Kids: much easier to apprehend than the Son of God. Pic by Lester Public Library
Hopefully you don’t think the title is irreverent or sacriligious; it’s just the reaction I usually get when I read a Gospel account similar to today’s:
The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus. Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of these are you trying to stone me?”… Then they tried again to arrest him; but he escaped from their power.
I would love to have watched the crowds who got so irate with Jesus, wanted to arrest or kill Him, but then suddenly He escapes from their clutches. If everyone is looking for the same guy, who just “blasphemed” in front of everyone, how in the world did he get away? It must have looked like a Judean version of Keystone Cops.
So why did they want to kill Jesus?
The Jews answered him, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.”
Doing good works has always been fine with just about everyone; even people in the secular media and non-Christians have been pretty complimentary of Pope Francis’ very laudable acts of charity. I’m sure all T&C readers have seen the picture of then-Cardinal Bergoglio washing the feet of AIDS patients, and the video of Pope Francis stopping the Popemobile to kiss a disabled man among the crowd. “The world” has no problem praising works of charity, and rightly so.
But why do we do the works? What motivates them? The answer to this question can get you stoned by the same people who just praised your works. If not stoned, then maybe you will bear the wrath of our modern equivalent: the lawsuit. How often have we lately seen cases of Christians being told they can perform good works only if they do not “impose” their beliefs on others?
- “You can place children for adoption but you have to be willing to place them with couples engaging in behavior you consider morally wrong.”
- “‘Because we are Christian and don’t believe in it’ is not a good enough reason to deny contraception and abortifacient coverage in health insurance policies offered to your employees.”
- “You can provide services to illegal immigrants or victims of human trafficking, but you also have to provide the full range of reproductive services, even if doing so violates your conscience.”
- “You can help the poor and homeless by providing food, clothing, and shelter to them, but you cannot require them to get spiritual counseling or attend religious services.”
Jesus’ answer to why He is performing good works is instructive:
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me; but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may realize and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.
On an initial reading, Jesus is saying that we obviously should believe that He is God because of the supernatural miracles He can perform (“believe the works”). But why believe the works? “So that you may realize and understand” that Jesus is God. I would imagine that Jesus’s primary purpose in performing miracles was not to cure some sick people and raise some who had died, as good as those works are. It certainly wasn’t to wow the crowd or attract followers; indeed, as seen here, those works only got the crowd upset and ready to kill Him. No, the works were performed so that we, everyone who hears the Gospel, would know who Jesus is.
Why do we do good works? To demonstrate (even if just to ourselves) who Jesus is; the Son of God whom we should love with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and who wants us to love or neighbors as ourselves. Not just our good works, but everything we do should have these two commandments as our motivation. St. Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing,” and we could just as easily say “love without ceasing.”
Don’t let another chance to do good works out of love for God and neighbor slip through your fingers.