Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Not-Good-Enough Goodness

In this week’s gospel, Jesus told us that if our goodness doesn’t exceed that of the Pharisees, we won’t be able to enter the kingdom of Heaven.

The Pharisees were thought by everyone to be the experts at being good. How can we hope to be better than them? The answer is that the Pharisees often thought that their goodness actually made them better than everyone else; they had turned their goodness into an excuse to look down on others.

The goodness that Jesus wants from us is one that doesn’t make us proud, but opens us up to everyone, including the people others routinely think of as bad. It’s the kind of goodness which God has, who Jesus says lets his sun shine on both the good and bad alike. That’s the kind of goodness which will lead us into the kingdom of Heaven.