Friends
Peace be with you.
Dr. Peter Kreeft relates a story in his commentary on today’s gospel. “A six-year-old boy had a three-year-old sister who had a disease that she would die of if she did not have a blood transfusion. But she had a very rare blood type, and the only person who could be found with that same blood type was her brother. As soon as he heard this, the brother volunteered to give her the transfusion. While the transfusion was going on, the boy looked sad, and when they asked him why, he said, ‘How long will it take me to die’”
Imagine being just six years old and not being afraid to die if it will mean your little sister lives. Thankfully, that’s not the way a blood transfusion works but it’s a good illustration of the point that Jesus is trying to get across. The Jewish people, on top of the Old Testament, have a book called the Talmud, which clarifies and further lays out how to live in relationship with God. One of the precepts of the Talmud is that people of inferior Biblical knowledge should greet those of greater Biblical knowledge first. The scribes, being the most biblically knowledgeable, would apparently walk through the market so people would make a spectacle of greeting them and then they would look important.
From archaeological digs, we know the synagogues of Jesus’ time had benches along the walls and the ones along the wall with the cabinet where the Bible scrolls were kept were reserved for those who were literate, again the Scribes. Everyone else had to sit on the ground, especially if you were poor, with the men on one side and the women on the other.
Being a scribe would have been seen as a pretty good job. The trouble Jesus has with it is where they make their money. It’s off the Temple taxes that are being collected. Apparently, there were seven trumpet shaped donation buckets in the temple in which the temple tax was deposited. It was designed that the larger sums of money would make a bigger sound going in than smaller amounts. So, people who could put in more would be recognized whereas a poor widow, who can put in one sixty fourth of a day’s wage, which is described as a couple of small coins, would have gone virtually unnoticed. Yet, as he notes at the end, she gave more because they gave from their surplus wealth and she has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.
We need to be cautious to hear Jesus the way he wants to be heard. The context and words Jesus uses makes it clear that he’s not commending her for giving her all. She has no choice but to pay this tax. This is a condemnation of those who make money off the poor. Jesus laments the fact that she has to give her whole livelihood to pay off vain people walking through markets to be greeted. He laments that those people are sitting on couches in the synagogue while the elderly and widows are sitting on the floor and that, when invited to their homes, they eat the best food at the most comfortable chairs.
It’s a challenge to me, probably more than anyone. I have one of the few chairs in church with a cushion. People greet me when I’m out and about at least in part because I’ve got a collar on. And the poor are often the ones putting money in our candle boxes for prayers and putting money in the collection baskets. We need to make sure we are helping the poor as much as possible through MCO and St. Vincent de Paul.
But we also have to think about things like a casino. It sounds great and I’m sure our politicians will tell us it will help create jobs and create business down here in the time-check area. But, at what cost? The poor are often the ones who go to casinos and spend the money they don’t have in the hopes of winning it big. We don’t need a casino. We need real jobs that will help real people make real money. We need to help those struggling with homelessness and mental illness not take advantage of them. Like the scribes, we deserve severe condemnation if we take advantage of the poor to make money.
