The "Woes" of St. Matthew's Gospel

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

A chiasm (also called a chiasmus) is a literary device in which a sequence of ideas is presented and then repeated in reverse order. The result is a “mirror” effect as the ideas are “reflected” back in a passage. Each idea is connected to its “reflection” by a repeated word, often in a related form. Some chiasms are quite simple. The common saying “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is chiastic. Another example of a chiasm is Benjamin Franklin’s axiom “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Other chiasms are more complex, even spanning entire poems or essays.

Many passages in the Bible exhibit chiastic structure. For example, Jesus’ words in Mark 2:27 are in the form of a chiasm: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The Scriptures are full of this particular form of imagery. We have an example of that in St. Matthew’s Gospel. Early on in the Gospel, at the beginning of what we call The Sermon on the Mount, we find the Beatitudes, all of which begin with the word “blessed” or “happy.” Now we find ourselves toward the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and we find the reverse of that sequence of ideas. Each of these statements begins with the words, “woe to you.”

Jesus condemns the behavior of the Pharisees because they seem to put more emphasis on less important parts of the law than they do on weightier things such as judgment and mercy and fidelity. We have to admit that people who are serious about religion can fall into this trap. In our quest for faithfulness to God, we try to be sure about it and secure in it by making regulations and mandatory practices to safeguard it. More of this probably exists in church regulations than we would like to admit. Jesus reminds us to safeguard ourselves from falling into this trap through these criticisms that he levels at the Pharisees. Hypocrisy and unrighteousness versus authenticity and uprightness – these are four related but divergent terms. This kind of behavior is an attempt to make ourselves look good on the outside while ignoring the need to clean up the inside of our hearts. Set our hearts in line with God and our actions will naturally follow.