Lent – Day 12: “They preach but they do not practice.” – Matthew 23:1 – 12

Today’s reading is for teachers, for doctors, for leaders, for priests, for pastors, for mothers, for fathers and for all those that offer guidance and care to others. This reading is also for those that dare to walk the path of Christ. It reminds me of a story of a very poor village with very miserable looking people. Yet this village is the most visited village in the world. People come from everywhere to seek the citizens of this village. These villagers are the only people that are able to explain and even draw a very detailed map of the location of the mountain of wealth. Great countries and cities unequal in wealth achieved their fame by coming to these villagers and by following their directives to reach the mountain.

When Jesus looked at the scribes and Pharisees, this was what he saw – they knew what to do to experience joy and peace and love and yet they looked so sad, miserable and unloved. They knew the way to the mountain of wealth and directed people to it and yet they were very poor.

Jesus sounds a word of warning to all who preach his words. He sounds a word of warning to the Scribes and Pharisees of our time. Sometimes we take and use the Word of God, the Bible, as a body of knowledge to instruct others; we use it to prove our faith or validate our practices and beliefs. The Word of God is not meant primarily to be used as a preaching tool to convert others, No, no, no. The Word of God is for my conversion, for my transformation and for my renewal. The Word of God is meant to bring me back to God; it is meant to transform me more into the image of the God that formed me in Love and Truth.

It is my transformed life, the Word of God living and active in me, that converts and preaches. God in me, the Word in me, must preach.

The Scribes and Pharisees never experienced the redemption, the compassion, and the love of the God they preached about. They preached a God they do not know and defended a God they have never experienced.

The Scribes and the Pharisees live in us. So, let us pray that the Word of God may transform our lives and make us a gospel that transforms and liberates others. May God bless you all.