November 3, 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time Mt. 23/1-12

Background

Jesus’s constant conflict with the Scribes and the Pharisees was not a battle against the Scribes skills in interpreting scripture, nor with the Pharisees theoretical doctrines about love and about the resurrection from the dead. Rather he fought with these religious enthusiasts because their claim to virtue, a claim which they used to oppress ordinary folk, was in large part hypocritical. Because they were deeply religious persons, they assumed that they had the right to run other people’s lives. It was against this tyranny that Jesus contended. Patently the temptation to be a scribe or a Pharisee did not end when Jesus went back to the Father in heaven. It is an inevitable part of religion, and must be resisted today even as it was in Jesus’s time.

Story

Once upon a time there was a young couple who brought their first baby to their parish to have the small one baptized. The priest was warm and genial, welcomed them into the parish, congratulated them on their little girl, signed them up for the parish, and presided over a baptism which because of his explanations and his dignity in the celebration was a religious experience for all who attended. A year later a little brother appeared on the scene. The mother called the parish to arrange for the Baptism. She was put through to the Director of Religious Education who informed her that they had to take a course for parents of children seeking baptism. The course for this semester was already under way. They would have to wait three months. Both she and her husband would have attend on every Wednesday for six weeks or the child would not be baptized. The mother argued that both of them had received sixteen years of Catholic education, that they both worked, her husband was working on his law degree at night and had classes on Wednesday, and that she already had an infant in arms. The DRE was inflexible, no course, no baptism. But we didn’t need a course for our first child, the mother protested. That’s because I was not in charge said the DRE and hung up. Who said there were no Pharisees left?