Hypocrisy at the Lord’s banquet

October 16 October 2018 Tues, 28th Week in
Ordinary Time
1st Reading: Gal. 5:1-6
Gospel: Lk 11:37–41
As Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to have a meal with him. So he went and sat at table. The Pharisee then wondered why Jesus did not first wash his hands before dinner. But the Lord said to him, “So then, you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside yourselves you are full of greed and evil. Fools! He who made the outside, also made the inside. But according to you, by the mere giving of alms everything is made clean.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience
Meals are sacred venues of sharing, loving and showing concern for one another. In Luke’s gospel, the clash between Jesus and the Pharisees usually happened in a setting of a meal. We can safely assume that the meals Jesus and the Pharisees shared hardly had these characteristics.
It was during a meal in the house of a Pharisee that Jesus suffered criticism from his own host. That was because he and his disciples didn’t perform the customary washing of hands before eating. Judging from Jesus’ reaction, the criticism must have been the last straw that broke the camel’s back. He exclaimed, “So then, you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside yourselves you are full of greed and evil” (Luke 11-37-41).
The Pharisee pretended to be good to Jesus by hosting a meal for him and his disciples. But hypocrisy can only conceal one’s true character for some time. As soon as he noticed that Jesus failed to do the ceremonial washing before meals, he grabbed this opportunity to discredit him. He forgot that as Jesus’ host he was supposed to be charitable to him. Jesus may have violated a mere ceremonial custom (and he had his own good pedagogical reasons for doing that). But the Pharisee violated a far greater law: the law of charity.
As we shake our heads at the great opportunity the Pharisees missed in that meal where Jesus was present, let us also mourn for the greater opportunity we miss at the Mass – the banquet of the Lord. Consider how, instead of applying a good homily to ourselves our thoughts go to our enemies as our hearts wish they too were around to listen to the homily and get converted. The tongue used to receive communion at Mass is the same tongue that castigates others, often not sparing the boring homilist.
If ordinary meals are sacred venues mutually beneficial to those seated at table, nothing less could be said of the Holy Mass. Let us strive to harmonize the inside and the outside of our personalities so that we may benefit from each meal we celebrate with the Lord. –(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.May comment ka ba sa column ni Father Dan? May tanong ka ba sa kanya?
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