The Consequences of Fear and Envy

Homily for Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Fear and envy – none of us are strangers to these emotions, and none of us are pleased with the blindness they bring. Miriam and Aaron are plagued by fear of outsiders and envy of Moses, who seems to be God’s favored child.

Moses is silent because he is by far the meekest man on the face of the earth. The Hebrew word “anav” is a meekness that indicates not passivity but “spiritual humility,” a humility that means “to recognize your true worth, but not to impose the consequences upon your friends and neighbors.” In other words, it means not to think you are better than anyone, regardless of your position in society. At this moment in their journey, Aaron and Miriam show a woeful lack of this spiritual humility.

Moses has a heart of “anav,” and God responds to it with his very presence. The examples of Miriam, Aaron, and Moses teach us that how we perceive God’s presence may depend largely on what is happening in our own hearts.

The Gospel passage for today presents us once again with the obstinate Pharisees who have so blocked their minds and are so insistent in their negativity toward Jesus that they are now criticizing his followers for a failure to observe something that is a custom but is not part of the law. It was fairly obvious that people who worked in the fields for farmers and land owners were not able to keep these customs. The apostles are also away from their homes where it would have been easier to observe the customs to which the Pharisees refer. Walking with Jesus gave them no opportunity to follow these observances. The Pharisees also lack spiritual humility as they tried to impose the consequences of their own actions upon their neighbors.

It is a paradox. Fear is natural, and yet fear is a barrier to perceiving God’s healing presence. To resolve this paradox, we need the spiritual humility of Moses and of Jesus, who is humble of heart. Knowing our true worth makes us no better or worse than our sisters and brothers; in fact, it makes us one with them. May gratitude for this oneness fill our hearts today as we approach the Lord’s table.