The Wise and the Learned
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By Deacon Eric Simontis
In our Gospel today, Jesus turns to heaven and says: “I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones.” Now, there are a couple different ways to look at this. Either Christ is thanking God for revealing his Word to little ones or he is thanking His Father for hiding his Word from the wise and learned. Or both. My vote is for both.
Now, first of all, who is Christ speaking of when he mentions the “wise and the learned?” Undoubtedly he is speaking about the religious royalty of the time, the Pharisees and scribes. These were the modern day intellectuals. Scribes had knowledge of the law and could draft legal documents. And Pharisees were experts in the Law of Moses.
So these two groups were the arbiters of everyday life in Israel. If you had a question about pretty much anything, either of these two groups of people could give an answer to you. And, interestingly enough, knowing the laws and the prophets, the Pharisees knew – absolutely knew – that scripture called for the coming of the Messiah. And Jesus appears, as prophesized from Bethlehem in Judah. He teaches with authority and performs many great signs and wonders. And what is the reaction from the Pharisees? They so strongly disagreed in Christ’s message that they would push to have him die on the cross. The Messiah that they had been searching for all these years stood in front of them, spoke plainly and with authority and they denied Him.
What this so strongly points out here is that there is a big difference between intelligence and wisdom. We, unfortunately, live in a society that prizes intelligence above wisdom. It doesn’t matter what you know, but whether you went to an Ivy League college. Or who has the highest degree? Or the greatest number of degrees? But is isn’t intelligence we so much need as wisdom. We don’t simply need to know a lot of things, we need to understand both what they mean and how to apply them to our lives. That’s wisdom.
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Thank you.
Father Mel
And we must always remember that Sacred Scriptures is not a math book. It is not something to be memorized and quoted back to people. It is there for us to learn from and, most importantly, apply it in our lives. In how we act and how we treat others. This was a point that the Pharisees didn’t understand. When Christ healed on the Sabbath, the Pharisees didn’t see the healing as something good. They saw it as a violation of the Law, which was absurd. But they couldn’t get past a rather strict interpretation of what the Law was with respect to the Sabbath. Do you think that the man who was cured cared what day of the week it was? I’m willing to bet that the man who was cured thought that the Pharisees were just as crazy as Christ did.
And the easiest way to explain why they, and others, fail to grasp this is this: the Word of God is best heard with the heart and not the brain. It helps to have both, but without the heart, you will never fully understand God’s word for one simple reason: it is built on love. It is taking the Word of God and making it become our lives. Put simply, when Jesus says that you must love God with all of your heart, your soul and your strength and love your neighbor as yourself, he really means it. Most of what we struggle with can be derived from that simple, golden rule. And, if we live our lives by those simple rules, we will then be acting as God wishes us to. As Christians.
This won’t always be easy, as Christ tells us in the second half of today’s Gospel. We will have burdens, but Christ will help us with those burdens.
So let us pray to God that he can help us to develop our hearts and to give us wisdom to act first with our heart. To be loving and caring to all we meet. Because our love to God is best shown in the love that we show our neighbors.
God bless.
God bless.