It’s not what I say, but what I do.

We hypocrites do not practice what we preach.  So we preach louder to bamboozle the listener.  Give us flashy issues to debate, but don’t look for deeds.  We hypocrites are adamant in our effort to conceal.  When words like debased coins clatter on the gaming table, language is betrayed.  Language has the power to disclose reality.  Honest words are not flipped around like cards.  Authentic language moves along the edge of what is not fully conveyed in discourse.  When chatter subsides, deeper meaning emerges from silence and reflection.  The hypocrite in me is slow to listen and quick to judge others.  I am no stranger to the scribes and Pharisees who stalk Jesus in today’s gospel.

When Paul shows up in the Greek town, the Thessalonians listen hard and cast their idols to the ground.  Paul recalls that it took few words to move their hearts.  “In every place your faith in God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything” (1 Thessalonians 1:8).  Faced with persecution, the new believers held fast.  In deeds not speech their faith blazed forth.

We cannot avoid making judgments.  To live well we reflect and act.  Judgments flow through our day.  Many are small: “Do the tomatoes need water?”  Others are weighty “Do I take the risk to get involved?” Jesus turns to the margins to form judgments in the company of outsiders, not with those in power.  From those in the street he takes the measure.  Being an insider for too long skews our vision.  Richard Rohr calls this way of judging “revolutionary”:

As we will see in the Bible, the bottom, the edge, and the outside are the privileged spiritual positions.  That is why the biblical revelation is revolutionary, and even subversive.  (Things Hidden, 94)

Today we remember a great Doctor of the Church.  In college, Augustine is ensnared by the Manicheans with their well-oiled phrases.  It takes years for him to be freed from their empty doctrines.  In silence he listens to Ambrose preach.  This plain speech opens the meaning of Scripture for Augustine and dispels his querulous doubts. 

God, when we fixate on rules, we forget the end that matters most.  Help us to grow smaller so we can do the next right thing.