A reflection on Matthew 23:27-32 for Wednesday of the 21st Week in Ordinary Time.
Jesus was not exactly known for tiptoeing around a point.
In Matthew 23, He looks at the scribes and Pharisees and calls them whitewashed tombs: beautiful on the outside, full of decay on the inside.
Well now. That is not a compliment you put on a coffee mug.
But there is something painfully familiar in it. We are good at appearances. We know how to smile when we are irritated, answer “fine” when we are anything but, and make the house look presentable before company comes over even if there is one room somewhere with the door firmly shut because mercy only stretches so far.
We do the same thing spiritually. We can look faithful. We can go to Mass, volunteer, know all the right words, say the right prayers, and nod at the right moments. And still, somewhere underneath all that, we may be carrying resentment, pride, envy, dishonesty, bitterness, or an old grudge we have polished so often it practically shines.
That is the trouble with looking good.
Eventually, we can start confusing appearance with conversion. And Jesus does not. He sees past the whitewash.
That sounds frightening at first, but I actually think it is good news. If God only dealt with the version of us we present to other people, we would never really be healed. He would be treating the paint instead of the rot.
Most of us have places we would rather not inspect too closely. Maybe we are kind in public and sharp at home. Maybe we talk about forgiveness but secretly enjoy rehearsing everything someone did wrong. Maybe we are generous when people can see it and stingy when they cannot.
Or maybe we are very concerned about other people’s sins because it saves us from looking too closely at our own.
That one can sneak up on a person.
There is something mighty convenient about examining everybody else’s conscience. Keeps us busy. Keeps us distracted. Keeps us from asking the more uncomfortable question:
Lord, what in me needs to change?
Jesus is not condemning the Pharisees because they care about holiness. He is condemning the gap between the outside and the inside. That is a useful distinction.
There is nothing wrong with outward practices of faith. We need them. We need Mass, prayer, fasting, service, confession, and habits that train the heart. But those practices are supposed to lead somewhere.
They are meant to make us more honest, more merciful, more patient, more generous, and more humble. If they do not, something has gone sideways.
If I can spend an hour in church and then spend the ride home cutting somebody to pieces with my words, I may need to ask whether I was really listening. If I can defend truth without charity, I may be more interested in winning than witnessing. If I can speak beautifully about mercy while refusing to offer it to one particular person, then there is some whitewash that needs scraping.
And I do not say that as though I have mastered any of this. I have not.
I know how easy it is to manage the outside because the inside is slower work. The outside can be fixed in an afternoon. The inside takes grace. The inside asks for repentance. It asks us to admit things we would rather explain away, and sometimes it asks us to say the three words that can get stuck in the throat:
I was wrong.
That sentence has never exactly rolled off the tongue, but it can open a door.
The good news is that Jesus does not expose us in order to humiliate us. He exposes what is false so He can heal what is real.
That is what confession does. We stop pretending. We name the sin. We bring it into the light. And Christ meets us there with mercy.
Not flattery. Not excuses.
Mercy.
Mercy says, “Yes, this needs to change, and no, you are not beyond grace.”
That is the kind of honesty Jesus wants from us. Not polished holiness. Real holiness. The kind that begins in hidden places and changes how we speak to our family, how we treat the difficult person, how quickly we apologize, how slowly we judge, and how willing we are to admit that we still need God.
Looking good is easy enough.
Being changed is another story.
But that is the story Christ is trying to write in us.
So maybe the prayer is simple:
Lord, scrape away the whitewash. Show me what is real. Clean what needs cleaning. Heal what needs healing. And make the inside match the faith I am trying to live on the outside.