In today’s Gospel, we continue with Jesus’ instructions on discipleship in the Sermon on the Mount. Here Jesus offers clear moral directives all of which have very strong social implications. Speaking to a Jewish audience, Jesus is emphasizing the nature and implications of living out the demands of the Mosaic Law. While some believe that Jesus abolished the old law what he does instead is to take the Law and transform it into a statement of underlying moral principles. In his formulaic expression: “You have heard that it was said … But I say to you” Jesus stands, not only as an interpreter of the Law, but as one who is establishing a new and stricter law for his followers.
As we reflected on a few weeks ago, we can easily become complacent in our observance of law. It is easy to just follow the law by rote command or to find ways to make the law not apply to a specific situation. Now Jesus takes the law and adds new layers of meaning to it.
While many of the laws in the Torah sound harsh or even cruel to the modern reader they actually had a profound civilizing effect on the Israelites and impressed the other nations around them. The ancient Israelites had very clear mandates against vengeance and cruelty, demanded fair and humanitarian treatment of slaves, defended the rights and integrity of women, especially the widows, and of orphans, and the poor. There were few if any other contemporary cultures that approached the level of social morality that was called for in the Mosaic Law.
By the time of Jesus many of those ancient laws were seen as irrelevant or were treated as quaint observances that applied only to those who lived near the Temple. It was hard to observe the Laws, especially those that governed the dietary restrictions and Sabbath observances, when one lived too far from Jerusalem. Of course, this was itself more of a desire to be rid of the law than an authentic concern for the law itself.
Jesus’ instructions take us to the very core of the nature of law itself. It is not enough just not to murder, even the visceral emotion of anger that leads to murder is a sin. Uttering a curse against another is akin to murder. Jesus calls us to the virtue of prudence of judgment and an attitude of temperance. We must tame our anger and become the master of our response to others.
Likewise, we cannot unjustly deprive others, particularly our parents, of what it duly theirs because we have decided to dedicate it to a higher purpose. Jesus specifically addresses a loophole that existed in Jewish Law that if one had dedicated money to the Temple as alms, then that money was excluded from the obligation to care for one’s parents. Doing what on one hand seems to be a moral good, was in fact a rejection of a greater moral responsibility.
Jesus also addresses the sin of adultery, elevating such from a primarily physical act to one that is deeply rooted in the passionate desires of the mind and heart.
Jesus challenges us to recognize that our sinfulness grows out of our dispositions and tendencies more than from isolated situations or immediate desires. We must right our attitudes, our thoughts and desires so that we might conquer our sinful tendencies on the level of desire and intent. In this way we can have the hope of leading a moral life based on positive principles, and not one where we are always fighting against our passions and desires.
Feb 19 – Love stands in contradiction to the values of the world
“It is not enough to get even, I have to get ahead. “
This attitude is pervasive in our society. We live in a time of the “gotcha” – we see it in politics, social interactions, and definitely in the work place. Schools are concerned with bullying and we are doing all that we can to raise up the national rhetoric, to seeming little avail.
When someone does something to us or to one we love we want vengeance, we need to more than level the playing field, we need to get ahead. Most of us who have a passing understanding of the Old Testament think that we will at least find some rationalization for our vengeful actions in the Law of Moses – after all, they do include the Law of Talion: “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc.”
Our First Reading then, might prove to be a shocker. Through Moses we hear: “You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart. Though you may have to reprove your fellow citizen,
do not incur sin because of him. Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”
While we know that Jesus himself said “love your neighbor as yourself,” we didn’t expect to hear it in the Old Testament. However, this demand is a proscription from the Israelite covenant. Yet, we ought not to be too surprised as we know that the New Testament builds upon and fulfills the Old Testament, it does not contradict it. So for Moses to anticipate for the people of Israel this central element to the teaching of Jesus is expected in the overall scheme of divine revelation.
While the mandate to love one’s neighbor was in place for the ancient Israelites, they restricted and narrowly defined the term “neighbor.” In this way there were excuses in how not to apply the mandate of the Law.
Jesus clearly puts an end to this notion that we can easily dispense ourselves from the Law of God.
The overarching reality is that we are called to exercise our lives in love. We are called to generosity in the face of selfishness; to calm in the face of anger; to peace in the face of war; to passivity in the face of aggression.
None of this is easy, but then discipleship was never meant to be easy. It is easier to be angry, vengeful, selfish, prejudiced, and small minded. The coward always takes the easy way out. Discipleship is about strength and power, even when it looks like weakness to the rest of the world.
When what we do is first and foremost predicated on love – love of God, self and neighbor as self – then there is no room for vengeance, for hatred, for jealousy or selfishness. There is only room for love in dedicated action.
These days, with the political and social climate aglow and with the nature of instantaneous media platforms, the rhetoric and vitriol to which we are exposed every day is overwhelming and narrowing. We have lost a great deal of civility as a nation and even as a Church. Polarization is always in opposition to the Gospel. We are challenged now, as we have been as we have been reading through this Sermon on the Mount, to be peacemakers and to bring the joy of the Gospel into the world.
The challenge before each of us is to live out the very basic commandment which God first enjoined upon Moses and Israel in the desert: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Father Garry Koch is pastor of St. Benedict Parish, Holmdel.