There is a saying that I hear often: “don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.” In our society today we seem to do just that. Politically we reduce a person to a meme and that alone discredits everything they are saying or doing. No one seems to look for the good in others, but rather the bad. Once the bad has been found it’s all that is seen, even when that person is clearly doing some good as well. It’s not just one side, conservative or liberal, republican or democrat. It seems to be all of us. In the first reading, God was looking at a world in darkness, where mankind desired only evil. It would have been easy to just wipe out everything and start over. Surely God is creative enough to make it all new, and he’s powerful enough to do just that. In the all familiar story, he stops when he finds goodness in just one man. He saves creation, the animals, and the family of Noah to start over. They do, but man do they make some mistakes on the way.
Then you have this dire seeming warning in the Gospel of Mark that the Apostles misinterpret: “Watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” It’s not that the Pharisees didn’t have any good at all in them. They were closer to Jesus in their understanding of Judaism than most other Jewish sects. What it did mean though is that their teaching had bad things in it. That one has to judge right from wrong and not allow the wrong to creep in their lives. We hear people saying all the time “Jesus said not to judge!” Well, he did, and he didn’t. He said to judge righteously, to not be a hypocrite when you do, and to have mercy for others because you too are a sinner in need of grace. He didn’t say we should never use our brains. He didn’t tell us not to call out sin or try to determine right from wrong. He also didn’t tell us to let others go to Hell because we don’t want to offend them. He warns that any of us who cause of the little ones to fall would be better off drowned in the sea with a millstone around his neck.
So what does all of this mean to us? It means that we need to keep our minds on Christ. That we need to fill our lives with good things, with the love of God that will grow like multiplied bread in our hearts. That when we look at others we should try to see good in them too because God hasn’t given up on them. We should call out sin for sin, but in a way that is loving and draws others to Christ. That’s the ultimate goal, isn’t it? To draw others to Jesus? How can we do that if we are filled with hate? If we never take a moment to allow Jesus to speak through us, but rather only show the world the dark side of our hearts. It also means that we need to take a moment to realize that Jesus too looks past all the things we are doing wrong, not excusing them or forgetting them, but he sees how we were created to be. That beautiful seed worth saving, worth dying for. He did that for you. He left you a new Ark, a new Covenant, the Church, and the Eucharist, with the Sacraments that help lead us to Eternal Salvation. It is in them that we can find the right kind of “bread” to make our hearts grow and give our soul a share in eternal life. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life… it’s time we start living like it.
A reflection on the readings for Tuesday of the 6th week in ordinary time: February 19, 2019.