Jesus continues His denunciation of the Pharisees and the scholars of the law. He added two more issues against them. The first being His assault on their honoring the prophets by building them a memorial place when they are dead but persecute them while they were alive. Their act, according to Jesus, was a sign of their consent on what their ancestors had done. It thus fulfilled the wisdom of God that they will be charged with the blood of them they will persecute. The second was against the scholars of the law who, instead of educating and enlightening the people about he law, were guilty of obstruction because they have taken away the key to knowledge. The "teachers" became responsible for the ignorance of their people.
The Lord Jesus is consistently pointing out the ironies being committed by the leaders of His time. They honor whom they killed. They made ignorant whom they are supposed to educate. Their irresponsibility had led to further rejection of Jesus which would result to the mounting hostility against him and later plot something that will lead to His arrest. Inconsistencies, bad examples, and other forms of show offs that mislead and confuse people. Too much of external concerns led to the neglect of the internal disposition.
The journey towards holiness begins inside us. If we are to find God in our neighbor and in all creation, we must first look in our hearts. "Our heart is restless until it rests in You!" (St. Augustine). Once we acknowledge the presence and reign of God in our hearts, all our thoughts and actions should be inspired and powered by that condition. Our respects, honor, appreciation, recognition and praises will come from the heart. They will not be empty words and actions, rather, meaningful and fruitful gestures. They are valuable not because of their material and visual content but because of their spiritual and essential origin.
The Lord Jesus showed this in the story of the widow's mite in the Gospels. After the rich had put their gifts, the widow put her two mites. The Lord saw what happened and said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."(Lk. 21:3-4). What made the Lord Jesus praise the widow was not because of her poverty, but because she gave not from surplus but from the heart. The rich gave gifts out of surplus that did not really merit much before the Lord. The Lord Jesus gives the very important message that what really counts is the heart we put with whatever we do. The beauty of this is that we are all capable of it. God gave all of us a heart. All we have to do is to see to it that everything we do must come from it. And because God is in our hearts, we will do things according to His Will. And when we do His Holy Will, we are assured that we have done not only what is right but what will save!
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