SPEAKER_00: There's sort of a ridiculous image in today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that it is possible to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.
SPEAKER_00: And the people listening to him would have understood exactly what he meant.
SPEAKER_00: A gnat was unclean according to Jewish law, so a particularly scrupulous person might actually strain his wine to make sure that some tiny insect had not fallen into it.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine being that careful.
SPEAKER_00: You inspect the cup, you strain the wine, and you make absolutely certain that you have not accidentally swallowed something unclean.
SPEAKER_00: But then Jesus says, you swallow a camel, the largest unclean animal those people would ordinarily have known.
SPEAKER_00: It is meant to sound absurd.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus means it to sound absurd because he is exposing something that religious people are particularly capable of doing.
SPEAKER_00: We can become enormously concerned about little things while becoming strangely comfortable with enormous things.
SPEAKER_00: That's the heart of the gospel today.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus looks at the scribes and Pharisees and says, You pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin.
SPEAKER_00: Think about how meticulous that is.
SPEAKER_00: You're literally measuring out their kitchen herbs to make certain that God receives his portion.
SPEAKER_00: But notice something important.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does not condemn them for doing it.
SPEAKER_00: He actually says, These you should have done.
SPEAKER_00: Their problem is not that they care about the law.
SPEAKER_00: Their problem is that they have become meticulous about the small demands of religion while neglecting what Jesus calls the weightier things judgment, mercy, fidelity.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where this gospel becomes uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Because it is very easy to substitute religious precision for conversion.
SPEAKER_00: I can now I can know exactly when to stand, sit, kneel at mass, and still refuse to forgive somebody.
SPEAKER_00: I can know the teachings of the church and still destroy somebody with gossip.
SPEAKER_00: I can say the rosary every day and treat the people closest to me terribly.
SPEAKER_00: I can defend Catholic truth passionately and have very little charity towards the person standing right next to me.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, be careful.
SPEAKER_00: You may be straining out gnats and swallowing camels.
SPEAKER_00: That does not mean that the smaller thing is not important, or it doesn't mean that it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: They do.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says so.
SPEAKER_00: But religion becomes distorted when we use the smaller things to avoid confronting the larger things.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus changes the image.
SPEAKER_00: Talks about a cup.
SPEAKER_00: You cleanse and clean the outside of a cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.
SPEAKER_00: And then comes the line that I think is really the heart of today's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Cleanse first the inside of the cup.
SPEAKER_00: First.
SPEAKER_00: That word matters because Jesus understands something about the spiritual life that we often forget.
SPEAKER_00: God works from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: We usually work from the outside in.
SPEAKER_00: We want to fix appearances.
SPEAKER_00: God wants the heart.
SPEAKER_00: We want to look faithful.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to make us faithful.
SPEAKER_00: We want other people to see our goodness.
SPEAKER_00: God wants goodness become true within us.
SPEAKER_00: And that helps to understand the first reading.
SPEAKER_00: St.
SPEAKER_00: Paul tells the Thessalonians, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught.
SPEAKER_00: That's enormously important.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not something every generation gets to reinvent.
SPEAKER_00: We have received something.
SPEAKER_00: We have received a gospel, a faith, a sacramental life, a moral tradition, a way of following Jesus Christ handed from the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to hold fast to it.
SPEAKER_00: Today's gospel reminds us what the tradition is supposed to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to make us holy.
SPEAKER_00: The goal is not merely to preserve the cup, the goal is for the cup to become clean.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Catholicism can never simply be a collection of things we do: mass, confession, prayer, fasting, devotions, the rosary, adoration.
SPEAKER_00: All those things matter enormously, don't get me wrong, but they're meant to do something to us.
SPEAKER_00: If I spend an hour before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and emerge every bit as bitter, dishonest, arrogant, or unforgiving as when I entered, well, eventually I have to ask whether I'm allowing the encounter to change me.
SPEAKER_00: Because the real question is not simply, do I practice my religion?
SPEAKER_00: The deeper question is, is my religion converting me?
SPEAKER_00: Am I becoming more merciful, more faithful, more truthful, more patient, more generous, more like Christ Himself?
SPEAKER_00: That's the examination of conscience Jesus gives us today.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps there's a very simple prayer we can bring to the altar.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, show me the camel.
SPEAKER_00: Show me the enormous thing in my life that I have somehow learned not to see.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm obsessed over somebody else's faults while refusing to confront my own.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm very meticulous about religious practice but careless about charity.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the outside of the cup looks wonderful while something inside desperately needs the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, Lord, show me.
SPEAKER_00: And then clean first the inside of the cup.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus Christ did not come merely to make us look religious, He came to make us holy.
SPEAKER_00: And holiness always begins from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.