Our Lord is at it again. He is doing, quite possibly, what he is best trained and qualified for…criticizing the Pharisees. Jesus says to follow their preaching, for they have important things to say. But do not follow their examples of living life. It is only God who has the capacity to truly read hearts and see motives. Only God can know whether or not a heart is truly offered to him in true worship or not. When Jesus looks at the Pharisees, he sees men who act and dress so as to exalt themselves. The purpose of true worship is to exalt God and remove the attention from us. Only God knows the heart of each person. So how do I know whether I am offering true worship to God?
Its Fruit
A tree is known by its fruit. Our Lord tells us that we know the tree is healthy by the fruit that it produces. In a particular moment in the Gospel, he even desires to destroy a fig tree that hasn’t been doing what it is supposed to do. Is there a way for me to measure whether the tree of my life is producing the fruit that it is supposed to produce? How often, in many aspects of our lives, do we have ways to measure? Is my income increasing? Are the goals being met? Is attendance increasing? Many times, we even naturally set goals. If I want to finish this book by Christmas, I have to read this many pages each day. I can even now read the whole Bible, plus receive a commentary, in one full year!
How to Measure
So how can I measure the fruitfulness of my worship? St. Paul, in Galatians, tells us we know when we are walking in the Spirit as opposed to the flesh. St. Paul characterizes the flesh as plain and obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, envy, drunkenness, and the like.
The Spirit of God is marked by charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long-suffering, gentleness, self-control, and chastity. When I look at my life do I find myself growing in the fruits of God’s spirit? Do I find myself more patient, joyful, gentle, able to suffer for love a little bit more? Do I find that I have more control over myself? As we walk this life, there is always that lingering question in the back of our mind, am I on the right path?
These are the markers that God, through St. Paul, has given us to measure true worship. These are the fruits of a tree that is bearing fruit. This is probably something that the Pharisees themselves would have preached about. St. Paul, after all, was a Pharisee himself.
[Readings: Mal 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10; 1 Thes 2:7b-9, 13; Mt 23:1-12]
