Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish,
inside you are filled with plunder and evil.
It is easier to cleanse the outside of the cup. We have a greater degree of control over how we appear to others, our facade, than we do over our inner life. Further, we can then use this facade as a basis of comparison between ourselves and others. We can judge those whose religious lives buttoned up to be great and those who appear to be struggling as lesser, possibly as failures.
We bring our concern for mere externalities into more things than just religion. Even in politics we seldom seek to know what is going on in the hearts of others. Our own political virtue is often more virtue signaling than actual virtue. We're more worried that someone will see us without or with a mask than about the purpose behind our decision.
It is easy to stay on the surface and work on the curb appeal of our lives. But this is a job that is never done, which requires constant upkeep. And what will happen when a guest wants to come inside? What will we say to Jesus when he stands at the door and knocks? We know that if we invite him in he will see right through our facade to the condition of our hearts.
You fools!
Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside?
To be fair, our fixation with externals is based on our desire to be in control. We've learned to strategically ignore those things which we can't directly influence. We need help to clean the inside, help that we can only receive by grace. Jesus knocks, and we answer, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed" (see Matthew 8:8).
What happens when Jesus begins to heal us? Are we to sit back and watch as he magically puts everything in place like the scene from some movie?
But as to what is within, give alms,
and behold, everything will be clean for you.
We need to reorient our inner lives toward others. This is not something at which we can remain spectators for it is meant to involve us at our very core, in the depths of our will. Yet it is not something which we can achieve by sheer force of effort. We can sporadically succeed at doing something good for others. But the reorientation of our hearts from selfish to loving can only happen if we receive and cooperate with grace. Do we not find this to be the case, that our will is more often a won't when it is a question of loving others? We have been given the gift of faith. Now we need to use that faith to believe that God is at work within us. Then our actions will not be merely our own, but will be the fruit of the Holy Spirit alive in us.
For in it is revealed the righteousness of God from faith to faith;
as it is written, “The one who is righteous by faith will live.”
We are meant to live by faith, yet this is not inevitable simply because of a single decision or past sacrament. We must embrace it. If we do not we run the risk of becoming vain in our own reasoning and having our own minds darkened. It is possible to begin in the Spirit and end in the flesh (see Galatians 3:3). Fortunately, Jesus is persistent. He is always ready to help us begin the process of inner purification. He is always close at hand, ready to make possible the giving of alms when we think we have nothing to give. Mysteriously, when we do this in him by his Spirit it is no mere external work. What seems at one level to be an action of our free will is at another and deeper level the success of his surgery on our hearts.
When it comes to our hearts, the bones are good, as they say, but much remodeling may still be needed. Jesus stands ready to help. We can turn to the Gospel in order that our faith be informed and built up, so that we know what is possible for us when we let Jesus come inside.
I am not ashamed of the Gospel.
It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes:
for Jew first, and then Greek.
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