Christian Art | ‘Woe Unto Thee, Chorazin’ | Ruins Of Chorazin
Matthew 11: 20-24 – Week 15 Ordinary Time, Tuesday (King James Audio Bible KJV, Spoken Word)
20 ¶ Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:
21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
22 But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you.
23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
24 But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.
In the Discourse of the Mission, in Chapter 10 of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has instructed his disciples about evangelization. Now, in Chapter 11, we are told more of Jesus’ Mission in the region of Galilee – also known as the Lake of Gennesaret and as Lake Tiberius. The area in which Jesus preaches and performs his healing miracles is relatively small, and it is an obscure part of the Empire. In some ways, though, it is a microcosm of the world beyond and the world of later history to come, as we learn of those who will accept and those who will reject Jesus.
We learn in Matthew’s Gospel of John the Baptist’s looking at Jesus with the eyes of the past and failing to understand him. We learn of the scribes and the Pharisees, to whose knowledge Jesus’ teaching seems contrary. We learn of those who have accused Jesus of being a glutton and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. In today’s Gospel verses, Jesus condemns the cities in which he has worked so many miracles, because of their refusal to admit the truth.
We see also in Matthew’s Gospel that it is the little ones, the simple people, who are able to understand and accept the truth of the Kingdom, as Jesus teaches the truth to be. It is these people who are spiritually open, with openness of heart, and who follow Jesus in their multitudes, asking for mercy and for healing, and praising God because of Jesus’ words and miracles.
This is our guide to our proper response to Jesus, and to questions of Christian faith and religious custom. We are to open ourselves fully to conversion to Christ, to give ourselves as little ones, or children – in a sense, to forget who we are. We approach our Lord with open hands, asking for healing and mercy.
Concluding Prayer
Remember this, Lord, and see the enemy scoffing;
a senseless people insults your name.
Do not give Israel, your dove, to the hawk
nor forget the life of your poor ones for ever.
Remember your covenant; every cave in the land
is a place where violence makes its home.
Do not let the oppressed return disappointed;
let the poor and the needy bless your name.
Arise, O God, and defend your cause!
Remember how the senseless revile you all the day.
Do not forget the clamour of your foes,
the daily increasing uproar of your foes. (Psalm 73/74)
King James Audio Bible | Endnotes
Sodom And Gomorrah | Cities Of The Plain
In Genesis 18, the Lord and two angels appeared to Abraham, and the Lord revealed that he intended to investigate the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah. The two angels went to Sodom, where they were welcomed by Lot, Abraham’s nephew, who lived there. However, the men of Sodom came to Lot’s house and demanded that the angels be given to them so that they could engage in sexual activity with them.
Lot offered his two daughters instead for the men to rape, but the men of Sodom refused and tried to break down the door. The angels saved Lot and his family and told them to flee the city because God was going to destroy it.
The wife of Lot looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt for so doing.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is described in Genesis 19:24-25: ‘Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.’
In Matthew 11:20-24, Jesus refers to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah when he pronounces judgment on the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum.
Jesus says: ‘Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.’
God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah has been interpreted as that the cities were destroyed as a punishment for their wickedness. Protestant reformer John Calvin wrote that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was a ‘terrifying example of the severity of God’s judgment on sin’.
A controversial aspect of the story is the sin of Sodom. The biblical account states that the men of Sodom wanted to engage in sexual activity with the angels, and this has led some to interpret the sin of Sodom as homosexuality. Others have said that the sin of Sodom was not homosexuality, but rather a lack of hospitality and a failure to care for the poor and needy.
Perhaps it might be added that Lot’s guests were in facts angels. Additionally, it has been interpreted that Lot’s wife looking back was a sign of disobedience and a fixation upon the worldly rather than the divine.
In Ezekiel 16:49-50, the prophet says: ‘Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw fit.’ This passage suggests that the sin of Sodom was a combination of pride, abundance, and neglect of the poor and needy, rather than homosexuality.
In the middle ages, the story of Sodom And Gomorrah was used to condemn homosexuality and promote celibacy, and in the modern era, it has been used to condemn sexual immorality, particularly outside of marriage. Some have used the story to promote social justice and care for the poor, arguing that Sodom’s sin was a failure to care for the needy and that Christians are called to do better.
‘Death,’ says His Grace, ‘throws it all apart. For we are not as we should be. Faith requires our adjustment to God’s truth. God’s triumph in a very real sense requires in us the loss of our everything. Which, as with Mary at the other end of Jesus’s life, is God’s truth.’ The Gospel reading is of John 11: 1-45, which is a long passage, and His Grace’s homiletic theme commences in textual wilderness. Our brokenness – in this place – a family home. Our faith, our doubt, our death… The irruption – death, doubt, fear – within our precious scenes and our most intimate places. Our domesticity. His Grace speaks from the chair, as is a bishop’s prerogative, and says: ‘So much is obscure in the Gospels. We’re always reaching through them. We’re never there. Really, we never are. Our knowledge, our understanding, of the Gospels is never complete, and with each reading comes a new revelation. There are always new riches there. Just as there are between all of us, between myself and you. The Gospels are living texts. This is a part of the conversation we have with our own Christianity. It is a part of who we are in our relationship with Jesus. We are in this sense always on the brink. ‘So yes, there is plenty that doesn’t seem to make sense. As one of the order of bishops, we would be lying if we said that weren’t the case. They are not easy texts to encounter, if by that word we may signify something more than a superficial glancing off against, but rather a profound search for the word of God. The Gospels are written by people who had their own ideas, and often didn’t know what had really happened. Luke is quite explicit on this point. His is an investigation, from the explicitly claimed point of view of an historian, rather than that of a first-hand witness, who attempts, so he says, to set out an orderly account, out of the chaos, the sheer muddle, that has been handed down to him. It is possible to imagine Luke researching and composing his account after many years, when there has arisen a desire to know what exactly happened, and this implies a certain call to faith and certain demands of historicity, to historical exactitude. So in these different ways, the people of the first years of Christian faith are in the dark. There is also a decisive need to define the life of Jesus. And people didn’t get Jesus. The whole meaning of Christianity is only now beginning to take root throughout the composition. So much needs to be evangelized. The light shines almost in tentative fashion like that first star, which drew the wise men from the east to our Lord’s cradle. ‘John’s is widely held to be a very late Gospel. There are others who say that John’s Gospel might have been the first to acquire its true shape, because it most fully expresses Jesus, as we know him to be, as members of the Catholic Church. We don’t really know when any of this is being written, but we get a feel in John of a Gospel refined over many years, through a community. So there’s a lot going on there that I’d like you to think about. ‘What I would like to suggest to you is that, while within the Gospels we are often confronted with clues, guesswork, stories that have been handed down through so many people, and so in this sense we might find ourselves to be in the wilderness, this is the very desolate space itself to which we must give ourselves in order to experience Christ’s full redemption in our lives. I suggest it is for God’s glory that we do so. ‘As we become aware of ourselves, in this seminary, we find ourselves in a very secure, comfortable setting, and there are signs of Easter everywhere. Within the very fabric of these buildings, our Lord is risen; our Lord lives. But now this is our Lenten journey, where death enters, where death breaks us. We are to ride into Jerusalem in triumph, and then we are to be utterly broken, all hope gone, our hope extinguished. And really, I suggest to you, it is only by inhabiting this thought, as if we don’t know Easter is there, that our new life can follow, just when we have given up all hope, when every promise that Jesus made to us seems to have been cancelled. ‘And here now we have the story of Lazarus. I should like to suggest to you that we have a very powerful call now. In our very comfortable space, our domesticity, with all this comfort, where so very little might seem to happen each day, so it might seem to you, there is a disturbance within all of this comfort, and that is a disturbance within ourselves, and that is our call to Jesus. I think it is correct to say that our most comfortable places break in the light of Jesus from the inside, in order that we may take the necessary steps to be with Jesus. ‘Faith is not comfortable. I think that we can all receive the message of the rolling away of the rock from the tomb of Lazarus to say something of vital importance to ourselves concerning our openness to God’s love. The rock we roll away can come in all sorts of guises, but we know when we are blocked, and I firmly believe if we are truthful then we know where those blocks might be. ‘Next Sunday, which will be Palm Sunday, we process as it were to Jerusalem, to begin our Holy Week. Now as I speak to you we are on the brink. Even now, I suggest it might be very good for all of us to lay aside what we think we know, to fall apart a little, and so […]
As Christians, the Seventh Commandment calls us to not steal and to respect the rights of others, including their right to property. This commandment also requires us to be responsible and respectful in our use of the resources of the earth [ … ]
This reading reflects the vision of the Second Vatican Council concerning the Church’s relationship with the modern world. It presents human history as the meeting place of divine purpose and human freedom. The ‘earthly’ and ‘heavenly’ cities – terms drawn from Augustine – are not separate realities but interwoven. Their relationship can only be discerned through faith, because human progress remains marked by sin and imperfection until the final revelation of God’s glory [ … ]
