The Enemy

October 17: Friday of Week 28 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Ephesians 1:11-14; Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 12-13; Luke 12:1-7

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship? 

(To support Reaching Jesus: 5 Steps to a Fuller Life... Step Five).

The Enemy

“Beware of the Pharisees” (12:1)

Jesus warned his stewards—that is, us—about what is probably the most serious threat to his Church: “Beware of the leaven–that is, the hypocrisy–of the Pharisees.” In Matthew (16:12) the disciples understood this to mean “the teaching of the Pharisees.” Are these the same thing?

Hypocrites pretend to be what they are not. Pharisees, without acknowledging it—even to themselves, in most cases—reduce religion to law observance. They serve the law, not God. This is idolatry.

By justifying blind conformity to the law, Pharisees—who fight against prophetic voices today as they did against Jesus and Paul—dispense themselves from taking responsibility for trying to understand God’s will. They avoid personal interaction with Christ—and with the other Christians they criticize. Phariseeism is hypocrisy because it is a way of life that pretends to be love of God while it is actually designed for and by those who want nothing to do with him.

Francis (Joy of the Gospel 93) calls it “a subtle way of seeking one’s own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.”

Since it is based on carefully cultivated appearances, it is not always linked to outward sin; from without, everything appears as it should be. But if it were to seep into the Church [and it has], “it would be infinitely more disastrous than any other worldliness which is simply moral.

PRAY: “Lord, give us your Spirit.”

PRACTICE: Act to keep Phariseeism from “seeping in.”