Word to the Wise
Sunday, February 16, 2014 - 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time - A
[Sir 15:16-21; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Matt 5:17-37 or 5:20-22a, 27-28, 33-34a, 37,48]Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift..... [Matt.]
I heard a story about a minister who encountered a parishioner whom he had not seen in a long time. He mentioned that he missed seeing her. She replied that she had stopped attending church because she saw too many hypocrites. The minister replied in a kindly voice that there was always room for one more! At the beginning of today's gospel scripture, Jesus tells the disciples, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." In short, faith cannot be a superficial veneer of rituals and rules.
The passage I quoted above about worship and forgiveness represents the kind of challenge that Jesus is offering. There is a connection between worship and life outside the temple! Love of God and love of neighbor are two sides of the same coin Our worship has no integrity if our life outside the temple is a contradiction of the worship we claim to offer in the temple. If we are unforgiving outside the temple, how can we claim to be forgiven in the temple? The Lord's Prayer contains the words, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us!."
The difference between a sinner and a hypocrite is that the sinner comes to the temple knowing that he or she struggles with the challenges of faith in daily life and often fails. The hypocrite sees no necessary connection between being in the temple and whatever goes on in the rest of life. [cf. Luke 18:9-14] I know that whenever I read the Sermon on the Mount [from which today's gospel comes], I am left squirming with my failures. Forgiveness is one of the many challenges in Jesus' sermon as we see in the rest of today's gospel scripture. If we are honest, we all have a lot of work to do to enter the kingdom! AMEN