GOSPEL REFLECTION, WEDNESDAY, 21ST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME, 27 AUGUST 2025, ST MONICA MEMORIAL

Matthew 23:27-32.  In this chapter of Matthew’s gospel conflict between Jesus and the religious authorities reached a climax.  Jesus’ sorrowful denunciations of the Scribes, Sadducees, and especially the Pharisees are also prophetic denunciations in the style of the Old Testament prophets.  Here Jesus is clearly the Prophet of all prophets, as well as Priest and King.  The denunciations are prophetically wrathful (some translations, such as ours) proclaim ‘woe to you Scribes and Pharisees!’  But the Greek word for ‘woe’ also carries a strong note of sorrow.  A number of scripture translations therefore read ‘alas to you Scribes and Pharisees!).  We must understand that these denunciations of the Scribes and Pharisees tell us who Jesus is as well as telling the nature of his conflict with them.

Here he compares the Scribes and Pharisees as tombs whitewashed and beautiful on the outside but rotting with corruption, death, and decay internally.  Jesus denounces the scribes and Pharisees as ‘hypocrites!’  This word is the usual Greek word for an actor, a poser who only acts a part outwardly without inner conviction.  It was Jewish practice to adorn tombs alongside roadways in the month Adar so that the crowds of pilgrims on the way to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem would not brush against unadorned tombs.  They would then be contaminated and unfit to participate in Passover rites.  In a broader sense we may understand the religious lives of the Scribes to be all about appearances rather than true repentance and conversion of heart, of the inner life.  We may well take Jesus’  words to apply to our own religious life if we are all about external practice rather than true conversion of our own inner life.

Jesus denounces the Scribes and Pharisees yet again as hypocrites because they adorn the tombs of the prophets they have murdered without conviction in what the prophets had to proclaim with their divine inspiration.  The words of the prophets were not their own, but those of God who called them and instructed them to call the people to conversion of life.  Hypocrites indeed!  But we may well ask what genuine attention we have given to God’s prophets, including Jesus himself, despite posing as religious people.  Tough words!  But we must pay attention to them rather than dismiss them as denunciations of ancient religious fanatics.