Tuesday – 21st Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel - Matthew 23:23-26

Rotten on the Inside

Spice Market, Jerusalem

We haven’t had much luck with growing zucchini this year.  While the planst grow healthily for a while, then we are inundated with these little grubs (squash vine borers), and they end up rotting the crop from the outside.  Generally, we can see the rot coming but there are also plenty of times when the zucchini rots from the inside out and the problem is you don’t see it coming until you cut it open.  And then you have to just throw it 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus uses extremely harsh language for the Pharisees and Scribes for being so clean and perfect on the outside, but utterly rotten within.  He chastises them for being so concerned about collecting tithes on herbs like cumin and dill and yet not caring at all about the welfare of the people.  The Law demanded that the people contribute 10% of all of their produce and crops to the Temple.  Too often, instead of burning them as an offering, the Pharisees and Scribes would take them for their own personal use.  Lawful on the outside but rotten within!  They paid more attention to outward appearance and not to one’s inner soul, more attention to crops and herbs and not to justice and mercy and compassion for others.  They paid tithes on mint, cumin and dill and completely neglected the needs of the poor.

Maybe this is our wake-up call – to look deep inside ourselves.  Does our outward appearance match our inner attitude?  Do we put up a good front but are dead inside?  Do we worry too much about ourselves and not enough about others?  Do I do the right thing but for selfish reasons?  We all make mistakes; we are all, at times, blind to the needs of others. 

What can I do today so that my words and actions, my thoughts and intentions, fully reflect the Spirit within?  Take some time today to look deep inside, cut open that “zucchini” and see what you find.  Is it worth making some “bread” with?

The Creator has a purpose for each and every one of us.  We may not know it; we may not understand it.  But we are on this earth to fulfill that purpose.  It is our task to prepare ourselves – by prayer, by being unselfish, by choosing to walk a spiritual path.

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