|
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
September
3, 2006: Twenty-second
Sunday in Ordinary Time
Psalm: Sunday 37
Reading
1
Dt
4:1-2, 6-8
Moses said to the people:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of the land
which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
In your observance of the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin upon you,
you shall not add to what I command you nor subtract from it.
Observe them carefully,
for thus will you give evidence
of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations,
who will hear of all these statutes and say,
‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’
For what great nation is there
that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?
Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?”
Reading II
Jas
1:17-18,
21b-22, 27
Dearest brothers
and sisters:
All good giving
and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from
the Father of lights,
with whom there is
no alteration or shadow caused by change.
He willed to give
us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a
kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Humbly welcome the
word that has been planted in you
and is able to
save your souls.
Be doers of the
word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.
Religion that is
pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this:
to care for
orphans and widows in their affliction
and to keep
oneself unstained by the world.
Reading
III
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
When the Pharisees
with
some scribes who had
come from Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate
their meals
with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.
-- For
the Pharisees and, in
fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands,
keeping the
tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not
eat
without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they
have
traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles
and beds.
--
So the
Pharisees and scribes
questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the
elders but
instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
He
responded, “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.”
He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and
understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person;
but the things that come out from within are what defile. “From within
people,
from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery,
greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance,
folly. All
these evils come from within and they defile.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you,
Lord Jesus Christ.
|
|
|