Daily Gospel Reflection
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October 12, 2021
After Jesus had spoken,
a Pharisee invited him to dine at his home.
He entered and reclined at table to eat.
The Pharisee was amazed to see
that he did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal.
The Lord said to him, “Oh you Pharisees!
Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,
inside you are filled with plunder and evil.
You fools!
Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you.”
For as long as I can remember, I have wondered what was going on in the minds of the people we meet in Scripture. How were they reacting to what they observed? What was going on around them and within them, especially when listening to Jesus? What were they not saying and why? What about their tones of voice would give us hints about what was going on in their hearts?
I have the same queries about the Pharisee in today’s gospel. What was on his mind when he invited Jesus to dinner? Just before this scene in Luke’s Gospel, we learn that a crowd had been building. Some of them—maybe including this Pharisee—might have heard Jesus’ reminder of the greatest commandment or his story of the Good Samaritan. Maybe some of them were there when he visited Martha and Mary, when he instructed his disciples how to pray, or when he drove out a demon.
When this Pharisee invited Jesus to dine with him, what was he hoping to see or hear? More of what he had seen or heard over the course of these preceding days or something new? Would he have invited Jesus if he knew his dinner guest would be calling him to account? He was “amazed” to see what Jesus was not doing and Jesus called him to account for what the Pharisee was not doing.
Jesus regularly critiques the Pharisees for their hypocrisy in religious observance, but what is striking about this passage is that Jesus seems to be speaking intimately to this Pharisee. We don’t know who else was there and so perhaps he was speaking to a group. Regardless, Jesus tells him specifically to “give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.”
It is in this moment, where, I believe, we see something about the approach Jesus takes in teaching us. Certainly Christ meets us in the blindness and insensitivity of our groups, but most importantly, he meets us in our individual fears and misguided choices.
Perhaps this Pharisee’s story is our story too—mostly hidden from our neighbors, opaque at times even to us, waiting for a word from Jesus who will show us what we need to see most.
Prayer
Loving God, you instructed the Pharisee that you desire purity of the heart. Help us, your people, to truly serve you, not by appearance, but by opening our hearts and our lives to your loving will. Grant us a spirit of generosity, so that we may always grow in holiness and love. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Saint of the Day
Cyprian and Felix were bishops who stood at the head of 5,000 people who were driven into the desert because they were Christian.
Cyprian and Felix led communities in northern Africa in the fifth-century Church. When the area came under the power of the Vandals, the foreign king persecuted Christians by exiling them into a prison in the Libyan desert. They were tortured on their way, and many died during the journey.
The Vandal king finally decided to have them killed by being led out into the wilderness. The Christians emerged from the prison singing psalms together. Felix was very old and disabled, and it was suggested that he could be left alone to die, but the king ordered him to be taken out on a donkey. Stones were thrown at the Christians, and those who fell behind were pricked with spears to urge them forward until they died of exhaustion and exposure.
Cyprian was another bishop who tended these persecuted Christians, and it is reported that he spent all of his time and energy and resources caring for them. He was eventually also arrested and exiled, where he died from the harsh treatment.
Relics of Sts. Cyprian and Felix rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica.
Sts. Cyprian and Felix, you supported your persecuted community experiencing exile and martyrdom—pray for us!