Wednesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time
Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 3:4-11; Psalm 99:5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Matthew 5:17-19
What might we make of the contrast between how the law is understood in our first reading today, from St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, and in our Gospel, from Matthew?
St. Paul speaks of the law‒ as in Matthew’s Gospel, in 2 Corinthians St. Paul is referring to the Law of Moses or laws of the Jewish faith, much of which has influenced our Christian faith and law‒ or “the letter” in rather dark terms. St. Paul calls “the letter” of the Jewish, then Judeo-Christian, law “the ministry of death, carved on letters on stone.” He contrasts this written-on-stone letter of the law with the “ministry of the Spirit” or “ministry of righteousness.”
Near the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that spans three full chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, five through seven, we hear Jesus affirm the law in much more positive terms than St. Paul seems to do in 2 Corinthians. Jesus has “come not to abolish but to fulfill” the law, he says. “Not the smallest letter or part of a letter will pass from the law,” which would suggest that, in spite of St. Paul’s view of the law, there are at least elements, if not all of the law that are worth holding onto and obeying.
And so which is it: Is the law something to be cast aside as “the ministry of death” or “of condemnation,” or something that is life-giving and to be maintained and obeyed?
I think we risk making a serious mistake if we try to or think we need to choose one of these perspectives on the law over the other. We miss the point of both St. Paul and Jesus if we understand law (whether of our faith or secular law, that of the state) as something to be disregarded as limiting our freedom or, worse yet, dealing us “death” or “condemnation,” or as something life-giving and requiring blind obedience for its own sake.
What, then, is the common point St. Paul and Jesus make in our readings we hear today? I suggest that St. Paul’s and Jesus’ common point is that the law is good, but only if it points us to something‒ or, better yet, somebody, that is, God‒ greater than and more “glorious,” in St. Paul’s words, than itself.
Obedience to law, religious or secular (even the word “obedience” is from the same Latin root for listening attentively), does not mean a kind of slavishness to “the good old days” when all seemed morally, liturgically, or otherwise certain; when there were clear rules governing what we, especially as good Catholics, ought and ought not to do without exception. The reality is that “the good old days” never existed and never will exist or, as my Basilian brother of blessed memory here at St. Kateri, Fr. Peter Etlinger, once said, “Don’t tell me about the ‘good old days.’ I was there; they weren’t so good”!
Neither is the law a means to strike at and divide ourselves from those who, as we see them, differ or disagree with us on various matters, or even who behave less morally than we do. Instead, only if we understand and live law as a kind of light on our path to God, to salvation, will it be “fulfilled,” as Jesus says, and will it become, as St. Paul says, “the ministry of the Spirit” who always exceeds our written letter; our expectations; our imagination.
St. Paul speaks of the law‒ as in Matthew’s Gospel, in 2 Corinthians St. Paul is referring to the Law of Moses or laws of the Jewish faith, much of which has influenced our Christian faith and law‒ or “the letter” in rather dark terms. St. Paul calls “the letter” of the Jewish, then Judeo-Christian, law “the ministry of death, carved on letters on stone.” He contrasts this written-on-stone letter of the law with the “ministry of the Spirit” or “ministry of righteousness.”
Near the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount that spans three full chapters of Matthew’s Gospel, five through seven, we hear Jesus affirm the law in much more positive terms than St. Paul seems to do in 2 Corinthians. Jesus has “come not to abolish but to fulfill” the law, he says. “Not the smallest letter or part of a letter will pass from the law,” which would suggest that, in spite of St. Paul’s view of the law, there are at least elements, if not all of the law that are worth holding onto and obeying.
And so which is it: Is the law something to be cast aside as “the ministry of death” or “of condemnation,” or something that is life-giving and to be maintained and obeyed?
I think we risk making a serious mistake if we try to or think we need to choose one of these perspectives on the law over the other. We miss the point of both St. Paul and Jesus if we understand law (whether of our faith or secular law, that of the state) as something to be disregarded as limiting our freedom or, worse yet, dealing us “death” or “condemnation,” or as something life-giving and requiring blind obedience for its own sake.
What, then, is the common point St. Paul and Jesus make in our readings we hear today? I suggest that St. Paul’s and Jesus’ common point is that the law is good, but only if it points us to something‒ or, better yet, somebody, that is, God‒ greater than and more “glorious,” in St. Paul’s words, than itself.
Obedience to law, religious or secular (even the word “obedience” is from the same Latin root for listening attentively), does not mean a kind of slavishness to “the good old days” when all seemed morally, liturgically, or otherwise certain; when there were clear rules governing what we, especially as good Catholics, ought and ought not to do without exception. The reality is that “the good old days” never existed and never will exist or, as my Basilian brother of blessed memory here at St. Kateri, Fr. Peter Etlinger, once said, “Don’t tell me about the ‘good old days.’ I was there; they weren’t so good”!
Neither is the law a means to strike at and divide ourselves from those who, as we see them, differ or disagree with us on various matters, or even who behave less morally than we do. Instead, only if we understand and live law as a kind of light on our path to God, to salvation, will it be “fulfilled,” as Jesus says, and will it become, as St. Paul says, “the ministry of the Spirit” who always exceeds our written letter; our expectations; our imagination.
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