Seeing Beyond Appearances

Michiel Peeters - Christ has come to educate man to religiosity, to perceiving and acknowledging

the Mystery in the daily circumstances, so that he could live as a human being,

child of the One True Parent, in every moment. Christ wants to educate us to

religiosity, to true consciousness of and free adherence to what we deeply are:

made by, and yearning for the Infinite, for the only “You” that can truly fulfill us.

So why is Christ so critical of the scribes, who yet somehow “incarnate”

religiosity? “Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept

greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor

at banquets.” One could say: their “long robes” make the Mystery somehow

visible, the honor paid to them is a sign of people’s respect for God. Yet Jesus

says: “They will receive a very severe condemnation.” Why? Because their

“religiosity” is purely formal. In fact, Jesus calls their prayer—which should be

the highest expression of man—a “pretext,” a smokescreen, an appearance, a

means to obtain something else. What else? Those small things with which

superficial man tries to fill his life: crumbles of power, or of money. “They devour

the houses of widows and, as a pretext recite lengthy prayers.” It is worse that

they devour those houses reciting long prayers than if they did so without that

false religiosity. Why? Because now they abuse people’s religious sense: they

divert—for their own small gain (for their own glory, power, money)—that which

man has been given to recognize and adhere to his destiny. Instead of educating

the religious sense—which would be the authority’s task—they reduce it: they

posit a form—in which they themselves play a profitable role—as the solution of

the problem of life. “Obey to me, pay me, for I represent what you really want.”

In school of community this is called “alienation.” Whereas a true teacher invites

one to give so much credit to one’s own heart, to one’s religious sense, that one

can verify if what he conveys, proclaims, corresponds to one’s deepest questions.

Corresponds: not by “solving” or suppressing those questions, but by provoking

and arousing them ever more, so that—with those questions—one can recognize

and enjoy the great “You” that is present in and through the circumstances.

Then Jesus sits down to teach his disciples how to recognize true authority. True

authority is what awakens your questions; it is a presence so exceptional that it

awakens your questions. How do you recognize it? Not with the criteria of the

dominant mentality (wealth, forms), but by paying attention, by using your heart.

Look at all those people throwing money into the treasury. Who of them awakes

your heart, who provokes your questions? Who is, therefore, authority? Not the

rich who give up a bit of their abundance and hardly feel it. Nothing exceptional

about that. But now look at that poor widow: she puts in “two small coins worth

a few cents.” A drop in the bucket. This won’t help the Temple much. But if you

look a bit better—as I do—you realize that she is putting her whole life into the

treasury, everything she has to live. That is amazing! Apparently, that woman

trusts God so much that she can give Him everything without fearing to get worse

for it! She is evidently able to bet everything on her relationship with God, unlike

the rich who seem to give more. How can she be like that? How come that she is

so free? What has she experienced? What does she know that I do not yet know?

That’s how you recognize an authority.

The author has not revised the notes or their translations. 2024-11-10, 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B (Mk 12:38–44) (Homily by Fr. Michiel Peeters, Tilburg University Chaplaincy).
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