32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Jesus angered the Scribes and Pharisees when he accused them of concealing God rather than revealing him. They had buried God under a mountain of petty legalisms. Nevertheless, the central core of their teachings retained their validity. "Listen to their teachings," he told his followers, "but do not depend upon them for example. They do not practice what they preach." The Scribes and the Pharisees were experts in the law. They were familiar with every legal loophole. While they bolted for freedom through these same legal loopholes, the ordinary punter was left bearing the burden. "And will they lift a finger to ease that burden?" Jesus asks.
Obviously, Jesus was born into a world and a religion where a crisis of authority was already a dominant experience. The Romans had lost credibility as civil rulers. The scribes and Pharisees were no longer credible witnesses to religious values. Historians refer to this period as a period of social and cultural fragmentation. Long-established social groupings were coming apart while traditional values were being perceived as obsolete. As the questioning of old certainties intensified, old values eroded. The baby was being thrown out with the bathwater. In times of cultural insecurity there is a great temptation to take cover under simplistic certainties. Religion becomes a sterile facade, an empty shell. The wearing of broader phylacteries and longer tassels will be seen as major issues. The leaders strut like painted dolls around the market squares, voraciously absorbing social approval. People who have an inflated sense of their own importance will have God and others out of focus too. Incidental cosmetics are elevated to core values. Religion is thus drained of its power to motivate, to enlighten and inspire. As anyone of you who have ever watched the late Fr. Ted will know, a religion that lacks faith or conviction rapidly degenerates into pantomime.
As we are aware, all authority today, be it parental, educational or political, is viewed with a jaundiced eye. It is the one great theme around which all of us will unite: authority is in trouble. The Church cannot expect to escape this scepticism. It is going through the same fragmentation that the religious authorities in ancient Israel experienced. The rules and regulations that sustained believers up to very recent time are now seen and experienced by a new generation as archaic, quaint and obsolete. And, as this questioning of old certainties becomes more widespread and intense, there is a tendency on the part of some Church leaders to react as the Pharisees of old reacted: to take refuge in the letter of the law. But in truth, this doesn't answer the questions asked; it merely allays for a time their own insecurity.
In reality, each individual must now draw his own her own conclusions about life, about religion and about God. We have moved from a religion of convention to a religion of conviction. The Church must lead; but she can never again compel. The only authority she now has is the authority of her own experience and her own example. If she is not credible on that score, people will simply walk away.