6th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2020
Ecclesiasticus 15:15-20; 1Cor 2:6-10; Matt 5: 17-37
Jesus came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets—in other words, the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament—but to fulfil them. The Law, the Scriptures, were now embodied in Him. The Law was no longer a written code, but a human being, a human being who was also God, with all the authority of God, the giver of the Law, and all the humanity of those to whom the Law was given.
In Jesus, the Law took flesh, in a man who could weep, who was moved in His guts with compassion in the face of human suffering, who could say that “the Sabbath was made for human beings, not human beings for the Sabbath” but who had the divine authority to declare that “the Son of Man is master of the Sabbath”.
He could make the point, with all the authority of the Lawgiver, that the Law, like all God’s gifts, is a means to an end, not an end in itself. This was the mistake made by the Scribes and Pharisees, who saw the written word of the Law as the be-all-and-end-all, and who would tolerate no deviation from that word, even in the interests of human well-being.
That is why they were horrified by works of healing done on the Sabbath, by compassion shown to outsiders, by Jesus’ demonstration by word and action that the Law existed to bring human beings closer to God, not to shut them out from God’s presence.
There are many Scribes and Pharisees today, who see the rules as all important. We find them among the extreme Sabbatarians, who would padlock playgrounds on a Sunday, forbidding anything which savoured of frivolity or enjoyment. We find them too within the Church, in the likes of Cardinal Burke and his followers, chiefly in the United States, but also in smaller numbers and generally less extreme form in this country, who bitterly oppose all the present Pope’s attempts to make the Church more Christ-like, and who insist instead on a rigid adherence to rules and regulations.
Rules are important—without them we have anarchy and chaos—but they must always be directed towards the love and service of God, to freeing people rather than imprisoning them.
Strangely, as Our Lord goes on to point out, the approach to Law which He embodies, actually makes greater demands on us than mere adherence to the letter. Love is actually more exacting than the Law. Thus, as Jesus goes on to state, it is not enough to comply with the rules against murder, adultery, or oath-breaking; love impels us to go much further by avoiding anger, contempt, lust, misogyny, and frivolous swearing, being by contrast loving and respectful in all our dealings with others. Instead of asking ourselves “What must I avoid doing?” which implies the subtext “How far can I go?” or “What can I get away with?” we should be asking “What is the Christ-like thing which I should do?”
One example may illustrate how mere rule-keeping can defeat its object. It used to be laid down that, in order to fulfil the obligation to attend Mass, people had to be present for the offertory, the consecration, and the priest’s communion. This was intended to indicate the bare minimum, yet a considerable number of people took it as a yardstick, arriving just before what we now call the Preparation of the Gifts, and walking straight out of the church after receiving communion.
Thirty years ago, in my then parish, the other priest of the parish was celebrating Sunday evening Mass. I had to run an errand, but timed my return to be able to greet the people as they left at the end of Mass. As I approached the church, I saw people pouring out. I was shocked, assuming that I had mistimed things, and that Mass was over. In fact, it was communion time, and people were leaving because they had “fulfilled the obligation”. I struggled to see where the love of God was in that.
Jesus embodies the Law. He is a loving and generous God, and He reminds us by His words and by His life that our attitude to Law and to rules in general must be motivated by love of God, and must lead us to Him.
