesus.  You would certainly not leave your cloak behind.  It kept you warm at night, it was a receptacle for alms, it was irreplaceable.  Not because you didn’t trust Jesus, but because that was always the way you moved about, holding the cloak in one arm and feeling your way with the other.  But Bartimeus doesn’t do that, he casts his cloak aside and leaps up, running to Jesus.  Bartimeus had a profession of sorts; he was a beggar.  Miserable as he might be he had some security, but now he enters a completely new life, not knowing what the future holds.  

When we make that leap to approach Christ, we have to leave something behind, because for every one of us there are things that are dear to us, people that we don’t want to abandon, comforts that we resort to at the end of the day.  We don’t like trouble.  At the end of the day we like things to be predictable.  Those who approach Christ will not have a comfortable and trouble-free life.  Bartimaeus gives up everything he has to receive the light of Christ.  His story ends with Jesus saying those familiar words ‘’ Go on your way, your faith has saved you.”  But Bartimeus doesn’t go on his way, he joins the crowd following Jesus.

I think Mark, or maybe Peter who told Mark what to write, insisted that Bartimeus’ name be in the account because people knew of him, a living witness to Jesus’ miracles.  And Bartimeus probably told his story over and over again -- If you want to be enlightened by Jesus, you have to choose between the old cloak and the new light. 

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 10:17-30

I listen to WJMJ, the radio station run by the Hartford archdiocese.  I like it because they play a lot of music that I liked when I was young.  I don’t even know what music is popular nowadays.  One song I liked was “Me and Bobby McGee”.  Janice Joplin made it famous but it was written by Kris Kristofferson who just recently passed away.  The chorus goes “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose, and nothing ain't worth nothin but it’s free.” 

If you aren’t tied down by stuff, wealth or power or pleasure or whatever, you don’t have a lot of worries or responsibilities.  But there is a story about a rich man who was noted for his piety; he prayed three times a day, went to daily Mass, helped out at the soup kitchen… and someone asked a poor man why he couldn’t be more like the rich man.  The poor man replied that he had to work all day long just to feed his family.  If you don’t have the dough to do stuff, there’s not a lot of stuff you are free to do.  Those people down in Florida who have lost everything are probably not feeling very free right now.  

And the rich man who approached Jesus -- he was doing everything he was supposed to, so much so that Jesus looked at him and loved him -- but he must have felt that he was missing something, or why would he have approached Jesus?

It’s very troubling, Jesus words to the rich man.  “Go, sell all you have and give it to the poor, and then come follow me.”  We know there are saints who took Jesus literally -- Saint Francis, Saint Anthony of the Desert, and you could probably add other saints to the list.  But there are saints who didn’t do this -- the saints who were kings and queens, rulers over people;  saints like Louis and Zele Martin, who had homes and furniture and means of transportation;  and indeed priests and nuns and brothers and monks -- who hold things in common.  So people have found ways to get around Jesus’ statement.  The easiest, of course, is to point out that Jesus was talking to this one person, not you, not me.  

But Jesus does go on to tell his apostles “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!”  But then he goes on to say, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God”.  He doesn’t qualify this statement, in fact, it is almost aimed at his disciples because those are the ones he calls “Children”.  And Jesus doubles down: it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  My mother the theologian had pondered this and she may have read  that old excuse that Jesus was referring to a particularly narrow gate through the wall around Jerusalem that had the nickname “needle’s eye”.  But if that’s the case, why were the disciples exceedingly astonished?  I think Jesus meant what he said and that’s why they were astonished.  

But there is something else.  In our gospel passage, the phrase “those who have wealth” is obviously a translation from the Greek.  And the Greek words are literally “those who trust in riches.”  We aren’t going to get what God wants to give us if we put our faith in riches.  And we do.  We trust that between our 401k plan and social security we’ll get by.  I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone, even a Capuchin like Padre Pio, who would run around without clothing and search through garbage or forage in a forest for something to eat.  I don’t have that kind of faith.  

Peter, speaking for all the disciples,  begins to ask a logical question -- “We’ve given up everything and followed you…” In our gospel passage it looks like a complete sentence, but remember, he is just beginning the sentence.  The rest would almost certainly be something like, “what do we get?”  And Jesus answers the question.  And it’s a strange answer, because he is saying that if you give up all this stuff, you will get it all back in this life a hundred times more, along with persecution.  Do you know anyone, anyone for whom this is literally true?  I don’t.  But I’ve run across two theories, one being that Jesus is in a way rebuking Peter, who again may have missed the point.  If you give up everything to follow Jesus expecting a great reward, aren’t you just like the man who starts this whole discussion, wanting to add another thing to his things?  Another theory is that Jesus is referring to the family of people who follow him -- a far larger family than the family you have naturally, but a family that will be persecuted.  

But the bottom line is that all we can do is do our best to follow Jesus, because nothing I do can earn eternal life -- it is impossible for human beings, but for God all things are possible.  Someday we want to be like Saint Thomas Aquinas.  One day the Lord appeared to him and said, “Thomas, you have written well of me.  What do you want for your reward?”  And Thomas answered, “Only you, Lord”.   

Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary time cycle B

Mark 10:2-16

During one of my philosophy courses in college, the professor spoke in a sort of monotone with eyes closed.  But if you listened, he was brilliant.  Many of our classmates weren’t listening.  They would read the assigned sections from the textbook and sort of doze through the classes.  It came time for the final exam.  It was an essay exam and there were four questions.  One student who had been listening was running out of time and barely started to answer the fourth question.  Another student, who had been dozing, answered all four questions in neat little paragraphs and turned in his workbook five minutes before the end of the time.  Later, he discovered that he had only gotten a C and the guy who had been listening but only answered three of the four questions had gotten an A.  He was outraged and went to the professor for an explanation.  The professor told him that he had indeed shown that he could memorize information, but the student who had been listening clearly had learned to think, which was what the professor was going for.

When we hear the first part of this gospel, we modern people focus on divorce.  Did Jesus really forbid divorce?  I suspect that this was a question the earliest Christians had to ask themselves, because Matthew and Luke, writing about twenty years after Mark, leave an opening.  They have Jesus saying “except for pornea” a word which has been translated in many ways -- indecency, impurity, prostitution, homosexual actions, marriage of first cousins, and so forth.  So our Protestant friends who do permit divorce have a way around Jesus’ commandment.  But we Catholics aren’t any better.  We have annulments, and recently I heard a priest proudly state that in our diocese, 95% of the cases brought before the tribunal are granted annulments.  

But maybe we shouldn’t focus on divorce, maybe instead we should think about what Jesus is saying in a broader sense.  During his time, there were different schools of thought among the Pharisees.  Some said the husband could divorce his wife for any reason.  Another said it had to be an awfully good reason, like adultery, like abandonment.  But it was always something a man did to his wife, never the other way around.   The Pharisees were interested in getting C’s, getting passing grades.  What was the minimum needed to comply with Moses’ admittedly vague rule that a man could divorce his wife?  But Jesus points to the ideal, that the whole purpose of marriage was that the man would leave father and mother -- and everything else that would try to compete for his loyalty -- and cling or cleave to his wife -- make her his priority -- and of course it goes the opposite way as well.  That’s the ideal everyone should strive for, that’s the A plus that married couples should be trying to get.

One lady I know made a very profound statement.  “I don’t have to be the best wife.  I have to be the best wife for my husband.”  If he has the same attitude as she does, that marriage will survive, that marriage will get an A plus.

And divorce isn’t the only thing.  We are all looking for what it takes to get a C in life.  It’s a mortal sin to miss Mass on Sunday.  But what if I have Covid?  What if I live twenty miles from the nearest church?  You’re not supposed to do servile work on Sundays.  Somehow my mother interpreted that to mean you could do up to an hour of servile work, which is how I ended up pushing a lawnmower around on Sunday.  If the cashier returns a ten-dollar bill instead of a one when making change, and I find out about it when I get home, what do I do?  What if it’s a five-dollar bill?  What if it’s a nickel?  We celebrated Saint Francis this last week.  When he got religion, he went for the A plus -- getting rid of everything that might hold him back, relationships with his parents, his possessions, even his clothing that his parents had given him.  

So I think that’s something that hits home with me.  I certainly have no interest in divorcing my wife and you probably don’t either.  But am I going through life looking for c’s or do I strive for A’s?  How about you?

And that’s probably why Jesus directs us to look at little children, who he says have the secret of the kingdom of heaven.  When a little child gets interested in something, she pulls out all stops.  When he has decided that a particular game or toy would make his life complete, he will nag until his parents finally give in -- of course we parents know that if you can outwait him, his interests will turn somewhere else at some point.  I’m old, but I can remember when I was about five, how badly I wanted to dress up like a cowboy -- and sure enough, I got a hat and a bandana and a belt with a holster for a toy gun for my birthday, and life was complete, at least for that day.

So Jesus is saying that the kingdom of heaven is open to people who are looking for A’s and will not settle for C’s.  How are our grades? 

Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 9:38-48

I heard a story about an African American church choir director from the south who was hired by a suburban congregation in the north. One day while he was practicing with the choir he kept going over the same piece. Finally he looked at his choir and said, “You all are singing this exactly the way it’s written. But you have to leave some room for the Spirit.”

We see that sort of thing in the first reading and the first part of the gospel -- almost mirror images. Joshua is upset because Medad and Eldad (which in Hebrew mean “beloved one” and “God’s beloved”) have received the gift of the spirit, but hadn’t gone to the meeting tent like the other elders. John’s complaint is similar -- There’s a man casting out demons in your name but he’s not one of us!” Moses and Jesus have similar answers: “Would that God would put his spirit in all his people!” and “If he’s casting out demons in my name, he can’t say anything bad about me. If he’s not against us he’s on our side.” Clearly, you can’t tell the spirit what you want him to do -- Like the wind, He blows where he wills. Jesus reminds us that we have to leave room for the spirit.

Some people would interpret this as meaning, “it doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you are nice, or doing good things.” I think instead it means that when we notice people of other faiths or denominations doing the works of God, that is a point at which to begin. We have something in common, let’s build on that, keeping in mind that our goal should be to bring the other into our camp, into our fellowship, rather than draw lines between him and me.

So far so good. But then Jesus starts to get scary. He talks about drowning, of cutting of limbs, of being cast into Gehenna. Our translation talks about sin, but a better translation is cause to stumble, trip up -- trip up the little ones. Cause me to stumble. Jesus is exaggerating, of course. But in a shocking way, he’s reminding us that to follow him means that we need to get rid of anything that causes us to stumble. If I’m wasting time on my cell phone, that’s causing me to stumble. If I spend four hours a day watching Fox news or CNN, maybe that’s causing me to stumble. If I choose to golf on Sunday morning instead of fulfilling my obligation to attend Mass, that’s causing me to stumble. What do you need to cut out of your lives? What are we doing that is keeping us from being the complete and whole people God made us to be and means for us to be? And it goes for our community, our church as well. Are we as a church of Jesus aware of barriers that keep people away? Why aren’t the members of our church coming to Mass and frequenting the sacraments? Is there something we can do about it? What is the stumbling block?

My grandfather used to smoke, and every now and then when he got to the point where he could hardly breathe, he would resolve to give up his cigarettes. And he would, for a day or so. Then what could one or two hurt? Then he would limit his smoking to when he was in his car, which made my grandmother happy. But he began spending a lot of time running errands around town so he’d be able to smoke. And when his breathing cleared up a little he’d be back to a couple of packs a day. Cigarettes were his stumbling block.

Jesus threatens his disciples with Gehenna. In that time Gehenna was not hell as we think about it today. In fact, the way we think about hell we can thank the medieval poet Dante, whose vivid description influenced all of Europe. Gehenna was the name of a dump. Where you tossed trash. It was a specific dump in Jerusalem. There were stories that long before it became where you threw your trash, it was a place where the pagan predecessors of the Jews sacrificed their children to persuade their god Moloch to grant them favors. And maybe in addition to Gehenna as a place to throw things no one wanted, it was also a cursed place, a place haunted by souls that never had a chance to become what God wanted them to be. Gehenna, I think in this context, means that those stumbling blocks can cause you to waste your life.

So today we pray that God will show us how to let the Spirit into our lives, and strengthen us so that we can follow our savior. And we pray that as we heard a couple of weeks ago, we will be able to recognize the beam in our own eye, the stumbling blocks that distract us from the way of the cross which leads to paradise.

Twenty=third Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Sometimes Jesus works a miracle by simply commanding something to be done.  Other times, the miracle is accomplished through touch -- like the lady with 12 years of bleeding who touched his clothing.  And there are times, according to Mark, when Jesus was unable to work many miracles because of the lack of faith.  For Mark, Jesus seems to be able to heal you if you have faith.  In the Gospel of John, on the other hand, Jesus demonstrates his godhead by working miracles even when no faith is apparent, like calling Lazarus from the tomb, or surprising a young couple by turning water into wine.  I like all the gospels, and all the different portrayals of Jesus.  But let’s go back to Mark.  The story we heard is very consistent with Mark’s emphasis on faith.

We have a deaf man who can’t speak coherently.  People who are deaf, even when they learn to speak, can’t hear what they say so they rely on the sense of vibration and on how people around them react.  But they never get things quite right.  With great training they can be understood, but our deaf man can probably make his meaning clear only with great difficulty.  He grunts and gestures.   Maybe he could hear when he was a child and lost his hearing then.  Maybe he still can make sounds that resemble words that he knew when he was four or five.  But over time, he  can’t hear himself and can’t correct what he says, so his speech becomes less and less intelligible.  

Now Jesus’ groupies have seen him heal people by laying on his hands and commanding them to be healed.  Blind people, lepers, people possessed by demons, so naturally they want Jesus to work a miracle here, like he always does.  But today things are different.  He takes the man to a place away from the crowds.  He puts his fingers in his ears and spits on his tongue. He looks up to heaven and groans, and then says “Ephphatha”  And the man is healed.  Look at what Jesus is doing.

The man can’t hear, but Jesus wants his faith.  The man probably has no idea who Jesus is.  He never hears what’s going on.  So Jesus inserts his fingers into his ears and spits on his tongue -- as if to say “I am coming in to you to heal your hearing and your speech”.  And then Jesus looks up to heaven.  That’s where your healing will come from -- the Father, not me.”  And Jesus groans.  The deaf man can groan, he doesn’t need to hear to groan.  Jesus groans to join himself to the man.  And then he commands “Ephphaththa”.  Mark tells us that this word means “Be opened” in Aramaic.  But read it in your missalettes and try to pronounce it.  I’m not sure I’m doing it right and you probably aren’t either.  But when Jesus says this word, the miracle occurs, because the man in the story has faith.  The gestures that Jesus used up till then were meant to be a kind of catechism to elicit the faith of the man, who responded with faith and was thus cured.  

So Mark tells this elaborate story for a reason, not just to show Jesus’ power, but to show that the person who wishes to be healed has to believe in Jesus, has to have faith, and Jesus himself will find a way to ask this man, “Do you have faith in me?” 

Our first reading and responsory psalm tell us that our God is a god who heals.  Even today we hear about healing miracles. Carlos Acutis, soon to be officially recognized as a saint, had the necessary two miracles recognized by the church.  The first was of a child with an abnormality of the pancreas incompatible with life -- but healed when the parents prayed to him for a miracle.  The second was the cure of a student who had suffered a bleed into his brain and had no brain activity -- but recovered completely when his family prayed for a miracle.  

So miracles of healing continue.  

But you’ve prayed for them and so have I and I guess I can’t say I’ve seen one as obvious as the two I’ve described.  Does this mean my faith is weak or non-existent?  Or that I don’t have the right kind of faith?  Again if we look at  Mark’s gospel, or for that matter the other gospels, it seems as though miracles happen not primarily because God wants to heal someone, but because God wants to reveal something, maybe just on a personal level, maybe for the whole church.  Mark is always talking about the reactions people have to Jesus’ miracles -- “he has done all things well, he makes the deaf hear and the mute speak”.  And God wants to raise up a new saint perhaps as a model for today’s young people, a saint who knew his way around computers and the internet, and who nevertheless kept his eyes fixed on Jesus.    

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

As you may know, Louisiana recently passed a law mandating that the ten commandments be posted in schoolrooms throughout the state.  Critics argued that this violates the doctrine of separation of church and state, but the proponents say that the commandments are not part of a religion, but part of the common heritage of our country. In fact the Ten Commandments are posted on the Supreme Court building and several other government buildings in Washington DC.  Louisianans have one of the highest levels of church attendance in the country, but at the same time, the state leads the nation in murders.  Do you think posting the ten commandments in school rooms around the state will change this fact?  I don’t either.  I don’t object to posting the ten commandments, only to making the assumption that this will do anything about what really counts, the murder rate, the rape rate, the violent crime rate.  

One of the great things about election season is that we get to learn all about hypocrites.  It seems as though you can’t get far in politics unless you are one.  It doesn’t matter whether you are democrat or republican or something else, you need to create an image of yourself that will get votes.  That means suppressing bad things and accenting good things -- and as we know, sometimes just making things up.  I was thinking about this when George Santos, a former member of the house of representatives from New York, pleaded guilty for federal fraud.  Shortly after he was elected, it was obvious that he was a pathological liar.  

In the Gospel of Mark Jesus is especially hard on Pharisees.  And today he again calls them hypocrites.  And down through the ages those two words, Pharisee and hypocrite, have taken on meanings that they did not have in the time of Jesus.  Originally the word pharisee meant “set apart” and referred to several Jewish movements characterized by withdrawing from all but the most necessary contact with people who weren’t Jewish.  They wanted to pursue holiness, and knew that this could be done better if they weren’t contaminated by people who believed in other gods, or even Jews who took a relaxed approach to their religion.  The Pharisees were acting from the same impulse that led to monasteries or religious orders -- if you really want to pursue holiness, isolate yourself from the world and hang out with people like yourself.  The word that is translated from the Greek as “hypocrite” actually meant “actor”.  Eventually it came to mean someone whose actions are not in line with his or her beliefs.  So if I call someone a hypocrite, it probably stings more than it did in Jesus’ time.  

Some people think that if Jesus came back today, he’d be over at the synagogue trying once again to convince our Jewish neighbors that they needed to convert.  And maybe we Catholics think he’d at least be telling those episcopalians or united church people that they were going to the wrong church.  Or maybe he would be calling up members of our own church who seldom get to Mass on Sundays, or who have dropped out altogether.  But if the gospel of Mark is any clue, Jesus would probably be bugging faithful Catholics, especially the ones who go to daily Mass.  Because in Jesus' time everyone knew that the holiest Jews were the pharisees.  

There are two kinds of hypocrites --there are those who adopt behaviors that reflect beliefs that they don’t have.  In England in the days of the puritans, they passed laws that you couldn’t hold office unless you were a card carrying member of the state church -- the Anglican church.  Methodists and quakers and members of other sects were out.  But there were plenty of people around who made sure that they received communion in an Anglican church at least yearly, which was the minimum definition of being an Anglican.  The other kind are those who have certain beliefs but don’t act on them, or if they do, it’s partial and incomplete.  I’m one of those hypocrites.  And I think that’s why Jesus is so concerned about the Pharisees -- they are almost there but not quite.  They want to be holy; they want to follow the laws of Moses as perfectly as they can.  But for many, following the laws was a substitute for what the laws were intended for.  As Moses says in the first reading, they are there to build up a great and godly nation, so much so that it will be apparent to everyone who isn’t Jewish.  And that meant that you had to follow the laws, but you needed to know why they were there.  And as Jesus remarked on another occasion, if your donkey fell into a pit on the Sabbath you wouldn’t wait till the next day to rescue it.

Are you a hypocrite?  I am.  And today I think we should pray that the Holy Spirit show us where we need to improve.  Because God wants to show the world his love, and that has to be through us pharisees.