God is No Hypocrite

Homily for Wednesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus continues his criticism of the Pharisees in today’s Gospel text taken from the 23^rd chapter of St. Matthew’s Gospel. These remarks about the conduct of the Pharisees come at the conclusion of the fifth discourse in this Gospel. In these criticisms, Jesus recalls the dictates of the Law of which the Pharisees claim to be observant. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees is called out because they may observe the minor dictates of the Law without keeping in mind the purpose of the Law.

Today’s Gospel text reports the sixth and final of the “woe to you” sayings. The sixth woe, like the preceding one, deals with concern for externals and neglect of what is inside. Since contact with dead bodies, even when one was unaware of it, caused ritual impurity, tombs were whitewashed so that no one would contract such impurity inadvertently. While the Pharisees were so concerned about this, they have forgotten that the corruption that exists in their hearts is worse than the corruption of a corpse.

The final criticism is the most serious indictment of all. It portrays the scribes and Pharisees as standing in the same line as their ancestors who murdered the prophets and the righteous. In spite of honoring the slain dead by building their tombs and adorning their memorials, and claiming that they would not have joined in their ancestors’ crimes if they had lived in their days, the scribes and Pharisees are true children of their ancestors and are defiantly ordered by Jesus to fill up what those ancestors measured out. This order reflects the Jewish notion that there was an allotted measure of suffering that had to be completed before God’s final judgment would take place.

Hypocrisy is something we all need to guard against, no matter who we are or what visible activities we are undertaking. Most of us have the best of intentions, but we are human and being self-serving is a human fault. That does not mean we are off the hook for practicing what we preach, but if we fail at times, there is a back-up plan. That plan is found in God’s word, for God is never a hypocrite. When God tells us something, we can rely on it being true and constant. God has told us that we are loved and that we will never be abandoned even when we find ourselves guilty of hypocritical conduct. We must stand in awe of the power of God’s word.