Richmond, Virginia
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It goes without saying that the Gospel of Our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ is a serious matter, the most serious matter there is. However, even so, the Gospel is not without its humorous moments, and there is certainly something humorous about the end of today’s Gospel reading. A lawyer, listening to the Lord’s list of woes directed at the scribes and Pharisees, pipes up: “By saying these things, you reproach us lawyers also.” Clearly, he is expecting the Lord to back down. But instead, the Lord doubles down: “Woe to you also, lawyers!”
This is a humorous moment of expectations reversed and an antagonist humiliated. But it is also an illustration of a profound spiritual truth: the justice of the Lord condemns us all. And if we wish to make excuses, it is precisely then that the weight of that justice will hit us the hardest, just as the Lord’s surprising exclamation of “woe” stung the self-assured lawyer of old.
The proper response to the Lord’s condemnations, to his catalogue of “woes,” is not self-righteous posturing, excuse-making, arguing over them, or disclaiming them. Rather, the proper Christian response to the Lord’s litany of condemnation is this: “Yes, Lord, I am guilty of all these things.”
“Woe to you Pharisees!” says the Lord. “For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”
How many of us are just like those Pharisees? We scrupulously keep external rules of piety, but our mouths are full of slander, our hearts hard to our neighbors, our money-purses sealed to the hands of the needy. Or, perhaps we are the opposite: our over-confident assessment of our inner state, our over-estimation of our adherence to the “true” or “essential” spirit of Orthodox Christianity, can lead us to be negligent with regard to the model way of life passed down in the Church for our benefit. Many of us fall short both here and there, both with respect to the spirit and the letter, the inner and the outer. No matter what, we stand condemned by these words of the Lord.
These, together with the other exclamations of “woe” uttered today by the Savior, these all call us to accept and examine and repent of our hypocrisy. Whatever way in which we think we are good and adequate and pious and maybe even holy—this is all so much falsity. What we are is sinners.
And yet, in the beautiful irony of the divine economy, it is precisely this recognition of our incorrigible sinfulness wherein lies our hope for holiness. The one who truly knows his sinfulness is humble, and the one who is truly humble is holy. Becoming the greatest of saints is inseparable from knowing oneself to be the worst of sinners.
The words of the Lord today call us to this realization, but not just in some superficial way. Merely paying lip-service to our status as sinners is just more false piety and pride. The Lord’s litany of woes invites us truly to reflect upon, to know better, the ways in which we have fallen short of his glory, the glory for which we were made.
In other words, repentance entails hard work. In particular, today’s litany of “woes” reminds us of the importance of daily examination of conscience and confession of sins to the Lord. This daily examination and confession, recommended by countless holy fathers and sacred books, does not replace, but prepares us for, the necessary and saving sacrament of Confession, which should also be received on a frequent basis. I ask you to remember that the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America has stated that the norm for frequent communicants is monthly confession.
By examining our consciences daily, by spending time repenting—daily—of the real ways in which we fall short, and by bringing all of these sins to the Lord in the presence of our father confessor on a regular basis, we will slowly but surely chip away at the layers of self-delusion and hypocrisy that make us immune to the Lord’s mercy.
Because this, after all, is all that the Lord wants. He does not list these “woes” because he delights in man’s perdition: he wants to bring us to our senses. So let us take his words to heart; let us struggle against the barriers of self-opinion and ego. Then we can approach the Lord, not with excuses or qualifications, but with humble simplicity, with a firm grasp on reality, saying in all sincerity: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Then all of those woes will be transformed into beatitude, for this is what the merciful Lord desires: a soft and contrite heart to mold into something holy and fit for everlasting good things in the kingdom of heaven.
To our all-merciful Savior and God Jesus Christ, who came to heal the sick and take the lost sheep upon his shoulder, be all glory, adoration, and worship, together with his Father and his All-holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.