Faith

Tuesday, 19th week in ordinary time – Memorial of St Clare – 11th August 2026 – Matthew 18:1-5,10,12-14
If you want to understand the weight of what Jesus is saying here, you have to back up and look at the whole picture from verse 1 to 14, because context determines your breakthrough. We are officially stepping into the fourth of the five great discourses in the Gospel of Matthew. This isn’t just a casual conversation by the campfire; Chapter 18 is the “Community Discourse.”
Jesus is pulling Peter and the rest of the disciples into a huddle to give them the ultimate masterclass on community relations. He isn’t teaching them how to build an empire; He’s teaching them how to build a brotherhood. He’s looking at a group of competitive, hot-headed men and saying, “Before you try to change the world, you’ve got to learn how to live with each other.”
The text opens with the disciples asking Jesus who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The entire pericope must now be seen on the basis of this question and not through a modern-day application of issues or our own interpretation.
Look at the disciples in Matthew 18:1, because their timing is completely off and it exposes exactly how we miss what God is actually saying. They pull up to Jesus and ask, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” which is a wild question to ask when you look at the context. It’s an absolute oddity! You don’t ask for a promotion when the CEO just told you the company is about to go through a crisis.
Twice before this, back-to-back in rapid succession, first in Matthew 16 and then again in Matthew 17, Jesus had just laid it all on the line. He looked them in the eyes and declared His passion, His death, and His resurrection. He’s talking about a cross, and they are competing for a crown! He is trying to prepare them for a burial, but they are too busy trying to plan their political coronation.
They are asking for a seat at the table of power while entirely ignoring the sacrifice that pays for the room.  Perhaps what was bogging the minds of the disciples was the primacy of Peter, for Jesus in Chapter 16: 16- 19 had declared him to be ‘the rock’ and now the others wanted to know where they stood on the charts of power.
Jesus places a child in their presence as an answer to their question. They were driven by the desire to be given status and Jesus clearly demands that they change their mindset. Using a double negative, he insists they will never enter the kingdom of heaven if they are driven by such earthly titles and honours.
Children, in first century Palestine were considered the lowest on the social strata. While they were loved and cared for, they certainly had no rights. Jesus was not asking the disciples to emulate the faith of child but rather become like a child who has no rights. In verse five, Jesus humbles himself identifying with a child who has no power and wants the disciples to do the same.
It is with this context in mind that we should read verses 6-9. The desire for power and position in the community is stumbling block for the others. This word ‘stumbling block’ used seven times in four verses is translated in Greek as ‘skandalizos’ from where you get the English word, scandal.
When the leaders at the top start fighting for power, the people at the bottom are the ones who pay the price, and Jesus has zero tolerance for that. The moment the elders and leaders of the community get caught up in a toxic power struggle, it becomes a massive counter-sign, a total stumbling block to Matthew’s ‘little ones,’ the brand-new converts who just stepped into the faith.
Jesus looks at these power-hungry leaders and doesn’t give them a gentle slap on the wrist; He advocates a watery grave with a heavy millstone dragged around their necks! Why a millstone? Because that massive stone ensures that those corrupt, selfish thoughts sink straight to the absolute bottom of the sea. Jesus wanted to bury those prideful desires so deep under the waves that their thirst for power would never, ever find its way back to the surface again! Jesus would rather drown your ego in the depths of the sea than let your pride poison the purity of His house.
So, any part of the body, be it the eye, hand or foot that drives the rest of the body towards the lust for power should be discarded than have the entire body be burnt in the fires of Gehenna. The word hell used in verse nine was a reference to the valley of Gehenna which was situated outside the city of Jerusalem where the rubbish of the city burnt constantly.
This community discourse wasn’t just a casual conversation; it was a divine GPS and a protective guardrail for the leaders of the Church. Jesus is laying down the law, showing them that it is their absolute duty to live in a way that doesn’t just blend in, but glows.
Leaders are called to illuminate the path, not create a hazardous roadblock that scandalizes the “little ones” who are just trying to find their way. These new believers aren’t target practice for your frustration, and they aren’t collateral damage for your church politics. They are not to be despised! They are to be aggressively protected, fiercely defended, and shielded from every toxic force of evil, whether it’s sneaking in from the outside world or brewing right inside the walls of the church!
However, there was always a possibility of the sheep straying.  Unlike Luke’ Gospel where the sheep was lost, Matthew’s Gospel refers to the sheep that chooses to stray away. This perhaps was a reference to a community member who lost his faith or simply decided to be adventurous and move away.
Technically it is foolishness to leave ninety-nine sheep vulnerable to wolves while the shepherd goes in search of one lost but this is exactly what Jesus desired. He desired us to risk all for the sake of one in order to highlight how precious every soul in the community is. Jesus desires us to have the right concern for every member of the community especially those who have gone astray.
If leadership in the Church plays the number game, then we will be happy with the ninety-nine and the seemingly packed Church at Sunday mass. We fail the Lord when we take comfort in a full house at Sunday mass. Sadly, a count of the sheep may reveal that in the course of time the number that strayed away in not one but one too many.
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Faith

Feast of St Lawrence – 10th August 2026 – John 12:24-26

Chapter 12 of the Gospel of John opens with Jesus stepping into Jerusalem under a wave of cheers, but He isn’t caught up in the hype. Jesus is reading the room, and He knows the applause is on a countdown timer; those loud “Hosannas” are just days away from morphing into a bloodthirsty “Crucify him!”

 By this point, the religious establishment is experiencing a total meltdown. They are spinning their wheels in pure frustration, throwing their hands up and shouting, “You see you can do nothing. Look the world has gone after him.” (12:19)

It is in this context that you read John 12:24, “Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” This is a heavyweight verse that we love to toss around on social media or print on a coffee mug, but we quote it so glibly that it slides right off our souls without demanding a single change in how we live.

Christ didn’t drop this truth in a vacuum; Andrew and Philip brought it to Him because a group of outsiders; Greeks who showed up to worship at the festival in Jerusalem. They came knocking with a simple request: they ‘wanted to see Jesus’ (12:20).

Stop right there and let that searchlight hit your heart. Has Jesus been reduced to a mere ‘person of interest’ in your life?  Our celestial panic button for when the bank account gets low, or just a casual acquaintance we follow from a distance?

Jesus answers those Greeks by exposing the exact depth of the bond He’s after, and it isn’t casual. If a couple stands at the altar and vows, “I will love you in good times but will consider how committed I should be in bad times?” That marriage is dead before the cake is cut!

Jesus isn’t looking for part-time fans; He’s demanding the whole you when He declares, ‘unless (you), the grain of wheat, fall into the ground AND die.’ It feels safe, cozy, and applause-worthy to remain a grain of wheat riding high on a stalk, catching the breeze and soaking up the spotlights. Sure, playing it safe on that stalk might get you elected to public office, but it will never get you to the empty tomb. The Christian MUST fall, and the Christian MUST die, because resurrection power only shows up where burial actually happens.

The life of St Lawrence reflected this call of Jesus. A call to give all of oneself. St. Lawrence was born in 225 AD and lived during the early years of the Church. He experienced the harsh persecution of Christians under Roman Emperor Valerian. To this day, little is known about the details of St. Lawrence’s life. However, we do know the Church holds him in high esteem and that his holy example was formative in the early years of the Church. Stories of St. Lawrence include his direct opposition to Emperor Valerian and his love for the true treasures of Christ’s Church and His people; the poor.

Saint Lawrence was one of seven deacons who were in charge of giving help to the poor and the needy. The word “deacon” comes from the Greek word, “diakonos,” which means “servant” or “helper.” Sacred Scripture recounts how deacons served the needs of widows in the early Church (see Acts 6:1-6). Thus, as a deacon, St. Lawrence’s life was dedicated to serving the poor and needy.

When persecution broke out, Pope St. Sixtus was condemned to death. As he was led to execution, Lawrence followed him weeping, “Father, where are you going without your deacon?” he said. “I am not leaving you, my son,” answered the Pope. “In three days, you will follow me.”

Lawrence was the custodian of the material goods of the Church and was responsible for the distribution of alms to the poor. Lawrence knew he would be arrested just like the Pope and knowing the hatred of the Emperor towards the Christians especially to those who owned property, he began to give it all away. He gathered the poor, the widows and the orphans and gave them all the money he had, selling even the sacred vessels of the altar believing the clear admonition of the Saviour that the poor were blessed and especially loved by Him.

Emperor Valerian heard the news. He imagined that the Christians must be having a considerable treasure. Valerian wanted the treasure to satisfy his unbridled lust for worldly power. He offered Lawrence a way out of sure death. If he would show him where the Church’s great gold and silver were located, he would issue an order of clemency, sparing his life so that he could continue his work.

Lawrence asked for three days to collect the ‘wealth’ of the Church. Valerian thought the Church had a great fortune hidden away. So, he ordered Lawrence to bring the Church’s treasure to him. For three days, Lawrence went throughout the city and invited all the beloved poor, handicapped, and misfortunate to come together.

When Valerian arrived, Lawrence presented him with the true gold and silver of the Church, the poor! The emperor was filled with rage! Beheading was not enough for this Christian Deacon. He condemned Lawrence to a slow, cruel death. He ordered that Lawrence be burned alive, in public, on a griddle. Witnesses recorded the public martyrdom.

The Saint was tied on top of an iron grill over a slow fire that roasted his flesh little by little, but Lawrence was burning with so much love of God that he almost did not feel the flames. God gave him so much strength and joy that he even joked. “Turn me over,” he said “I’m done on this side!” And just before he died, he said, “It’s cooked enough now.”

Even at the brink of death, his peaceful joy shone through. In Scripture, “joy” is listed as a fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23), and St. Lawrence certainly possessed this joy! The comedians of today can take a page out of the creator of the ‘roast’. Before his death, he prayed that the city of Rome might be converted to Jesus and that the Catholic faith might spread all over the world. After that, he went to receive the martyr’s reward.

Lawrence died on August 10, 258. His feast spread throughout Italy and northern Africa. Emperor Constantine built a beautiful basilica in Lawrence’s honour. St. Lawrence is among the saints mentioned in the First Eucharistic Prayer at Mass. He is the patron saint of schoolchildren, the poor, cooks and comedians to name but a few.

Let me end with this. Not all grains that fall into the earth die. Most will remain that single grain that collectively will be consumed by someone as food and some might argue that they still ‘serve’ a cause by doing that. So, to understand this text we need to place it in its context.

We often mistake being busy, productive, or “good” for being fully surrendered. A grain of wheat that gets ground into bread still performs a functional, noble service, it feeds someone. In the same way, we can live lives that are incredibly helpful to our families, our companies, and our communities, yet still remain completely whole, unchanged, and independent of God.

Jesus uses this context to show us that there is a massive difference between consumption and multiplication. When we allow ourselves to be consumed by the world, we are used up until there is nothing left, leaving only the memory of a single grain. But when we choose the burial of surrender, dying to our comfort, our control, and our reputation, we unlock a supernatural blueprint. God doesn’t want you to just be a ingredient in someone else’s temporary fulfillment; He wants to bury you so that your life produces a harvest that outlives you.

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Faith

Friday, 18th week in ordinary time, 7th August 2026 – Matthew 16:24-28

Stop shopping for a discounted Gospel. You see, we love the retail version of Jesus, the one where we swipe our faith and instantly walk out with a bag full of blessing, favor, and comfort. We want the crown, but we are terrified of the heavy lifting. We treat the Bible like a Spotify playlist, skipping straight to Philippians 4:13 and John 3:16 because they feel like a warm blanket. But God didn’t call you to get comfortable; He called you to get conformed to the image of His Son. Look at Matthew 16:24. Jesus doesn’t say, “If anyone wants to follow me, let them live their best life, grab a latte, and slide into destiny.” No! He says, “DENY THEMSELVES, TAKE UP THEIR CROSS, and follow me.”

Our text of today needs a bit of context. Jesus didn’t come to protect the religious status quo; He came to completely crash it. He offended the Jerusalem elite, (15:1) walked straight into enemy territory to praise the raw faith of a pagan outsider, (15:28).  and then fed thousands while refusing to audition for His critics, labeling them an inflated, hollow “evil generation.” (16:4) He stripped away all that religious noise and dragged His disciples to Caesarea Philippi, a place packed with pagan idols, to ask the ultimate question of identity, forcing them to look past the yeast of the Pharisees (16:6) and finally see Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God. (15:16)

Think about this; Jesus will always bypass your religious credentials to get to your raw dependency. He’s intentionally breaking the rules to build your faith. Jesus shattered traditional comfort zones and offended the religious elite to clear a path for raw, unfiltered revelation.

 From now on Jesus will begin his journey to Jerusalem. Mathew 16:2 tells us that “from that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he MUST go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised from the dead.” But this truth was hard for Peter and perhaps the rest to accept. Peter attempts to dissuade the Lord and as a consequence faces his ire. To his shock, he is called satan for he has become a stumbling block with his mind set on human things. Peter went from getting the keys to the Kingdom to being called the enemy because you can’t protect your comfort zone and fulfill your calling at the same time.

It is in this context that Matthew 16:24 must be read. Jesus dropped Matthew 16:24 like a holy grenade because He wasn’t just walking to His cross, He was establishing the baseline for yours! We constantly chase the crown while dodging the crucifixion, but you cannot negotiate with a call to die to yourself. Stop protecting your comfort zone and start picking up your cross.

 Let’s be honest with ourselves: God is not in the business of conscription; He is looking for willing companions. Our baptism beautifully opens the door and welcomes us into the family of Christ, but a seat at the table is never a forced contract. After all, let’s not forget that even Satan had a VIP spot in heaven and deliberately chose to walk out!

Our entire spiritual walk hinges on that one tiny, sharp word from the lips of Jesus: “IF.” If anyone wants to follow me. Following Jesus is an entirely free choice, but it is not a buffet where you can pick and choose your favorite bits. You cannot subscribe to the consolations and sweet blessings while completely opting out of the daily burdens and sacrifices. If you choose to sit at His table, you accept the entire menu, cross and all!

Too often, Christians have their basket of cherry-picked teachings of Christ. Such Christians must be called out for they are nothing but the agents of satan, who like their master ‘deceive’ others into their brand of convenient Christianity.

True discipleship demands a cross, and that cross demands you execute your ego. But we live in a culture that worships the unholy trinity of Me, Myself, and I, completely intoxicated by a counterfeit gospel called “self-actualization.” The world tells you to push people out of the way, demand your rights, and call it “assertiveness.” Let’s call it what it really is: it’s not assertiveness; it’s aggressiveness. It is a diabolical marketing campaign designed to make your pride look like progress. But the kingdom of God operates on a totally different currency: while the world tells you to assert yourself, Jesus tells you to deny yourself. You will never step into the fullness of who God made you to be, until you stop trying to market the monster He called you to crucify.

 Discipleship is never a passive inheritance; it requires a deliberate, daily choice to lift a heavy beam. There is a fascinating nuance in the text that we often gloss over. Christ does not say, “Patiently endure whatever random cross happens to be dumped upon you.” No, He says, “Take up your cross,” and in the Gospel of Luke, it is refined to “THE cross.” You see, we are not being asked to carry a custom, lightweight replica. There is only one true cross—the very one Jesus carried to Golgotha.

We often make the mistake of taking our minor human trivialities, our petty grievances, and our self-inflicted headaches, and consoling ourselves with the pious thought that we are sharing in His sacred suffering. Let us be honest: that is an insult to the crucifixion. For the early community of Matthew, the reality was stark and unmistakable. There was no room for metaphor. Christ was asking them to be entirely ready to lay down their actual lives, just as He did. If your discipleship doesn’t cost you your comfort zone, you aren’t carrying His cross; you’re just carrying your own baggage.

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Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord – 6th August 2026 – Matthew 17:1-9

Think about the weight of this. What if the door was shut forever? What if you were never permitted to see the face of God, ever? But look at the grace of the house today! We are privileged to gaze at Him in the Blessed Sacrament and receive Him in Holy Communion. The God who used to be hidden behind a thick temple veil is now setting a table inside your soul

Think about the patriarchs. Think about the prophets. Even the heavy hitters of the Old Testament didn’t have this kind of access! Moses and Elijah, the two stalwarts of the Old Testament who literally showed up at the Transfiguration, never got to see God’s face. They had to hike up a brutal mountain just to get a voice memo from Heaven! The prophets spent lifetimes climbing toward a hidden God; we simply open our hands to receive Him.

So what’s with mountains? Jesus seemed to like them a lot. The second temptation is on the mountain, so is His place of prayer. The Sermon on the Mount was given on a mountain and so too, the transfiguration of today’s gospel.

 A first-century Jew wouldn’t need a commentary to explain what was happening here. The moment you mention Moses and Elijah in the same sentence; their spiritual radar would go off! Because in the Old Testament, whenever God wanted to show up, He picked a location and He brought an atmosphere. A high mountain plus a thick cloud cover? That wasn’t just bad weather. That was the ultimate setup. Put those two together, and it meant one thing: God is about to step into the room!

The presence of Elijah and Moses was not just for representational purposes to make our narrative look good. Elijah represented the prophets and Moses represented the law and no Jew would deny the importance of the law and the prophets. Besides, it makes for a great PR campaign for Jesus.

For greater clarity, (in you spare time) open your Bible to Exodus 24:12-16, 33:17-23 and I Kings 11:13. You will find a lot of parallelisms to the transfiguration of Jesus.

  1. Like Jesus, both Moses and Elijah go up a mountain; in fact, the same mountain.

  2. Moses takes a disciple, just like Jesus did.

  3. Moses and Elijah desired to see God’s face, but were denied.

  4. They both saw His glory but not His face for they were told that they would die if they saw God’s face.

  5. Both of them had their faces covered by God’s hand or His mantle.

What makes the Transfiguration an absolute turning point in history? Think about it. The same God who hid His face from Moses and Elijah in the Old Testament suddenly unveils it in the New. On that mountain, Jesus peels back His humanity and reveals His transfigured glory to Moses, Elijah, and the disciples. And guess what? They finally looked upon the face of God and lived. The lifelong quest of the prophets was fulfilled in an instant, because the hidden God had finally become a man. Heaven didn’t lower its standards; it lowered its visibility so we could finally draw close.

Here in lies another irony. It is this same face that God did not want to reveal in the Old Testament, that becomes on Good Friday, the face that WE HIDE FROM. The Prophet Isaiah in Chapter 53 says, “He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him; nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of suffering; as one from whom others hid their faces.”

 Think about the irony of our human hearts! In the Old Testament, we were begging, screaming, and crying out, “God, let me see you! Show me your glory!” And God had to say, “I can’t, it’ll consume you.” Then Jesus comes, the veil is torn, the restriction is lifted, and God says, “Here I am. Look at Me.” And what do we do? We look the other way! We crave the God of the spectacular mountain, but we ignore the God of the everyday mirror. ‘Away with Him, Crucify Him!’ How fickle is humankind? How quickly the Hosannas of Palm Sunday will turn to ‘Crucify Him’, on Good Friday!

So, what is the transfiguration all about, merely a Gospel guilt trip? The very word ‘transfiguration’ comes from the Greek word ‘metamorphosis’ which means change. Jesus’ appearance changed and Peter, James and John, all saw Him as God and Man. The experience left the impetuous Peter a better man. Remember Peter, the patron of spontaneous prayer who must say something every time? Well, he did so this time too, but now with greater understanding. He calls Jesus, “Lord”.

Peter has become aware of the divinity of Jesus and addresses Him with a title of faith. But even more, the change is seen in Peter’s leadership. He who, not even a chapter ago, was given the keys of the kingdom of heaven and soon after denounced for his inability to grasp the new role foisted on his shoulders, takes on the leadership, but now in humbler tones. “If you wish, I will make three dwellings.” No more arrogance, no more leaning on the disciples for support. This is the Peter who has seen the face of God and lived.

Even the highest spiritual heights cannot insulate us from human weakness. Peter, James, and John—the elite eyewitnesses of the Transfiguration—will soon fail Jesus repeatedly in the darkness of Gethsemane. Yet Jesus anticipates our collapse with radical grace. The same tender hand that touched the terrified disciples on the mountain will lift them up after the resurrection. Confronting Peter’s denial and Thomas’s doubt, He offers restoration instead of condemnation. His ultimate question to Peter, and to us, remains entirely relational: “Do you love me?” He replaces the weight of our failure with the invitation of His friendship.

Change is in the air, that’s what the Gospels invite us to.  Today we don’t have to climb a mountain to meet God. Thank God for that! But like Elijah, we can hear Him in a still small voice. Mountains don’t need to be conquered for us to be with God; pride does, hate does, anger does, and lust does. And there we find God, on our own Mt Sinai; in a chapel or in our living room, in our kitchen, or in our work place. Look around now, He is there, revealing Himself to you.

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Tuesday, 18th week in ordinary time – Feast of John Vianney – 4th August 2026 – Matthew 15:1-2,10-14

This complex text requires careful teaching to avoid losing the core message in the details. This is a hard text to teach and one that could be easily misrepresented if one misses the woods for the trees.

Reports of Jesus’ ‘disruptive’ Galilean ministry have reached the religious elite, drawing a hostile delegation straight from Jerusalem to confront him. We are told in 15:1 that the Pharisees and scribes have come from Jerusalem with a singular purpose; to question Jesus.  

They didn’t travel all that way to get clarity. They came to catch Him in a trap. See, the religious elite didn’t want information; they wanted ammunition. Their question wasn’t driven by curiosity; it was weaponized by criticism. They didn’t come to look for truth—they came looking for a fight!

One would have thought that the Pharisees and scribes have journeyed this long and arduous distance because of some doctrinal issue that has come under their scanner. Yet their question to Jesus is not doctrinal but more a ‘violation’ of a social customs that had found religious approval over the years. The Pharisees ask Jesus, “why do your disciples break the traditions of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.”

We get so caught up in the cultural customs that we completely compromise the actual commandments. We start fighting over the peripheral, and we forget the powerful! We are elevating man-made traditions above God-given truth. When you start prioritizing the social over the spiritual, you aren’t protecting your faith, you are paralyzing it!. The local practice of Catholicism, like the local practices of most religions, are filled with such ‘home-spun’ traditions.

Let us look at the ‘traditions of the elders’ that have brought the Pharisees and scribes all the way from Jerusalem to Galilee. “Why do your disciples not wash their hands before eating?” In order to understand why this question is so important to this religious delegation one needs to understand that the Jews came to believe that ‘Shibtah’, a demon, attached himself to their hands as they slept and hence ingesting food would be ingesting the demon.

For the Jew, the Christian or any person of any religious faith, what should matter, is the core teachings in its written form. For the Jews, the Torah (or the Pentateuch as Christians call it) which consisted of the first five books of the Bible, constituted the written law. This is the core of the Jewish faith. Besides this, a section of the Jews, namely the Pharisees, began to accept the oral law that they claimed came from the time of Sinai. Remember that the written law, namely the Torah, is not in question here and Jesus has not spoken a word against the Torah.  

These oral laws were then codified into the Mishna and Talmud which were commentaries on the commentaries of the Law. The Mishna is a commentary on the Torah and the Talmud is a commentary on the Mishna. The Talmud itself consisted of 8 volumes consisting of a total of 63 books. Remember that these books do not tackle the written law but the oral law and that’s a lot of oral tradition to follow.

So much of faith has been corrupted by traditions that are attached to religion. We’ve let human tradition crowd out holy truth. So many social demands are made of people in the name of religion at the time of Baptisms, Marriages, First Communion and Funerals. The sacraments of penance and the anointing of the sick, which truly deserve a social celebration, are relegated to muted responses.

The point I wish to make is crystal clear. We will fight to the death over our preferences, but won’t lift a finger for God’s precepts. We’ve put human customs on the main stage and pushed foundational truth into the wings. We are bringing massive energy to things that don’t matter, while the heartbeat of God gets our leftover devotion!

Christ deplores this behaviour and in no uncertain words takes on the Pharisees and the scribes. They came to question him with frivolities, while they themselves broke the core commandments of God. “Why do you break the commandments of God for the sake of your traditions.” There! Jesus has really got himself in big trouble!  

It is crazy to me how we can butcher the Bible and people just nod along. But the moment you challenge a cultural custom, the second you mention the flowers at the grave, the confetti at the wedding, or the specific way we do things, everyone is ready to riot! We tolerate broken doctrine, but we protect our traditions with our lives. We have become more loyal to our rituals than we are to the Truth!

Are you offended reading what I just wrote/said? I won’t be surprised if you are because no sooner had Jesus tackled the Pharisees and scribes (read  verse 4 -9) than the ‘concerned’ disciples of Jesus come running to him. “Do you know that the parish council (sorry Pharisees) took offence when they heard what you said?” Oh! I did it again! Have I stepped into a quagmire of beloved religious traditions and offended my readers and listeners?

Let me tell you Christ’s reactions to this home spun religious ‘controversy;’ he took it on by its horns, threw the political correctness into the garbage where it belonged and proclaimed that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth that defiles (him/her) (15:11)

When the high-ranking religious elite marched down from headquarters to put Him in His place, Jesus didn’t write a rebuttal. He didn’t try to win them over. He gave them two brutal words: “LET THEM ALONE.” (verse 14). Translation? Stop wasting your time on people who only want to trap your truth. They weren’t worthy of His attention, and they are definitely not worthy of yours!

I warned you at the start of this teaching that this is a hard text to teach especially when scripture holds a mirror up to us. Christ calls the Pharisees in verse fourteen “blind guides of the blind.” That is an interesting statement because he is calling out the ignorance of these religious leaders and the stupidity of their blind followers. In the final reckoning they will be “uprooted” for they have not been planted by God but have planted themselves as religious leaders (read verse 13).

So much of our beautiful Christian faith has been distorted by religious traditions. I am not calling for a boycott of a wedding reception that follows the sacrament of matrimony or any other sacrament. Celebrations are important and serve a social need but when traditions after traditions are layered one over the other and these traditions take centre stage over the essential doctrines of the faith.

When we look the other way, when a relative who never takes their child for Sunday mass insists on all the frills and fancies for their child’s first communion, or when Christian couples who have rejected the faith want to get ‘married in Church, white dress et al or when all this and much more happens in God’s name and the rest of us hold our breath because this is ‘not our business’, then we are nothing but ‘the blind leading the blind and are culpable of the corruption of the faith.

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