February 27, 2022, Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
The readings for this weekend are filled with fine words of wisdom. They were valuable to readers and listeners when they written two millennia ago and still hold value for us thousands of years later. Jesus calls them parables, but they are not really in the usual form of a parable which is a short story with a moral lesson. They are actually more like proverbs which are short sayings that offer words of advice.
These “parables” pick up where we left off last week with Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. There we learned about proper ways to “Do unto others” according to God’s standards. Today’s sayings, which consist of a long list of analogies, will enhance the sermon’s lessons on discipleship and further help us treat others as God would have us do.
The first of these sayings is found in the reading from the book of Sirach (Sir 27:4-7), one of the less familiar wisdom writings of the Old Testament. This book was composed by a Jewish scribe named Yeshua [Jesus], son of Eleazar, son of Sira, sometime in the second century BC. Its title “Sirach” comes from the Greek form of the author’s name. Otherwise known as the Wisdom of Ben Sira, this book contains wise sayings of advice on multiple subjects. Some of these include the family, friendship, education, poverty and wealth, religious laws and worship, and many other matters that reflect the religious and social customs of the time.
The topic for today deals with the proper use of speech and the interiority of the heart and how it affects a person’s actions. This is similar to the subjects that Jesus also addresses in the Gospel. Ben Sira uses the analogies of agriculture, pottery, and arboriculture to make his point. He writes, “When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear; so do one’s faults when one speaks” (Sir. 27:4). In other words, all that remains after the process of sifting grain are the useless husks, which are comparable to the worthless words which become apparent when some people speak.
Similarly, just as the strength and quality of a potter’s creation can be tested in the heat of the kiln, so can the character and fortitude of a person be revealed in the midst of the trials they face. And just as the condition of the fruit that a tree bears reflects the manner in which it was cultivated, so do the words that a person speaks reveal his or her integrity and righteousness. The thrust of Ben Sira’s sayings is what people say and do reveal what is in their hearts.
The opening line of the Gospel (Luke 6:39-45) says, “Jesus told his disciples a parable.” But there are actually four parables or sayings here. First, Jesus says, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?” (Lk. 6:39). This is to say that a person without knowledge or experience in a certain area should not seek guidance or advice from another who lacks expertise because both will inevitably fail.
Similarly, no disciple is as good as his teacher but once trained is the same as his teacher. That is to say, no disciple can be better than his teacher. If his teacher is subpar or mediocre, the disciple will remain so as well. In fact, they may even end up being like the previous “blind leading the blind.”
In the next section Jesus turns toward the topic of judging using the analogy of a splinter stuck in a brother’s eye versus a wooden beam lodged in one’s own eye. This is a criticism of hypocrites who attack others for their small flaws while ignoring their own enormous ones. It is a warning for those who judge others’ faults, but do not examine their own shortcomings honestly.
With his final parable Jesus, in essence, says the same thing that Ben Sira says when he speaks of good fruit coming from good trees and rotten fruit coming from rotten trees. What is present in a person’s heart is reflected by what they say and do: “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil.” (Lk. 6:45).
When we are good, we produce good from our heart. But when we do evil things, they come from our heart as well. The point is to keep our hearts pure by loving God and one another. And Jesus tells us exactly how to keep our hearts pure with his first three parables. We do this by following those who are not “blind” to his ways but who carry the knowledge and experience of the Gospel as intended. We also do this by learning from and equating our behavior to those teachers who are proper mentors of the love and mercy of Christ. And lastly, we associate with people who show good judgment and provide examples for us to follow which will teach us to properly judge the difference between right and wrong, good and evil.
Overall, both the first reading and the Gospel are full of advice on knowing the right people to associate with, how to understand them and know them, so that we can become good Christian disciples in our own speech and actions. For our goal is to become like what is described by our psalm: “The just who flourish like the palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon, planted in the house of the Lord.” (Ps. 92:13-14).
