Bible Diary

Daily Reading

Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

LECTIONARY
468

FIRST READING

Gal 5:1-6

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified[a] by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.

PSALM

PS 119:41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48

Response: Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.

Let your mercy come to me, O LORD,
your salvation according to your promise.

Take not the word of truth from my mouth,
for in your ordinances is my hope.

And I will keep your law continually,
forever and ever.

And I will walk at liberty,
because I seek your precepts.

And I will delight in your commands,
which I love.

. And I will lift up my hands to your commands
and meditate on your statutes.

GOSPEL

Lk 11:37-41

While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

Daily Reflection

Paul, in rejecting circumcision, denounces the power of the Law to save. In fact he emphasises that the Law enslaves rather than frees us. In a scathing attack on the Judaisers – those who insist that Christian converts have to first become Jews and observe Jewish customs – Paul charges them as having “fallen from grace”. He insists that circumcision – an external sign - “counts for nothing”. What matters is God’s free grace which produces “faith working in love”.

Jesus, in the Gospel, reiterates the same theme of an internal transformation. Calling out the Pharisees as purely ritualistic people who “wash the outside of the cup and dish but are internally full of plunder and evil”, Jesus points out to a simple remedy - almsgiving – a giving of “what is within” the cup and dish. This is an antidote to selfishness and constitutes love in action.

Have I imprisoned myself in empty rituals, or do I give meaning to the rituals by allowing God to transform me from within?