Tuesday – 2nd Week of Lent    

Gospel – Matthew 23:1-12

Walking the Walk

Pistachio and Me

 

You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk?  Practice what you preach?  Put your money where your mouth is?  You talk a good game but…… Put up or shut up!  We hear it all the time!  We probably say it all the time!  And in today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus calling out the Pharisees for preaching the teachings of Moses but failing to act on their own words.

 

There is a moment during the Ordination Rite for Deacons when the Bishop places the Book of the Gospels in the hands of the Deacon and says: Receive the Book of the Gospel whose herald you have become. Believe what you read. Teach what you believe. Practise what you teach."

 

We are called to not merely read or teach!  We are called to believe!  We are called to practice what we believe and teach!  Even in today’s Gospel, Jesus instructs His disciples to follow what the scribes and Pharisees SAY but not what they DO!  The meaning is obvious – they do not practice what they teach!

 

We are all called to be teachers, to be a living example of a Christian life.  But we are also called to live out our lives as ‘students” as well!  And isn’t that what a disciple really is?  Even the most influential teachers know that, in any classroom, there is this wonderful exchange of knowledge and inspiration.  And as much as the kids learn from us, so too do we learn and benefit from their insight.  None of us ever stops learning!  None of us ever stops growing in faith, in our words and in our actions!

 

It is well past time for us to be Christian not just in words but in our actions, not just within the walls of the Church but out in the world.  It is well past time for us to show that we can not only talk the talk, but walk the walk!

 

Today’s verse before the Gospel reads: Cast away from you all the crimes you have committed, says the LORD, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.  May this Lenten season be a time for all of us to make of ourselves a new heart and a new (refreshed) spirit! 

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