Jesus began to reproach the towns
where most of his mighty deeds had been done,
since they had not repented.
Jesus used the language of prophetic judgment to express the fact that the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum had been given a unique and precious opportunity, and that they had not responded accordingly. The peoples of those towns might have otherwise missed the gravity of their situation. They did not see themselves as deserving of the judgment in the same way or to the same degree as Tyre and Sidon or Sodom and Gomorrah. Their apathy toward Jesus seemed less egregious than the failures of those pagan cities.
The people's in the areas of Jesus' missionary activity heard his wisdom and saw his mighty deeds. But most couldn't be bothered to make any real changes on the basis of what they saw and heard. They by and large remained people whose spiritual houses were built on a foundation of sand. But such a foundation could not withstand the storm of the coming judgment. They had not demonstrated themselves to be sheep, and so were tentatively heading toward a shared destiny with the goats.
It was not enough to be curious about Jesus, nor to merely be a regular presence attending the gatherings at which he taught. Because they had been near Jesus they had become accountable for what he told them, for the greater clarity of knowledge they had been given about how to live upright and devout lives in the world. People who seemed to be much worse than them, had actually not had the same starting place. They were pagans acting like pagans. If they didn't recognize the demands of the natural law part of that was because they had been numbed to it by the way their parents had taught them and the history of the lives of their ancestors. They were, in a sense, trained not to see it. But the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum had a different tradition, one that should have trained them to see and respond to the messiah when he appeared. They had been given much more than Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom. And so this was somehow an even more culpable omission than anything that happened in those cities.
For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day.
We have unquestionably been given still more than the crowds who heard and witnessed Jesus in those towns on which he pronounced his woes. We have been given a greater degree of clarity about his message, thousands of years of people taking him at his word and proving it works, people we call saints, and all of the sacramental and charismatic graces we ourselves have received. Is our response adequate to these blessings? Most likely not. At least not yet. Often we are half-hearted, hesitating, and not all in and fully committed. We sometimes choose Jesus. But we often choose the world. We are lukewarm and run the risk of being spit from his mouth.
But I tell you, it will be more tolerable
for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.
God gave even a place as bad as Sodom repeated chances because of the intercession of Abraham. And the threat of judgment on ourselves and on our world is not so much because God is looking forward to destroying his enemies as it is because he desires that we plead for ourselves and intercede for others. God wants us to realize that there is a great gravity to the fact that Jesus has come, a fact with which we must reckon. We ought not respond to these words by feeling overwhelmed or by giving up on a call that is seemingly too demanding. Instead, we should listen to the words of Isaiah to Ahaz:
Take care you remain tranquil and do not fear;
...
Unless your faith is firm
you shall not be firm!
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