Instead of Being Inspired

A similar problem is happening in Friday's gospel, but it's once again the Old Testament reading that I think is more revealing of the real problem the Bible is trying to address.

In the book of Wisdom, the passage describes everyone fretting and worrying and eventually plotting to kill the one righteous man in the community.  His very life is an affront to them.

And it is.

Proof that they could be better.

There's nothing worse, when you are feeling guilty and helpless to solve a problem in the world or live properly, and you resign yourself to your ultimate powerlessness and give yourself a break because you're only human and come on, you're not Jesus or even Peter or Paul.  You're no saint.

How awkward, when someone around you is.  When Blessed Katherine Drexel walked the halls of your parish.

Someone proves that it can be done.  The teaching equivalent can be hard to swallow.  Watching someone settle a class you've been struggling to corral so easily.  Watching an expert step in and hold your class's attention.

And what did we do, even at Harmony of the community of teachers as learners?  We talked about the special circumstances contributing to the expert teacher's success to explain it away.

Or we were terrified we were being judged.

That's what's really getting to the community.  But the righteous man, the great teacher, isn't judging you.  Chances are they've been where you were.  But instead of being angry and feeling guilty and turning all of that into resentment, they were inspired to be better.  They saw that someone was actually fixing the problem, actually succeeding in their work, and they didn't take it as an affront to their current efforts.  They saw it as a star to follow.  Someone to learn from and help with the work or at least use as a model for their own pet projects/teaching style.

The community was turning their own judgment of themselves and placing it on the righteous man.  Sure that he would judge them for not being like him, when really it's THEM who hate that they aren't better.  It's them who are afraid to want to be better, so they turn it around so that they can be the victims of unfair standards and judgement.  Instead of being inspired.