The tone of our two readings today differs significantly from one another.

Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians is the earliest of this kind of message we have. The central city he visited was Thessalonica, a provincial capital in Macedonia. Paul’s letter is different from any other he wrote: the first three chapters express his great gratitude to God and to the new converts for the way they received God’s word, took it into their hearts, and lived it.

Matthew’s Gospel portrays Jesus speaking to a group that has heard God’s word but reacted violently negatively. There are only six sentences from Matthew 23. Two are exactly the same: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.” No mistaking Jesus’ tone!

As a powerful sect within the Jewish faith, the Pharisees pushed very hard for their own interpretation of the Torah. Deathly afraid of becoming ‘unclean’, they bitterly denounced any imagined infraction of the Law. Even their garments had to be perfect, down to the correct amount and length of fringe and the right number of tassels! They heard Jesus preach about the new Law to supersede the old: love God and your neighbor as yourself, and perceived only a threat to their power. These Pharisees shadowed Jesus’ every move and reported to the Temple. Every one of his words and deeds was horribly twisted and contorted to make him out to be a heretic and blasphemer.

Our Lord knew everything they did and called them out: your prideful, righteous pose is like bright paint slapped on a tomb. Inside this flashy, thin coat, you are full of death, decay, and filth.

No doubt which group we wish to join: the loving, grateful, loyal new disciples in Thessaly who made Paul so happy and proud!

Let us pray:

Dear God, help us to take the loving mien and faithful pose we show outside deeply inside our minds and unshakably into our hearts. Amen.