By Colleen O’Sullivan
Brothers and sisters: What can we say that Abraham found, our
ancestor according to the flesh? Indeed,
if Abraham was justified on the basis of his works, he has reason to boast; but
this was not so in the sight of God. For
what does the Scripture say? “Abraham
believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” (Romans 4:1-3)
At that time:
So many people were crowding together that they were trampling one
another underfoot. Jesus began to speak,
first to his disciples, “Beware of the leaven – that is, the hypocrisy – of the
Pharisees. There is nothing concealed
that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known Therefore whatever you have said in the
darkness will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed
doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.” (Luke 12:1-3)
Piety
May the face I show to the world be a true
reflection of my inner self. May my love
for you and my faith in you, O Lord, be evidenced in what I say and do.
Study
I know I’m dating myself, but when I got out of school, the TV series Dallas was just beginning. Every Friday night, I made sure I would be
home in time to see the next episode. Each
week as the show began, I thought how South Fork was such a beautiful
ranch. All the Ewings had gorgeous
clothes. None of them ever seemed to
work very hard. They had servants and
hired help to take care of their every little whim. It only took watching it once, though, to
realize how far the façade was from being a true reflection of the Ewings’
lives. Behind the scenes, they had drug
problems, alcohol problems, and relationship problems. The women were treated like numskulls. JR was the most scurrilous business tycoon
imaginable. (The impetus for watching may
have been loving to hate JR Ewing!) In
short, for all their wealth and beautiful surroundings, these were miserable
people at the core.
Jesus is warning his disciples in today’s Gospel about this very sort of
thing – the hypocrisy of showing the world a glittering, gleaming image that
bears no relation to who we are on the inside.
Specifically, he’s talking about our relationship with God. We can get away with being impressive on the
outside for a while, but eventually the truth will come out. The Pharisees consider themselves the
religious people of their day. They
follow all the rules. They are educated
and know the Scriptures. And they make
it their business to let everyone know how upstanding they are and to serve as
“policemen” of the Law. They get away
with this until Jesus comes on the scene and exposes them for the frauds they
really are. It’s all window
dressing. None of it stems from an inner
relationship with the Father. If they
were close to Jesus’ Father, they would look much different on the outside. They would be loving, caring, and
merciful. They would look after the
needs of the poor and disenfranchised in their midst. They would lose the self-righteous attitude.
In today’s first reading, the apostle Paul talks about Abraham. What God calls righteousness in Abraham isn’t
an impressive resume of all he’s done but the sincerity of his faith and trust
in God. When that’s what’s at our core,
good works take care of themselves; they flow naturally from the
relationship.
Action
Jesus desires that we be whole, from the inside out. He has no time for hypocritical in-congruence. If we are people of faith
in our hearts, our works will reflect our trust in God’s goodness.
What do others see when they look at you? What image do you consciously project to the
world? Does who you are on the outside
reflect who you are in your relationship with God?
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