6th Sunday Ordinary Time Yr A
February 13, 2011
Responsorial Psalm: 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34
Reading II: 1 Corinthians 2:6-10
Jesus said to his
disciples: 'Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or
the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete
them.
I tell you solemnly, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved. Therefore, the man who infringes even one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven; but the man who keeps them and teaches them will be considered great in the kingdom of heaven.
'For I tell you, if your virtue goes no deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven...
I wonder why the shorter version (1) of this selection of Matthew’s
Sermon on the Mount does not include the first verse (vs 17) which seems
to be the key to all that follows, a formal declaration by Jesus of his
whole mission and purpose: ‘Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish them but to complete them.’
We
need to remember that the term ‘the Law and the Prophets’ refers to
what the people of his time considered to be the foundation of their
faith, of their religion, and of their social and national identity.
Jesus says that he is not abolishing all that, but bringing it to completion.
The number of interpretations of this term is quite surprising. The Jerusalem bible translates: ‘to complete them’; the RSV, ‘to fulfill them’. Wikipedia has a long list of variations: 'Fulfill is interpreted as meaning any of the following: establish, confirm, validate, complete, actualise, properly explain, accomplish, or obey.' There follows a survey of various interpretations down through the centuries (2). How can there be so much disagreement on this pivotal point of his teaching?
My
comments offer no new scholarly insight of course, but after a
life-time of puzzlement on this matter I have reached a stage in which I
see Jesus saying simply this: The attitude of keeping the law and tradition
is an attitude that is coming to an end. There is a new way of
thinking, a profound change of attitude, and it is based on
understanding and accepting the purpose of the law, namely to
guide us towards that stage of development in ourselves in which we can
be fully alive, in which we can live honestly, truthfully, with
integrity - as indicated in the ‘beatitudes’.
From
now on we are called to go beyond the letter of the law, beyond legal
interpretations of its obligations, beyond any idea that ‘obeying the
law’ brings holiness. We are moving to a stage in which goodness is
desired in itself, godliness is treasured, integrity is honoured, a
stage in which justice and truth are the new standard. Paul's neat
phrase sums it up: Faciens veritatem in caritate. Doing the truth in love(3).
Excerpt from the underground journal, The Jerusalem Star.
Star reporter in Galilee, Quod Scripsi,
has scooped a rare interview with Jesus of Nazareth. The following
short extract gives an insight into the thinking of the new Rabbi:
Quod Scripsi. Rabbi, people were impressed with your talk on the mountain yesterday, but there is debate as to its meaning already. Could I ask you, what is your attitude to the law and our traditional way of life?
Jesus.
The law is good, of course, and like all just law it comes with God’s
authority. In fact, it is not entirely false to say that it is ‘revealed
by God’, although clearly there is a bit of hyperbole in that. The
rabbis love to debate the law, which would be a bit irreverent, when you
come to think of it, if in fact they believed every word had come from
the mouth of God. Is God such a bad teacher that his words are unclear?
QS. Yes, I can see that, although there are some who think that every detail of the law has to be obeyed just as it is written.
J. It’s very hard to teach some people. They seem to have minds fixated on a particular way of seeing things, and they never get the wider picture. The religious brain in particular seems to find security in being faithful to a myriad of fine details. Thinking people should not be troubled by them.
QS. Well, what exactly were you getting at when you said you had come to ‘fulfill’ the law?
J. I don’t see why people should find this hard to understand, except of course that everyone suffers a kind of blindness about the crucial things. They’re prepared to discuss every imaginable issue around a central point, but the centre itself is fuzzy to their vision. The scholars actually feed this curiosity as they pursue their necessary role of examining the mystery from different sides. I want to lead people to see the central issue, the simple truth, and to accept its consequences. That means they have to leave aside the legal games they play with their consciences, testing the law this way and that to see what they can get away with. They have to do an about turn, and take a different approach.
QS. It is difficult to get people to do a U-turn. Can you tell me what you understand as the role of the law?
J. You mustn’t think of the law as just a set of rules to be followed. Certainly it is a guide, a teacher informing us how to live successfully, but each person has to develop their own life within themselves. The goal is to have right attitudes springing up from inside yourself. Eventually you get to the point where you don’t need to think about the ‘law’ because the motive for your self-giving, the impulse for your loving, for good living, is coming from your heart. It’s as simple as that.
QS. Is that what you meant when you said you had come to ‘fulfill the law’?
J. Of course. Is there a problem there?
QS. What should people make of the many examples you gave. Some are saying they are the promulgation of a new law.
J.
They are a few examples of how the old ‘legal’ attitude is to be
displaced by an open-ended call that comes from goodness itself. People
will find themselves in many situations quite different from our life
here in Galilee. They will work out for themselves what to do, by
responding to the demands of the situation with love and openness. The
‘new law’ cannot be another list of required or forbidden things. The
only way to talk about a ‘new’ law is to say it is the ‘law of love’.
And as you know, love knows no law. It is free. Love gives not from
obligation but in freedom. Anything less is simply not worthy of a human
being, don't you think?
Footnotes:
(1)
In the Catholic Lectionary of Scripture Readings in the Mass, where the selection for the day might seem too long for public reading, a shorter selection is offered. In this instance I
am suggesting that the shorter selection is faulty since it omits the first verse of the entire passage.
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expounding_of_the_Law. Note on using Wikipedia: this open dictionary is not an authority per se, since the articles are not credited to any particular authors. However it is an excellent resource in which we can quickly find a summary or overview of almost any subject we wish to check on.
(3) Eph 4:15If
you would like to join a discussion on the above, you will
find one on the website 'Catholica': www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php