6th
Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle
A
Sir 15:15-20
1 Cor 2:6-10
Mt 5:17-37
I guess I must have been about 13 years old. I can’t
remember exactly what I had done wrong, but my dad had caught me red-handed and
I was sitting on my bed waiting for him to come in for “the talk”. You see,
whenever I did something wrong, first my dad would send me to my room for a
while to “think about it”. Then, after he figured I’d been softened up enough,
he’d come in and we’d talk about it. Usually he talked and I listened. Those
were some of the most profound learning experiences I’ve ever had in my life.
Anyway, on this occasion I must have done something
particularly heinous, because he proceeded to explain to me that what I had
done had actually broken each and every one of the ten commandments. Each and every
one. And he walked me through all ten in order and explained how I had broken
it.
At first I was incredulous. I thought he was
exaggerating. Surely I hadn’t killed anyone or anything like that. I don’t
think I even knew what “covet” meant at the time, but I’d broken those two
also. But, like Jesus in today’s gospel, he showed me how there were the seeds
of my transgression that day in each of those ancient commandments. Dad was
trying to tell me that I need to see further than do’s and don’ts.
He wasn’t trying to make me feel bad…well, maybe a
little. He wanted me to be able to make decisions based upon more than just a
set of rules. He wanted me to expand my awareness of right and wrong. And
obviously, since I still remember it, that event has helped direct my
conscience throughout my life.
Why was Jesus addressing this with his disciples that
day? He had just finished preaching the Beatitudes to them. He had just told
them that there was a new, proactive way of following the law. The ten
commandments were mostly prohibitions. Necessary for any society to order
itself, but full of “thall shalt nots”. The Beatitudes were a new way of
looking at the world and the relationships among people. They were more about
attitudes than actions. Was Jesus issuing a caveat here? Was he reminding them
that this new way of acting and thinking was just a natural extension of those
ancient prohibitions? Was he also trying to expand their awareness of right and
wrong?
Or when Jesus said things like the Sabbath was made
for man and not man for the Sabbath, did some of his disciples think he was
throwing out the old for the new, and so they weren’t bound by the law anymore?
Were they trying to find loopholes in the law, those exceptions that gave them
a free pass in this or that situation? They had done it with the law on
divorce. They did it with how they treated foreigners and strangers. They were
always looking for exceptions, for reasons the law didn’t apply to them. I
think we all look for loopholes when we don’t want to keep the law because it
is difficult or inconvenient to do so. We do it with the laws of society and
the laws of God.
I don’t think Jesus was using hyperbole here. Jesus
was talking about the sin of complacency. He was warning about getting bogged
down in the letter of the law and ignoring the spirit of the law.
I’ve never killed anybody, so I’m off the hook with
that one. But how many times have I murdered someone’s reputation through my
gossiping?
I honor my father and mother, so that one doesn’t
apply to me, either. Most of us honor our parents. But we can also honor the
stranger amongst us.
Most of us are honest most of the time. But we can all
work to be more transparent with those we love. How often does our yes mean yes
and our no mean no?
Jesus wants us to see beyond the do’s and don’ts, to
look beyond the law to the person who fulfilled it. But to Jesus it’s not just
the spirit of the law that is important, but the letter as well. “Whoever
breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will
be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”
You’ve probably heard of the “broken window” theory of
law enforcement. I believe it started in New York City in the ‘80’s. The
thought was that if police tried to stop the simple petty crimes such as
graffiti and vandalism, more serious crime would also be reduced. Clean up
Times Square and other crimes would diminish. They even got rid of those guys
who came up and tried to wash your windows while you were stopped at a light. Instead
of spending all our resources on the big stuff… sort of a top down
strategy…spend time also on the little stuff, because usually those people who
committed the big crimes started out by committing little crimes. And it
worked. Major crime was reduced drastically, and New York City is considered
one of the safest major cities in the world today.
The letter springs out of the spirit. The letter is
how we act out the spirit. It must be both. If it is just the spirit of the law
then we will always rationalize a way around it. If it is just the letter then
we will become rigid and unmerciful.
Originally the Jewish people saw the law as a very
positive thing. It was written by the very hand of their God and given to them
as a sign of the special covenant God had made with them. If they kept God’s
law God would protect them and make them prosper. If they broke the law usually
bad things happened to them. But over time the law itself became the most
important thing and not the covenant it represented. It is sometimes easier to
focus on the action and not on the meaning behind it. It can become blind
obedience, not life changing behavior.
Christianity is not a completely new faith that sprung
up on Pentecost two thousand years ago. Practically all of the teachings of
Jesus can be traced to their roots in the Judaism he practiced. And if we truly
believe that Jesus is the Word Made Flesh that has been with the Father since
the beginning, then Christianity has been around since then also. St. Paul says
today, “We speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined
before the ages for our glory”.
If something is true it’s true. God does not change,
only our understanding of God changes. Only the way we follow God changes. God
set up the law so that we could live as we were created to live. The law is to
guide us to God. It isn’t supposed to be about punishment, it is supposed to lead
to our salvation. “If you choose to keep the commandments, they will save you.”
The law is not intended to imprison us but to set us free.
We do not follow the law because if we don’t bad
things will happen to us. We follow the law because it leads to so much more.
What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,
and what has not entered the human heart,
what God has prepared for those who love him.
and what has not entered the human heart,
what God has prepared for those who love him.
