Religion of Ego

Gospel:  Matthew 9: 14-17

How often do we make ourselves the measure and standard of religious practice?  How often do we measure other people by what they do or do not do in comparison with our own practices?  This is what takes place in today's Gospel portion.  Disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees say to Jesus:  We fast all the time - why don't your disciples do as we do?  Of course some Scripture or tradition will be invoked to justify ourselves, but the reality is that we make ourselves the standard for all others to follow.

Jesus gives two metaphors to describe what is happening here.  The first is placing a patch on a garment with a hole in it to pass it off as usable and even good as new.  The second is the attempt to pour new wine into an old wineskin - another attempt to pass off as new and good what is not.  The disciples of the Baptist and the Pharisees need a whole new being, not patches and old wineskins.  The appeal to Scripture, tradition, or particular practices have no meaning if they do not make us new beings divinized and illumined.  

When we make ourselves the measure of all things, it is certain we have not been illumined and divinized by God.  We are not a new being, but one passing ourselves off as such.  We can don religious finery, revel in ornate ritual, invoke Scripture and tradition to justify ourselves and claim we are better than those other people.  But if we not have love, if we not have the mercy of God as our animating principle, we have not been made anew, we have not been illumined or divinized.  We are merely another religion of the ego.