Tuesday 17 July
Matthew 11:20-24
The coldness of the printed word tends to remove the depth of love with which Jesus spoke. In today’s Gospel his words appear harsh, but they arose out of the deep compassion that he had for God’s chosen people. Although he had brought the message of salvation with teaching and miracles of healing to the Jewish towns of Chorazin and Bethsaida, they had rejected him and continued with their own ways. Tyre and Sidon were rich Phoenician maritime trading cities whose regions Jesus visited later (Matt. 15:21). Despite the fact that they were proud pagan cities, Jesus laments that had he taught and worked miracles among them they would have repented. But the most poignant rejection was that of Capernaum, his home town during his ministry. It was in and around Capernaum that he performed some of his greatest miracles of healing (Matt. 8:5-34) and yet the people would not accept his teaching and repent. He compares the spiritual condition of the town unfavourably with Sodom, a byword in Jesus’ time for the worst kinds of godless behaviour, perversion and evil.
The central message of Jesus’ teaching in the Jewish towns was the need for deep repentance. That message was uncompromising. The need is just as urgent for us today and now is as opportune a time as any. The basis of our repentance is that like the Jewish towns we have experienced so much of the goodness of the Lord, and like them we can be ungrateful and forgetful, and continue to tolerate areas of sin in our lives.
Our repentance needs to go further than regret. It is a gift of God and is as much about acknowledging that we have been wrong as it is about being sorry. Repentance is also dynamic rather than simply a passive acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Our sins reveal the direction of our lives as not always in conformity with God’s loving will for us, and we need a change of heart and mind in order to move in the opposite direction. The ‘sackcloth and ashes’ of our repentance therefore should be an exposure of our sinfulness to the forgiveness and healing grace of our Saviour, and a determination to co-operate actively with the work of the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, grant me the gift of true repentance, that my life may be fully conformed to the will of my heavenly Father. Help me to become the person he intends me to be.
Isaiah 7:1-9 • Psalm 47(48):2-8
Matthew 11:20-24
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