“Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the instruction of our God, you people of Gomorrah!”.
Sodom and Gomorrah had fallen into sin. God spoke to the people of Israel through the Prophet Isaiah and called them “Sodom and Gomorrah” because they had fallen deeply into sin. God equaled the people of Israel to the greatest sin of the Old Testament, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah.
In the lives of the saints we see persecution by the Romans from the 1st to the 3rd century. For history to be completed we have to understand what the Romans did to the church, the church did to the people from the 13th century to the 18th century. It is called the Inquisition. Nobody wants to talk about it and treat it like a family secret. If we do that we will never really deal with the consequences. People were questioned for their faith. If they didn’t meet the standard of the church, some were put in prison or tortured. Many were killed. You need to understand that you can have religion and be brutal all the same time. That’s why we need to have a heart of love. If we don’t have it, we can do a lot of terrible things in the name of God. The Spanish inquisition was the worst of all. Many were killed. Many don’t want to talk about these things. If we don’t deal with them, we will have an unbalanced view. We can easily use authority in a very abusive way if it is not tempered by the call of Jesus; “love one another as I have loved you”. Spirituality is the growth in loving and being concerned about others.
“Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong”.
We can’t justify the wrong that we do. When you look at the last 2000 years you can see people were not very mature. Even the European society was not very mature. They behaved badly towards each other. Even religion couldn’t temper that. Many became Christians but their nature and attitudes were unchanged.
“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow”.
Be concerned about people. Being right with God is now connected with how you treat others. We can have a great discipline of prayer and doing everything according to the teachings of the church, but we can be intolerant of other people.
When people have power over us, we are very understanding of them. We give them space, forgive them and we try to be Christian. We don’t do the same for people under us. We are intolerant, reactive, harsh. Sometimes we are unconcerned about people who are closest to us and in our families. We are polite to people outside, but unkind to those in our families. Our spirituality must transform our inner nature. We need to grow. The sign of our spiritual growth is how we deal with them.
When our parents grow older, when they become dependent, you easily put them aside, disregard them. Examine your journey with God by examining how you deal with others. What happened in Sodom and Gomorrah, in the Inquisition, can easily happen in our own lives if we separate religion and people. Many people look down on Napoleon, the Emperor of France who had a great thirst to concur Europe. But he was the one who stopped the inquisition, and not religious leaders. It needed someone from outside to do that.
Today is a good day to reflect on our own relationships. Rather than being right, be humane. People come first.
“Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
If you realize that you have done these, there is an answer.
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool”.
This is the good news. If you realize something is wrong in your approach return to God. That’s the beauty of the Christian journey. You don’t have to defend your position or carry guilt all your life. Turn to God and allow Him to minister to you.
“If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land;”
If you align yourself with God, you will be blessed. If you are right with God, do the right things, God will put things in place for you. Your life is taken through effortlessly. Unless of course you have a mission that goes through resistance, like in the life of Jesus. If not, you will flow with the wind of the Holy Spirit.
“but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.” For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
But if you are in sin, not in agreement with what God, everything will be a struggle. When you don’t flow with God you will find resistance in your life. So instead of defending our brokenness and our woundedness and our position, come to the Lord for Him to cleanse you. Lent is a good time to ask ourselves are we resisting the wind of the flow of the Holy Spirit? Are we in rebellion to God in certain areas of our lives? Are we in rebellion to other people in our lives? If we realize that we are, let us return to God.
If the doors are closing instead of asking God to open doors or change others, we need to sit and pray and ask the Lord to change things within us. Sometimes even in our prayer times we are judging others. That’s why we don’t grow. Even in the inquisition, they were judging other people without using that time to examine their own hearts.
Gospel (Matthew 23:1-12)
“Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So, you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach”.
You can have religion and theology, but you may also not be really living the Gospel we hold on to. You can easily to it with our relationships. That’s why Jesus said you must not do what they do. They had religious truths, but they had not developed. This is a crisis we face today even in the church. The credibility has been compromised. When credibility has been compromised nobody listens to you. It has nothing to do with the teaching but has to do with the behavior.
“They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long;”
Jesus talks about how the Pharisees treated others. Though they knew the Law of Moses their attention was on what they could receive from others. We can fall into that; our worth and value coming from others. That is the easiest thing to do; get value, respect and love from others and live for that. What is hidden in your heart that others don’t see really doesn’t matter as long as people give you love, worth, respect. That is what Jesus is saying, “you have lost God in this”.
“they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues;”
People haven’t changed for 2000 years. Everyone of us is like that. We like to be acknowledged and loved. Those who acknowledge and respect are good. Those who don’t show us respect are no good. We judge others by the way they relate to us.
“they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others”.
Human honor and respect were number one. We must be careful of this. It is so easy to rest in that. In my own journey through life, I have all the time flirted with the human respect others give. When we lean on that, it feels good. But ultimately if you lean on people’s love, honor and respect, in the end some little problem is going to crop up. When that comes, those very people reject you. During the time you have danced and waltzed with people, you have forgotten to dance and waltz with God. Then you are left with nothing.
Jesus taught us to pray “lead us not into temptation”. But it is not necessary for us to be led into temptation, we are looking for them. We easily fall into them. But we think everything is fine because we are doing all the religious practices properly.
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers”.
You have to break out of this trap of being caught in human recognition, honor and position. You have to come out of it.
“And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven”.
Stop seeking human honor above God.
A reflection by Bishop Luis Martinez;
“Spiritual life is undoubtedly a continual ascent, since perfection consists in union with God, and God stands above all creation. To arrive at God, we must ascent but the paradox that I emphasize lies in this; the secret of ascending is descending”. St Augustine in his inimitable style, thus explains this paradox; consider O brethren this great marvel. God is on high; reach up to Him and He flees from you. Lover yourself before Him and he comes down to you. In the spiritual life, souls humble themselves with more or less effort, yet ever returning the conviction that they must become little. “But when the descend to a certain depth they become dismayed and grow weary of descending. It seems to them that they have been deceived and time has come for them to ascend. They are not aware in the way of spirituality one ascends only by descending and that to arrive at the summit the soul must never weary of going downwards”.
The Lord says return to me. Though your sin is scarlet I will wash you whiter than snow. The Lord is inviting us; come as you are, I love you.
When we descend, not trying to be important, God is able to make you ascend.
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