The 8th Sunday in Ordinary time will this year serve as the launch-point from which we take-off for our Lenten and Easter (flight) journey. For the next fourteen weeks, we shall travel the spiritual terrain of Lent and Easter before touching down again on 6th June or Monday after Pentecost (10th Sunday of Ordinary time). Today’s scripture readings present us with spiritual insights and a string of sayings from the Lord that we ought to pack in our bag for the Lenten journey. These appear as rules of life and living or what the Jewish rabbis would call Charaz—meaning, “stringing beads” (that we must take along for the coming penitential season).
First, Jesus instructs that we must be clear-sighted and reject the blindness of the world. Never in my life have I heard as much insincerity, opposition to faith, to moral goodness, to truth, to clarity of thought and expression, in fact, thick darkness and blindness espoused as a way of life as it’s currently being engineered, taught, and enthusiastically embraced in our time. Hence, Jesus warns that if we follow the guidance of today’s blind leaders of thought, we’ll surely end up in the pit. A disciple must instead choose as teacher one who truly understands the concrete details of existence in a world that was made by God and given to us to dwell. We must disconnect from those who brazenly espouse error and whose only motive is to stamp on the world the deliberate intent of Satan—division, falsehood, hopelessness, and decay. We must dissociate from those purveyors of recklessness, moral and spiritual degeneracy who populate the media, the entertainment industry, the academia, politics, [even] churches, and today’s numerous altars of deceit. The pandemic has taught us the extent to which people are prepared to go in order to fester fear and numbing mind-control (espoused from our ivory towers). We must choose between Jesus, the Teacher, and these punks.
Second, Jesus cautions against judging others. He must have drawn laughter from His audience when He spoke about a man with a plank in his eye trying to extract a speck of dust in another’s eye. Drawing from Greek drama, He employs the term hypokrités—meaning, an actor with mask, displaying a different persona. In the Gospels, the term is derogatory, implying lack of sincerity, often used to refer to the Pharisees. Isn’t it revealing that society’s greatest critics of the day are actors and entertainers who thoroughly qualify, in word and deed, as hypocrites? Jesus warns the disciple against being like them or positioning oneself to criticize, noting that we stand no chance of being judged ‘good’ before God. I’ve forgotten who said that “there’s so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it ill becomes any of us to find fault with the rest of us.” Psychology uses the expression “compulsive neurosis” to refer to a condition of inane urge to criticize one’s deep-seated fault when it’s seen in others. Be careful about opening your mouth too wide to criticize: you might be revealing your own fault. Sirach said in the first reading, “one’s speech disclose the bent of his heart.” Jesus warns us not to develop ‘blind spots’ to our own faults and weaknesses while mauling others down.
Finally, Jesus teaches that character is a greater witness than words. Do not be the kind of teacher of whom it can be said: “I cannot hear what you say for listening to what you are.” No amount of words will replace life lived. One of the lessons we learned from the clergy sex abuse scandal is that we should look beyond niceties and smiles before we can trust a priest, bishop, teacher, coach or anyone in authority. Witness of life has to be the Gospel to which we are to give our heart and attention. We have heard too many nice words and great homilies; it’s time to match words with life—beginning with me, then you, and all. Aristotle said, “the bee sucks honey from the flowers without injuring them,” so our life must produce and inject only the nectar of goodness.
Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo