6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
My dear parishioners,
God is Good!!! All the time!!! And all the time!!! God is Good!!!
This reading is drawn from the many lessons contained in Sirach’s book. This wise teacher is thought to have served God in the early decades of the second century before the birth of Jesus. The overall plan of the book is a challenge for commentators. But it seems that much of it is inspired by a close reading of the Torah. Today’s passage, for example, appears to be a reflection on Moses’ instructions to the Israelites before their entrance into the Promised Land.
Today’s Gospel consists of material from Jesus as well as from the evangelist Matthew. All of the material is complicated and contains contradictions when compared to the teaching of St. Paul. Our task is not to make it all fit together. The challenge is rather to capture the tone of the Gospel and to appreciate the broad perspective offered on a variety of topics. We must also remember that Matthew was a Jewish Christian and that is the perspective presented here.
Your righteousness. The main principle guiding the entire Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7) is enunciated in the disclaimer of Jesus that he has not come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them. The goal in all this is, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What follows are examples of how he understands fulfilling the law and the prophets.
Five topics are presented: law, anger, adultery, divorce, and oaths. Neither Jesus nor the Church after him approached these topics from a purely legalistic perspective. In fact, much of the emphasis here is showing that one must go beyond the literal understanding of the prescription and discover a deeper meaning below the surface. There is an important internal challenge contained in all of these topics.
Challenges. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will show that the way one fulfills the law and the prophets is through love of God, neighbor, and self. Mindless legalism fails here. Anger can be understood as a form of killing. While it might not cause immediate physical death, uncontrolled anger does much harm and can result in death, both physical and psychological. Most would not consider lust the same as committing adultery. Jesus sees the deeper reality and connects the mutual dynamics at work between lust and adultery. For Jesus, marriage is a sacred covenant that, except for certain cases of sexual misconduct, must not be broken. For people who are honest there is no need to take oaths. Nothing can guarantee an oath because it presupposes bad will or a fundamental dishonesty. All of these challenges are just examples of the higher righteousness demanded by Jesus
Excerpts from “Sunday Homily Helps”, is used by permission of Franciscan Media. www.FranciscanMedia.org. All rights reserved
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Aloysius