Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

I like it when this reading comes up, because it’s an unusual moment for the Lord. This scholar comes up to him and says, “Lord, don’t you realize that you’re insulting me too?” And Jesus says, “Yes, I do realize that. And in fact, I have more insults for you.”

But what Jesus says to him is intriguing: “You scholars of the law impose burdens that are hard to carry, but you don’t lift a finger to help.”

Over all my years as a priest, I’ve received a lot of requests from people. It’s almost continuous: “You need to spend more time talking about this rule or this moral law.” “You need to say this more and tell these people.” “I heard someone in the parish say they don’t agree with the Church, and you need to hit this hard.” Or someone says, “I don’t like the way so-and-so did this, or the way they look, and you need to talk about that more.”

So there’s this constant call to impose burdens on people. But in over ten years, I can think of very few times someone has come to me and said, “I see people struggling with this, and I think I know how I could help them. I think I know how I could ease their burden and help them live this out, even though it’s difficult.”

As Christians, that really should be our default. Not just imposing burdens on people and constantly slamming them in the face with what the moral law is, but actually trying to help them. We know living the Christian life isn’t easy. We all struggle with it in various ways, and we need help.

When Jesus responds to the scholar of the law, he isn’t condemning these scholars because they lay heavy burdens on people. The law was tough. It was a heavy burden. He condemns them because they do nothing to help. They just lay the burden and walk away. And that doesn’t benefit anyone.

What he’s saying to them is, “You seem to have great knowledge of the law and all this insight. Then use that to be of assistance to someone. Use that to help them carry the weight of the law.”

And that’s something we have to look for within ourselves. We’re going to notice plenty of people violating whatever our favorite law or rule is. Our tendency is to want to just say it to them, or quietly gossip about them, whichever we prefer. But rarely is our first response, “You know what? I could help them. I used to struggle with something like that too. I know how I could be of help.”

Yet that is what we are called to do. As Christians, we’re meant to help make that burden easier to carry, instead of tearing people down and increasing it again and again. Christ tells us elsewhere in the Gospel that his burden is light because he is there to help, because he gives us the grace to carry it. And that is our call in this life.

So the next time we see a situation where we’re tempted to condemn, where we’re tempted to increase someone’s burden, we need to stop and ask ourselves, “Can I help here? Is there anything I can say or do that will ease that burden?”

That doesn’t mean downplaying the moral law or pretending the rules don’t exist. It means asking, “Can I actually help this person become better, become more holy, become more like Christ, and draw closer to that purpose for which they were made?”