FINDING FAULT IN OUR NEIGHBOR

A SERMON FOR THE 18th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Have you ever noticed that whenever Our Lord does something good, there’s always someone in the background ready to tear him down? If he heals a sick person, suddenly a Pharisee will appear to point out that it’s the Sabbath.  Or take today, when he shows that he has power to forgive sins by healing a man with the palsy.  Do the scribes acknowledge this power to forgive?  Do they even give him credit for ending the suffering of another human being?  No, they can find nothing better to do than murmur amongst themselves that “he blasphemeth.”

How many times do we act like these wicked scribes? How many times do we see nothing but the bad in other people?  Are we so clean and free from sin ourselves, are we so perfect, that when someone is trying their best to do good, all we can do is point out whatever we can find to complain about them?  Today’s Gospel story couldn’t come at a more opportune time.  You don’t have to go any further than your TV set to find the hypocrisy of the Pharisees alive and well, thriving amongst the politicians of Washington. I don’t like to be political from the pulpit, but when I’m looking for bad examples to warn you against, our politicians do seem to provide an endless source.  So my apologies for the politics, but let’s remember that by observing the bad example of others we are better equipped to avoid repeating their sins.

I’m referring to the controversy now raging in Washington regarding the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanagh to a seat on the Supreme Court. When you look back at previous years, we see overwhelming bi-partisan Senate majorities approving the judges nominated by either party.  The conservative Antonin Scalia, for example, was approved 98-0, while the liberal Ruth Bader-Ginsburg was confirmed by a 96-3 vote.  Voting for Supreme Court Justices is supposed to be based on their abilities and judicial record, but alas, it has now been transformed into yet another mini civil war between Republicans and Democrats.  The latest developments in this war have reached a new low recently, and this is where the supreme hypocrisy of one party has become one and united with that of the Pharisees themselves.  For some reason, just one single unsubstantiated accusation of an indiscretion allegedly committed when Judge Kavanagh was a high school student under the influence of alcohol is being used to assert that the man is therefore ineligible to serve on the Supreme Court.  Note too, that the rush to judgment and condemnation from the Democrats comes even prior to any evidence, let alone proof, of Kavanagh’s guilt.  But it’s all pure hypocrisy.  How do we know?  Because these same Democrats who can’t wait to destroy Kavanagh’s reputation and career remain obstinately silent in the face of far worse accusations made against members of their own party.  In the case of the Chairman of the Democratic Party, Keith Ellison, for instance, there is far more evidence to support a case of moral impropriety on his part.  But in spite of the wealth of witnesses, accusers, police reports and so on, the Democrats not only defend him, but because he is one of their own, heap praise and veneration on him.  And let’s not forget the countless murders, rapes, extortion, and embezzlement committed by the Clintons, and the wholehearted support given to them by their own party both then and now.

In other words, the revulsion and shock the Democrats show for Judge Kavanagh is not based on their own devoutly held moral values at all, but simply on their hatred for those who don’t agree with their own evil plans to overturn God’s laws.  It’s hypocrisy at its very worst, and we should have no qualms in calling the Democrats by the same names our Lord gave to the Pharisees in his own day: “serpents, brood of vipers, whited sepulchers” and so on.

How do the Democrats try to justify their attack on the character of Judge Kavanagh?  It appears that they think  that if you have ever done anything wrong in your life, it renders you ineligible to perform any good act afterwards.  That’s an interesting and unique twist on Catholic teaching, and one that you won’t find in any moral theology manuals.  In fact, the Church teaches the complete opposite, and we have many examples in the lives of the saints—saints who became saints after being sinners. Think of St. Mary Magdalene or St. Augustine.   Should we dismiss the writings of St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, on the basis that he had been a bit of a reprobate in his youth?  Or should we join the Pharisees who complained against St. Mary Magdalene as she anointed her Lord’s feet and wiped them clean with her hair?  Or should we recognize ourselves as the sinners we are, and give up all hope or pretense of improving ourselves?

The fact is we are all prone to a bit of finger-pointing. It’s easy, and sometimes entertaining, unfortunately, to find fault with other people.  But we really should have a good reason for doing so.  That good reason should be only to protect the greater common good.  For example, if we find out that a teacher in a school is a child molester, it would be our duty to bring this to the attention of the appropriate authorities.  If they failed to act, then, and only then, should we consider warning the parents of the children in his class.  But we had better have moral certitude that we are right. And our motivation must be to protect the common good and not simply to ruin someone’s reputation to score political points, or any other facetious reason. It’s not always wrong to point out the errors of others, especially when their errors threaten the common good, or are made openly and are therefore already subject to public comment.  Otherwise, a person’s private life is nobody’s business but his own, and there exists no qualifying reason for destroying his reputation or declaring open season on the misdeeds of his past or other hidden sins. 

We should always remember that we humans are complex beings with different emotions, medical conditions, sleep patterns, the weather, family life, and a host of other things influencing our behavior.  When we’re tempted to find fault in anybody for any reason other than obvious and grievous public sin, the best thing to do is give them the benefit of the doubt.  We should have the attitude where we are more inclined to overlook the faults of our neighbor, rather than setting ourselves up as their judge, jury and executioner.  We are usually wrong anyway.  Very like we will misjudge their motivation, or we won’t know about  the mitigating circumstances, or we don’t know how to apply a moral principle to a particular circumstance.  And even when we’re right, what good do we really think will come from a reaction of feigned scandal and hypocritical zeal?

If we always look for the bad in other people and what they do, surely this is diametrically opposed to our Lord’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves.  After all, we do love ourselves, and part of that self-love is not to paint ourselves in the worst possible light?  On the contrary, we hide our bad behavior from others, and then we make excuses for it if we’re caught.  We always seem to be making ourselves look better than we are, and definitely better than others are!  Let’s try and switch things around, let’s praise others, make excuses for their ill deeds, while at the same time we humbly acknowledge before God, our neighbor, and ourselves that we are worse sinners than they are.  And let’s avoid the trap of being “proud of our humility”—the devil loves to trick us into the pompous sanctimony of the Pharisee, uncovering our weaknesses only for the purpose of showing the world how much better we are.  Our self-criticism should be a genuine acknowledgment of and repentance for our own very real faults. 

Again, remember what Christ said: “Physician, heal thyself.”  Take the mote out of your own eye before complaining about the splinter in your neighbor’s eye.  Hypocrisy, constant sanctimonious criticism of our fellow Catholics, and a very unpleasant tendency to see ourselves as “holier than thou” all this has become a serious blight on the reputation of those of our faith.  Let us look to our own conscience on this matter, and try to heal any wounds we may have caused by a vicious tongue or pen.  I have been in traditional Catholic churches where newcomers, even an eighty-year-old veteran of World War II, have been prevented by the ushers from going to Communion, simply because they weren’t wearing a jacket over their shirt and tie on a hot day.  Where nuns stand at the door of the church to keep out and send home girls whose neckline or hemline are a centimeter beyond the rules they have established.  What do these churches stand for?  Is it zeal for the salvation of souls?  I think not. Does our observance on the virtue of modesty in others take priority over the virtue of charity we must have for them? This is what our Lord described as “straining at gnats, while they swallow a camel.”  Think again of those Democrats who strain and swat at gnats like Judge Kavanagh and the unsubstantiated attacks on his character, while they swallow whole the vile deeds of the Clintons, the Obamas and their ilk.  “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.”

Above all, let us find our supreme example in the Blessed Virgin Mary.  She is the Mirror of Justice, and we would do well to look into that Mirror of Justice, so that when we find fault, we behold it only in ourselves.