First Reading - Ecclesiasticus 15:16-21
Second Reading - 1 Corinthians 2:6-10
Gospel - Matthew 5:17-37
Today’s readings challenge us to choose freely and wisely to observe the laws given by a loving and caring God. He revealed His laws to His Chosen People through Moses and the prophets in the Old Testament, and through His own Son, Jesus, in the New Testament.
The first reading, taken from Sirach, contains the clearest statement in the Old Testament concerning the God-given freedom of the human will. God never forces us to do good or evil. It is our free choice to obey or disobey God’s laws, and we are responsible for the serious consequences of our choices. It exonerates God from all responsibility for evil in the world. “If you choose, you can keep the commandments . . . before you are life and death, whichever you choose shall be given you.”
In the second reading, Paul challenges his Corinthian believers to appreciate the wisdom of God’s saving plan for His people, a plan hidden for ages but now revealed by the Spirit. He advises the Christians to seek true wisdom in God’s revelation instead of indulging in endless discussions of Greek philosophy. God in His wisdom has saved us through Jesus and prepared for those love Him, “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard and what has not entered the human heart.”
In the selection from the Sermon on the Mount in today’s Gospel, while challenging his disciples to live a life of justice and righteousness which should exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus, as the new lawgiver, sets forth his own position with regard to the Law given through Moses, by providing new interpretation and meaning for the old laws.
In Jesus’ time, the Law was understood differently by different groups of the Jews to be 1) The Ten Commandments, 2) The Pentateuch, 3) The Law and the Prophets, or 4) The oral (Scribal) and the written Law. The Jews believed that the Torah (Law given through Moses), was the eternal and unchangeable Self-revelation of God. (According to a 3rd century rabbi, Moses gave 365 prohibitions and 248 positive commands. David reduced them to 11 in Psalm 15. Isaiah made them 6 (Isaiah 33:14, 15). Micah 6:8 binds them into 3 commands. Habakkuk reduces them all to one great statement: “The just shall live by Faith.”) Jesus, and later Paul, considered the oral Law as interpreted by the scribes a heavy burden on the people and criticized it, while honoring the Mosaic Law and the teachings of the prophets. Today’s Gospel passage, from Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount,” presents Jesus as giving the highest compliments to the Mosaic Law, although he himself would be condemned later and crucified as a Lawbreaker. Jesus says that, as the word of God, the Old Testament has a Divine authority and deserves total respect. Its moral precepts are to be respected because they are, for the most part, specific, Divine-positive promulgations of the natural law. For the Scribes and the Pharisees, the external fulfillment of the precepts of the Mosaic Law was a guarantee of a person’s salvation. Jesus rejects this view in today’s Gospel passage, taken from the “Sermon on the Mount.” For Jesus, justification, or sanctification, is a grace from God. Man’s role is one of cooperating with that grace by being faithful to it. Jesus then outlines the new moral standards for his disciples. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that he did not come to destroy the Torah but to bring it to perfection by bringing out its inner meaning, because Jesus Himself is the ultimate Self-revelation of God, the Lawgiver. Jesus also explains the real meaning of three Mosaic laws concerning murder, adultery and false oaths. Anger is murder, impure look is adultery and unlawful divorce is double violation of natural law and covenant with God and false oaths are sacrilegious.
Jesus explains that the fifth commandment means respecting life in all its stages by honoring others in words and deeds. This means that we have to control our anger because it is the rawest, strongest and most destructive of human emotions. Describing three stages of anger and the punishment each deserves, Jesus advises his disciples not to get angry in such a way that they sin. 1) Anger in the heart (“brief stage of insanity”– Cicero), has two forms: a) a sudden, blazing flame of anger which dies suddenly. b) a surge of anger which boils inside and lingers so that the heart seeks revenge and refuses to forgive or forget. Jesus prescribes trial and sentencing by the Village Court of Elders. 2) Anger in speech: Using words which are insulting (“raka“=“fool”), or damaging to the reputation (“moros” meaning a person of loose morals). Jesus says that such an angry one should be sent to the Sanhedrin or Jewish religion’s Supreme Court for trial and sentencing. 3) Anger in action: Sudden outbursts of uncontrollable anger often result in physical assault or abuse. Jesus says that such anger deserves hellfire as its punishment. In short, Jesus teaches that long-lasting anger is bad, contemptuous speech or destroying someone’s reputation is worse and harming another physically is the worst.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus outlines a new moral code for his followers, which is different from the Mosaic moral code. Jesus insists that adultery, the violation of the sixth commandment, is also committed through willfully generated evil and impure thoughts and desires which are willingly sustained in the mind. Our hands become agents of sin according to what we touch and how we touch, in lust or greed or violence. Our eyes become agents of sins according to what they look at. When Jesus recommends mutilation of eyes and hands, he is not speaking literally, because we have more sins than we have body-parts. Besides, even if all offending parts were removed, our minds — the source of all sins – would still be intact, causing us to sin by thoughts and desires. So, Jesus teaches us that, just as a doctor might remove a limb or some part of the body, like an infected gall bladder, inflamed appendix, etc., in order to preserve the life of the whole body, so we must be ready to part with anything that causes us to commit grave sin or which leads to spiritual death. Hence, these warnings are actually about our attitudes, dispositions, and inclinations. Jesus recommends that our hands become agents of compassion, healing and comfort and that our eyes learn to see the truth, goodness and beauty around us.
According Matthew’s version, adultery is the only ground for sanctioning divorce. Based on the NT teachings given in Mk 10:1-12, Mt. 5:31-32; Mt. 19:3-9; Lk 16:18; and 1 Cor 7:10-11, the Catholic Church teaches that marriage is a sacrament involving both a sacred and legal contract between a man and a woman and, at the same time, is a special covenant with the Lord. “Divorce is also a grave offense against the natural law. Besides, it claims to break the contract, to which the spouses freely consented, to live with each other till death …. Divorce is immoral also because it introduces disorder into the family and into society” (CCC # 2384, 2385).
Dear friends, in obeying God’s law and Church law, let us remember the two basic principles on which these laws are based, namely, the principle of reverence and the principle of respect. In the first four of the Ten Commandments we are asked to reverence God, His holy Name and His holy Day and to reverence our father and mother. Th next six commandments instruct us to respect life, one’s personal integrity and good name, the legal system, another’s property and another’s spouse. Our obedience to the laws must be prompted by our love for God and our gratitude to God for His blessings.
We need to forgive, forget, and move toward reconciliation as soon as possible. St. Paul advises us “Be angry (righteous anger) but do not sin” (Eph 4:26). When we keep anger in our spirit, we are inviting physical illnesses, like hypertension, and mental illnesses, like depression. Let us relax and keep silence when we are angry, wait before acting on our anger, give it time to detoxify and cool off, pray for God’s strength for self-control, and give the Holy Spirit time to help us see the event through Jesus’ eyes instead of through anger’s eyes.
We need to be true to God, to ourselves and to others. Let us allow God’s word of truth to penetrate our minds and hearts and to form our consciences, making us men and women of integrity.
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