February 23, 2016 Tuesday, 2nd Week of Lent 1st Reading: Is 1:10, 16–20 Gospel: Mt 23:1–12 Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees sat on the seat of Moses. So you shall do and observe all they say, but do not do as they do, for they do not do what they say. They tie up heavy burdens and load them on the shoulders of the people, but they do not even raise a finger to move them. They do everything in order to be seen by people; so they wear very wide bands of the Law around their foreheads, and robes with large tassels. They enjoy the first place at feasts and reserved seats in the synagogues, and being greeted in the marketplace and being called ‘Master’ by the people.“But you, do not let yourselves be called Master because you have only one Master, and all of you are brothers and sisters. Neither should you call anyone on earth Father, because you have only one Father, he who is in heaven. Nor should you be called leader, because Christ is the only leader for you. Let the greatest among you be the servant of all. For whoever makes himself great shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be made great.” D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE (Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience) The Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees bragged about their strict adherence to the Law. But they were in fact violating its spirit. Human beings have difficulty separating the message from the preacher. When the preacher is bad, the message can be rejected altogether no matter how lofty. Aware of this, Jesus urged people to follow what they preached and to ignore what they were doing. We too find it hard to close an eye on the preacher’s personal life. Marshall McLuhan, a communications theory expert, chose the right words when he said, “the medium is the message”. A message as noble as the Word of God delivered by a medium with questionable credibility will turn off listeners. A good medium lends credibility to his message. In Acts 20:9 we read that a young man named Eutychus was sitting at the window of the house where Paul was preaching. He gradually sank into deep sleep as St. Paul preached. Notwithstanding Paul’s poor delivery, he had quite a following. It was because of his life of dedication to the Word he preached.
Because some preachers today do not practice what they preach, let us learn to separate the message from the messenger. The truth cannot be made to rise and fall on the reputation of the preacher. Let us take the wise counsel of today’s Gospel reading: do as they say but do not do as they do.- Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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