 |
The Greatest Commandment A Reflection for the Church of Jesus Christ Incarcerated September 3, 2006: Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time By Philip D. Ropp |
|
Our Scripture readings today are chosen for the purpose of illustrating the inter-relationship between God, the law and ourselves. We are all aware of the rules and regulations by which our society and its institutions are governed. Our lives and our relationships are in no small way defined and determined by the rules that we are taught as children and which follow us and become ever more complicated as we progress to and through adulthood. This is true not only of each of us as individuals, but of peoples and nations as well. Human history is the story of humankind’s misuse of law to serve its own selfish ends. It is a never ending story of tribes and nations that rise up to violently inflict their will upon their neighbors so as to exploit them. This exploitation is accomplished by subjecting the conquered to laws that are contrived for the specific purpose of being at once both oppressive and unspeakably cruel. Those oppressed, driven by an unquenchable human desire for revenge, respond by observing strict rules of conduct that permit them to grow strong enough to overthrow and subject their oppressors. In turn, they become the new oppressors. Individual relationships too often are merely a microcosm of the way in which nations behave, with one individual seeking to assert his will upon another to his own benefit and the other’s detriment. We call this “human nature” and think too little of it. It is in this way that the familiar cycle of war and conquest, subjugation and slavery, rebellion and revolution has been handed down to us since the moment that Cain picked up a stone and first established the human law of “might makes right” by striking down his brother and separating himself from God. And, like Cain, it is our own sin that comes between each of us and God and makes us long for reconciliation and redemption. Christian history is the story of God’s saving grace that reaches out to us in this state of self imposed exile from Him; an exile that, like Cain’s, is the result of our own sinful human nature and shameful human behavior. It is the story of God’s great and unfathomable love for humanity that saves us to an eternity of bliss made perfect by His presence -- more than we could ever hope for or deserve. This story is foreshadowed by God’s gift of the Divine Law as given to Israel through Moses in the Old Testament. This story is fulfilled in God’s gift of Himself in the person of Jesus Christ to die in our place when we are condemned under this Law in the New Testament. And this story is witnessed in God’s gift of the Church to stand for all time as a testimony to the eternal truth of our salvation that we might stand one day with our brother Paul and recite the words of Hosea, “O grave, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” And so it is today that we stand in all humility with our brother James and welcome with all our heart the “word that has been planted in us and is able to save our souls.” It is that Word that was from the beginning and will be unto the end. It is the Word that was with God and that is God. And that Word is Jesus. Today’s lesson begins in Deuteronomy 4, with Moses laying down the law for Israel as they make preparation to enter the Promised Land under Joshua’s command. In the preceding chapter, Moses is told by God that after 40 years of struggle in the wilderness, he will not be crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land with the children of Israel. So God orders him to go up to the top of Pisgah, which is also called Mt. Nebo, so that from this vantage point Moses might look out over the countryside. And so he looks across the Jordan and beyond the desert of the Negev (where one day the Dead Sea Scrolls will be found) to the fertile hills and plains that stretch out before him all the way to Lebanon. And he sees not only a land that flows with milk and honey, but a land of destiny. It is the land we call Holy because it is here that God interceded in human history that we might be saved. After he had gone to the mountain top and after he had seen this Promised Land, Moses recited the Commandments of God to Israel with a renewed sense of urgency and a renewed fervor for the Lord that is culminated in the summation of the Law that would come to be known as the Great Commandment: “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” This passage embraces in itself the whole law of God, and so it is that Jesus reiterates it and expands upon it when he says in Matthew 22:37, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Now the stage is set for today’s Gospel reading. At this point in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus has just exorcised the Gerasene Demoniac, healed the woman with the hemorrhage, raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead, and been denounced in his hometown of Nazareth. He has sent out the Twelve to cast out demons and heal the sick, and they have preached with such power that even King Herod has taken notice. His attempt to get some rest along with the disciples is interrupted by the feeding of the five thousand, and his attempt to get some quiet time by walking across the sea ahead of them is spoiled when they see him walking on the water. They arrive at Gennesaret and wherever they go, Jesus is confronted by crowds hauling in the sick to be healed. Before he can catch his breath, he is confronted with a group of Pharisees and scribes (the lawyers of their day) who have come all the way from Jerusalem for the express purpose of taking him to task on the pickiest aspects of Jewish Law. Jesus must be tired and, clearly, he is not in the mood for this sort of thing. When the Pharisees and scribes spot some of the disciples eating without washing their hands – a violation of the Jewish purification laws – they question Jesus, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” Jesus blows up at them: “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” We would do well to learn the lesson that the Pharisees and scribes failed to grasp that day. The law that God recognizes above all others is the Law of Love, as spelled out in the two great commandments to love God and neighbor. To see that what is important in this life is that which manifests love towards our fellow man and, in turn, towards our God. While the Pharisees and scribes were quick to notice the disciples’ indiscretion of eating with unwashed hands, the significance of the fact that these same disciples had just recently returned from a mission in which demons were cast out and the sick healed was totally lost on them. It did not occur to them to ask Jesus what power in heaven or earth could possibly manifest itself in such miracles as this. If they had, he could have told them that the power of the Holy Spirit becomes manifest in the heart that is tuned to God in love and responds with true compassion to the plight of fallen man. Instead, the best he could do was point out to them that true evil is the sin of love denied – the very sin that these scribes and Pharisees had displayed – and it is this that truly defiles and enslaves. And so we would do well to not make the effort to peer around the beam in our own eye in order to catch a better glimpse of the splinter in the eye of someone else. We would do well to remember that it is not our duty to be critical of what we deem to be the improper behavior of others, but to know our own hearts and be diligent in our prayers and intentions that we might be in harmony with Our Lord and so be saved. For in the end it is not the law but sin – and only sin – that has the power to imprison us. And it is not the law but Jesus Christ – and only he – that has the power to set us free. |