Eighth Sunday of the Year

Sir 27:4-7; 1 Cor 15:54-58; Luke 6:39-45

little brother avi bala bitra                                                                February 27, 2022

In our relationships today we often tend to find the defects in others and criticize them.  The noticeable factor is that in our fault-finding in others the focus of our own deficiencies remains hidden and this helps us to feel ever so self-righteous.

    Instead of criticizing others, it will do a world of good if we care for them.  Then we will listen not only to what they are saying but also to what they are trying to say with or without words. If we care for them we won’t impose our views, our plans, ideas, discipline, advice, correction, guidance, and our judgment. If we care for them we will show them how talented, capable, industrious, genuine, original, creative, skilled, friendly, trustworthy, resourceful, good, and lovable persons they are.

    In the first reading, Sirach says that people’s faults appear when they speak, especially when they speak and aren’t considering their words. We often hide behind masks – but conversation reveals our inner thoughts no matter how careful we are to disassemble.

     Speech is a means of testing the inner character of a person because what comes in speech betrays what’s in our hearts. The climax of the reading is the last line (v. 7), saying that what a person says is clearly the test of that person. Sirach’s teaching is very relevant for human integrity in today’s world of public relations and image-making, the sound bite and the slogan. 

    In this passage, Sirach advises everyone to live in accordance with divine law, which should be the highest rule and main aspiration of man’s behavior. The knowledge of the person comes by the way he lives and communicates and then we understand the divine presence. Thus once we open our mouth we reveal ourselves.

     In the second reading, Paul says that death is swallowed up in victory and the sting of death disappears.  Death entered the world through sin and the power of sin is the law.  

     The new covenant replaces the old. Sin can now be forgiven and forgotten.  “Christ did not win the victory for himself but for our benefit. For when He became a man, He remained God, and by overcoming the devil, he who never sinned gained the victory for us, who were bound in death because of sin.

     Paul’s own experience of the Risen Lord and his life of hardship focused his attention on the life beyond the present world. Our new life in Jesus renders insignificant the physical death that appears so final and complete to those who don’t see life in terms of the eternal risen life of Jesus.

     Last Sunday’s Gospel told us not to judge or we would be judged ourselves. This does not mean that we are never to criticize other people.   ‘Criticize’ comes from Greek to make a rational judgment. So we speak of a film or drama ‘critic’ who may indeed tear production to pieces or, on the other hand, may praise it to the skies giving full credit to it.  We have here the three distinctive unrelated sayings of Jesus: blind leading the blind, the splinter in the companion’s eye, the good tree and its fruits. 

     What is being forbidden by Jesus is not judgment as to such but negative, destructive judgment. There are times when we are expected to give constructive, helpful criticism.  We cannot pass judgment unless we have some vision and understanding. How can the blind, those without understanding, presume to give leadership to others who are blind? Jesus asks us. The result is inevitable: “Both will fall into the pit.”

     The disciple is not above the teacher. This is to say that our judgments should be like those of Jesus. The one who is fully qualified will be like the teacher: judging to save and help, not to knock down and destroy.

     Today’s gospel from St. Luke follows immediately upon his beautiful explanation of unconditional love whereby we are to love even our enemies. This kind of love is not natural.  It can come only with the grace of God and as a result of much work and effort.  But this is precisely the challenge of today’s gospel for each one of us.   To be so positive of all other people that we can accept them for who and what they are, that we can overcome those occasions when we tend to misjudge others, that we can stress the good in others and hope they can do the same for us.

     We tend not to see the good in others as much as we see the bad.  We misjudge the actions of others very readily.  We allow certain biases to arise that prevent us from ever being close to some people.  In fact, there may be some individuals whose mere presence makes us uncomfortable. Such attitudes and reactions are certainly not compatible with the notion of the Mystical Body of Christ.

     Jesus says that everything depends on the inner person and not on the outward appearance. Hypocrisy will not long go undetected. According to the Greek understanding, a hypocrite is an actor. The actor does the external show at a play or drama and internally he is different.  He remains as before and there is no real change in him.

     No really good tree can produce bad fruit, and no really bad tree can consistently produce genuinely good fruit. “Shake up the sieve and the rubbish soon appears,” says today’s First Reading. Once we open our mouth we reveal ourselves.

    “Do not praise people before they speak, for this is the way people are tested.” When we gossip we often tell people a lot more about ourselves than those we are condemning.  But, Jesus says that everything depends on the inner person and not on the outward appearance.

-        @Avinash Bitra OFM Cap.