Today's Gospel

The Secret to Excellence

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where every day we explore the genius of Jesus and the Gospels, looking for a word or a phrase or an idea to anchor our day in the life and teachings of Jesus. Today's reading is from the Gospel of Luke 11:42-46. "But woe to you, Pharisees, for you tithe mint and rue in every herb and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you, Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and salutations in the marketplaces. Woe to you, for you are like graves which are not seen and men walk over without knowing it."

One of the lawyers answered him, "Teacher, in saying this, you reproach us also." And he said, "Woe to you lawyers also, for you load men with burdens, hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers." What jumped out at you today? There's a lot of woe to you here, and I really don't like to hear the woe to you. I wouldn't want Jesus to say, "Woe to you, Matthew." We've talked about it a couple of times in the last week or so but Jesus is correcting these people.

At Dynamic Catholic, we talk about three things we're looking for in every employee, every team member, three things we're looking to grow every team member in. And the three things are committed, coachable, and aware. And the Pharisees are not very coachable, and people who aren't coachable really can't grow. They certainly can't achieve excellence because coaching and coachability are so central to growth and so central to achieving excellence.

And the Pharisees, they're not coachable. And so Jesus, never in the gospels, is saying, "Woe to you," to anyone who is trying or striving to grow and to love God more and to live God's message more. Jesus is never critical of these people. And so that tells us in an indirect way one of the things that he's looking for from us. He's looking for us to grow. He's looking for us to have an open attitude towards growing. And I think the question that I ask myself today is, "Okay, Matthew, how coachable are you? Are you allowing God to continue to coach you and challenge you to point out ways that you can improve, develop, grow, change, be transformed?"

Have a great day. Remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.