Homily for 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A 2023
Introduction
When you hear the word "law,"
what emotions are stirred in your heart?
Perhaps if you have recently paid a hefty speeding ticket from those
traffic cameras, I would guess that you might not be too thrilled about the law
at this moment. But if the person who stole
your car has been caught and punished by law enforcement, you just might
appreciate that the law is essentially a good thing.
That is why Jesus in today's gospel has a
rather positive view of the law, saying, “Do
not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Fulfil the law, he does. But how does he do it?
Scripture and Theology
Let me explain, using the image of a
typewriter, on which I learnt how to type.
For those who were born after 1990, a typewriter was this clunky machine
used to type and type only; no internet, no email, no Facebook and certainly no
twitter. And for the older manual typewriters,
if you wanted your work to be legible, you had to strike those keys really hard. Moreover, if you made a mistake, you had to
go back and cover the mistake with liquid paper and type over again.
Then came computers – and secretaries of
the world with one voice shouted "Alleluia!" Now they did not have to fight with the
keyboard; now they could correct mistakes more easily and probably make a few
more in the process, and if truth be told, now when the boss wasn't looking,
they could also play solitaire or update their Facebook page on the computer. My point is that today, we use the computer to
do everything the typewriter did and some.
Computer technology has not abolished the typewriter, but rather
fulfilled it to do many more things.
In the same way, Jesus came to improve and
bring to fulfilment what God had already revealed to his people in the Old
Testament Law and the Prophets. That is
why he strongly reminds his followers that “until
heaven and earth pass away,” that is, until the end of the world as we know
it, “not the smallest letter or the
smallest part of a letter will pass from the law.” In other words, he does not do away with the
law, but only improves it, to serve God and his people better.
In the passage that we just heard, Jesus
provided four examples of how he is not abolishing, but improving the laws
against killing, adultery, divorce and swearing. Let
us focus on just the first two, the laws against killing and against adultery.
Quoting the fifth commandment, Jesus says: "You have heard that it was said to your
ancestors, You shall not kill.” And then he goes on: “But I say to you, whoever is
angry with his brother will be liable to judgment . . . and whoever says, ‘You
fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.”
For Jesus, it is not enough to avoid killing people, something few of us
actually do. Rather he goes to the root
of murder, things that lead people to kill, such as anger and the lack of
civility in discourse. How many people
have drawn their guns to shoot others due to road rage! Jesus is extending the fifth commandment to
include respect for the dignity and life of every person. If we begin by cultivating in ourselves the
virtue of respecting life, all life, then we do not ever have to worry about
killing anybody, because respect for life will begin in our thoughts and in our
words, a much firmer foundation than any written law.
The same principle applies to the sixth
commandment, which says: “You shall not
commit adultery.” Jesus adds, “But I
say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed
adultery with her in his heart.” Again,
Jesus is pointing to our basic attitude towards other people. We should not use another person just as an
object of pleasure, like we do a toy, since when that happens both people are
degraded. But real love, real respect, is concerned about the good of the other
person. Therefore, adultery is wrong not
just because it is a sexual act outside marriage, but especially because it is a
serious injustice to the innocent married partner and to the marriage
relationship. Most of all, it is a
serious breach of trust and fidelity.
Again, if we cultivate that basic attitude of respecting other people’s bodies
and our own, we have little to worry about ever falling into the temptation of
adultery. The first step to avoiding
adultery is avoiding even seemingly innocent flirtatious thoughts and words.
And so how is Jesus fulfilling, improving
upon the fifth and sixth commandments against killing and adultery? He is showing what the core and starting
point of these commandments is, namely, thoughts and attitudes. That is why at the beginning of Mass, when
confessing our sins, each of us also confesses those sins I have committed,
"in my thoughts and in my words."
Thus without abolishing the Ten Commandments Jesus has explained their
true meaning and even expanded them to apply to new situations. He has taken that old technology of the typewriter
and morphed it into a computer that can do even more things.
Christian Life
And so, it could never be said of Jesus
that he was against the law. Jesus was no
Hippie! Jesus was a law and order man,
who stood for the rule of law. But he
asked that law have a new heart and a new spirit. He invited his disciples to look beyond the
letter of the law, and also observe its spirit, which is always love of God and
neighbour. That is why Jesus told the
disciples: "unless your
righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter
the kingdom of heaven." For the
Pharisees and scribes, rule of law only meant, fulfilling the letter of the
law. For Jesus, "rule of law"
means observing, not just its letter, but its heart and spirit as well.
How do we approach the law as Jesus has
taught us?
There are two extremes to avoid. Obviously, the first extreme is that of the
scribes and Pharisees, who see only the letter of the law. That is what Pope Francis, since he became
Pope, has been trying to teach us to do.
When it comes to those who are imperfect before the law, those who do
not always fulfil the letter of the law, how are we to treat them? The unmarried mother, the divorced and
remarried person, the person with the same-sex attraction, the so-called
illegal immigrant, the prisoner, the woman who terminated her pregnancy – these
are the tax collectors and sinners of Jesus’ time. Do we apply the blunt instrument of the law
or do we examine each case to see what is going in their lives, to see whatever
good God is doing in their lives, to offer them the hope of conversion and
change? Do we look into our own lives
and see that while we might be fulfilling the letter of the commandments, we
are guilty of the far more serious attitudes of hate, lust, a lack of
commitment to people and to the truth?
For it is these attitudes that are at the foundation of the sins that
will lead us into hell.
On the other hand, we have to avoid the
extreme that ignores all laws and commandments.
We must not forget that Jesus said, “whoever
breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will
be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus did not do away with laws; he just gave us new eyes, a new heart
with which to live out these laws in peace and freedom. For example, we have the Five Precepts of the
Church. (1) Attendance at Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, (2)
Confession of serious sin at least once a year (3) Reception of Holy Communion
at least once a year during the Easter season (4) Observance of the days of
fast and abstinence (5) Providing for the needs of the Church. Why do we have these laws? To provide us with the minimum effort we must
make to love God and neighbour.
Conclusion
Like the typewriter, which we have developed
into a computer, the law is only an instrument, a tool. Like technology, law is a good servant, but a
bad master. And so we must observe the
laws of God, the law of the Church and the laws of the state; but we must do so
in a way that brings glory of God and does the greatest good for people, thus
surpassing the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
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