Love is the Law (Lk 14:1-6)

 

Jesus and the Pharisees clearly lived in two different worlds.  The Pharisees lived in a black and white world controlled by rules, while Jesus lived in a more nuanced world guided by the principle of love.  These are contrasting and incompatible views. The Pharisees were the educated scholars of both the Torah and their oral tradition.  That tradition included many rules developed over time as a guide for the daily practice of Judaism (Ex 31:15).  These rules eventually grew to the point of being cumbersome, with many bordering on the absurd (Mt 23:4).  Although the Pharisees professed faithfulness to God in terms of strict obedience to these rules, they interpreted and applied them in ways that often oppressed the ordinary person (Mt 23:23).  Even worse, they often found it more convenient to ignore and nullify the Word of God in favor of their own tradition (Mk 7:9-13).

Jesus had a very different perspective on faithfulness to God.  He best reveals his take on faithfulness in summarizing the entire Law and the Prophets with the dual commandments to love God and neighbor, including one’s enemies.  Jesus is not being a naive romantic in speaking this way.  He aims to show that love is the heart of the Mosaic Law, in contrast to the burdensome extension of the Law by the Pharisees.  For Jesus, following the principle of love is the only way to live in harmony with the Law and remain faithful to God.

Ironically, the Pharisees’ insisted on following the rules, and yet, they did not follow their own teaching (Mt 23:13-33).  They stopped practicing what they preached.  Their greed for status, money, and control made them spiritually blind.  Because of their inability to perceive spiritual truth, they felt threatened by Jesus and often accused him of deliberately violating the Law, especially the commandment to keep holy the Sabbath.  The encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees in today’s gospel is an example in that regard. 

On this occasion, the Pharisees question Jesus about healing a man on the Sabbath.  Their interpretation of the commandment strictly prohibited work of any kind, including healing (cf. Ex 20:8).  Their objection has no basis, however, for Jesus lived as a faithful observant of the Law.  He makes this plain when he declares that he did not come to destroy the Law, but to fulfill it (Mt 5:17). 

He provides further evidence of his faithfulness to the Law by teaching in the synagogues, especially on the Sabbath (Lk 4:16).  He observes Passover with his disciples (Mt 26:17-19).  He celebrates the feast of Tabernacles as well as the feast of Lights (Jn 7:2-10; 10:22).  He even followed his own admonition to pray often and with persistence (Lk 18:1; 5:16).  All of which shows that Jesus followed the Law, and in so doing, always honored the Sabbath as a day reserved by God for rest and holiness (Ex 20:8-11).

As a result, Jesus gives a more authentic interpretation of this commandment by describing the Sabbath as a day for doing good rather than harm, for saving life rather than killing (Mk 3:4).  Jesus puts this point in sharp relief when he asks the Pharisees whether even they would work to save their own sons or livestock from harm on the Sabbath (Lk 14:5).  Jesus asked because he knew they had lost sight of the guiding principle that "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath" (Mk 2:27).  Because of their blindness, however, the Pharisees remain silent and do not answer his question.

What are the implications of this encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees for us today?  What does Jesus want us to take away?  At the very least, the implication of his question about working to prevent harm on the Sabbath is significant.  We do not live in a black and white moral world.  At times, we do not know how to love others in the right way, and resolving our doubt requires careful consideration.  The more complex the situation, the more careful the consideration needed.  We also have the example of Jesus. 

Jesus solved the Pharisees’ question by choosing to act in favor of doing good, of doing what is merciful and just on the Sabbath.  Jesus chose the person over the rule.  At times, the moral dilemma we face also requires a decision born of a clear conscience (Summa, I-II, q. 94).  Our calling is to remain faithful to a loving God with both our heart and our mind, not just our mind.  From this perspective, love and faithfulness go hand in hand as the sure guideposts for an authentic relationship with God.

In his encyclical, “Love in the Family,” Pope Francis perhaps best summarizes this point.  In that encyclical, Francis puts emphasis on the virtues of faith, hope, love, mercy, wisdom, and prudence in guiding the process of moral discernment and decision-making.  For him, the best moral decisions are the ones that promote human dignity and development of the whole person.  In other words, a living faith in God seeks and promotes a just human community in Christ1.  Honoring and respecting the whole human person as a reflection of our love for God is the whole point of the Mosaic Law itself.  Even today, this remains the perfect justification for celebrating the Sabbath as a day of holiness.

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1 Populorum progression, 21; see also “Pope Francis and His Predecessors: A Remarkable and Unremarked Continuity” by Michael G. Lawler and Todd A. Salzman, The Furrow 68 (11), Nov 2017, pp. 579-589.

 

Reconcile Before Reckoning (Lk 12:54-59)

 

The story about settling with an opponent on the way to the magistrate’s court yields advice as sound today as when Jesus first told the story.  Although Jesus puts the story in a legal context, he is not talking about legal wrongs.  Rather, Jesus is talking about the moral wrongs that arise in our relationships with others.  In that sense, the magistrate is a symbol for God, while the idea of going to court symbolizes our journey through life to that day of final reckoning before God.  For, everything has a time and a season (Ecc 3:1).  This gives the story its spiritual significance. 

The advice itself seems clear.  As Jesus puts it, if each of us settles our moral wrongs prior to our final reckoning before God, things will go much better for us.  If, on the other hand, we refuse to reconcile with our moral opponents and force God to settle the matter, we might not like the final outcome.  The better option therefore is to settle with our moral opponents on this side of life, if at all possible.  This advice raises some interesting questions.

For one, what counts as a moral wrong, and who are our moral opponents?  A moral wrong is any intentional and unjust harm done to others.  The greater the harm, the greater the wrong.  Our moral opponent, therefore, is anyone we have harmed in that way, or on the other hand, anyone who has harmed us in that way.    Sometimes, we need to be forgiven, and sometimes we need to forgive.  The story says nothing, however, about what to do if the wounded party declines our attempt at reconciliation.  Nor does it say anything about those relationships that ought to be left alone.  From a practical standpoint, attempts to reconcile with some persons might not be warranted.

In any case, another question concerns the reason we are on our way to court, to God’s court?  Why is that?  Because life is a journey to our spiritual home, and sooner or later, each of us will give an account of ourselves before God (Mt. 12:36; Rm 14:12).  God has the final say on how well we lived our lives.  Apparently, things will not go well for us if we knowingly force God to do our moral dirty work.  Thus, Jesus urges us to prepare our best case ahead of time by resolving all moral wrongs before we get to that final court of appeal.  Better yet, we ought to avoid getting morally sideways in the first place.

More than once, Jesus revealed the right path to follow in that regard by making the principle of love our sure guide in life.  Love one another as I have loved you, he tells his disciples (Jn 13:34).  Jesus made the commandment to love God and our neighbor the cornerstone of his life and mission, and therefore, the cornerstone of ours as well.  Defining love as an obligation, however, seems inconsistent with an ordinary understanding of love. 

Ordinarily, we understand love not as an obligation, but as something we freely give to others, especially to those who most deserve and need our love.  Jesus, on the other hand, means that love is our natural state of being.  We have a natural ability to love because God loved us first.  In fact, God’s love for us is the reason we exist in the first place (Gen 1:26-28; Eph 1:3-5).  Because we are made in the image of God, we are therefore made for love.  Not that we love everyone in the same way, or to the same degree.  The point is, our natural ability to love is a gift from God and the lifeblood of our very being. 

It follows that our calling is to imitate Christ in loving service to others (Dt 10:12; Eph 5:1-2).  As the Evangelist John tells us, we ought to live just as Jesus lived (1 Jn 5:6).  Not only is this the best way to avoid intentional moral wrongs.  Loving others in imitation of Christ is also the best way to set the record straight when we go astray (Lk 11:41).  We can present our best case to God by loving his children and his creation with all sincerity.  This is what matters to God.  This is how Christ treated others, both friend and foe.  We can do no better than to follow his example.

Friend or Foe? (Lk 11:37-41)

 

Jesus and the Pharisees are not friends.  Not only do the Pharisees constantly find fault with whatever Jesus says and does.  Through their many encounters with Jesus, the Pharisees prove themselves to be self-righteous religious leaders, full of pretense and deceit (Lk 18:10-13).  They readily boast of their service and obedience to God, all the while concealing their extortion and cruel treatment of others (Lk 11:39-44).  They fail to see their own need for repentance and thus do not seek forgiveness of their sins.  As a result, they have been forgiven little, and for that reason, they love little (Lk 7:47).  The Pharisees are hypocritical frauds with very little love in their hearts for God or for others.  Thus, they are not like Jesus.  No wonder they are not his friends.

In fact, Jesus and the Pharisees are so different that Jesus becomes their stern critic who eagerly calls attention to their moral failures and misguided ways.  Today’s gospel reading is an example in that regard.  Jesus goes to the home of a leading Pharisee for dinner.  The Pharisee becomes indignant over the fact that Jesus does not observe the prescribed washing before a meal.  In response, Jesus is quick to call attention to the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees.  He notes how they focus on the minutia of ritual and custom, but fail to acknowledge the embedded evil in their hearts.

Another example of the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees occurs when Jesus goes for dinner to the home of Simon, a prominent Pharisee.   A woman, who was known to be a sinner, is also there.  When she sees Jesus, she expresses profound sorrow for her sins by giving heartfelt attention to his place as an honored guest.  Jesus accepts the sincerity of her contrition and forgives her sins.  Simon rails against what he perceives to be the misplaced compassion of Jesus, and rebukes him for his response to the woman.  Undaunted by Simon’s critique, however, Jesus insists that love and mercy must take the place of self-righteous pride and the unjust condemnation of others (Lk 7:36-50).

At every turn, Jesus confronts the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and challenges them to live their faith with sincerity, honesty, mercy, and love. The Pharisees, however, remained fixated on a show of complying with the Mosaic Law as evidence of their faithfulness.  Their focus was on the letter of the Law, not the Spirit of Love.

While their actions may have been technically correct, their motives were far from authentic.  This is why they castigated Jesus for not honoring the ritual of washing before meals as prescribed by the Law.  From their perspective, following the correct ritual and custom was sufficient justification under the Law.  What was in their hearts, what else may have motivated their actions, was of little concern to them.

Jesus invites the Pharisees to a new way of life, a new way of seeing things.  Jesus calls us to the same way of life.  God wants to give us a “new heart” and a “new spirit” so that we can reflect His love and holiness in our daily lives.  For, love is the genuine source of faith in action (Gal 5:6).  An authentic relationship with God and with others, therefore, stems from love rather than adherence to ritual and custom.  This way of seeing things is our sure path to becoming more like Christ every day, and the only way to be his friend.

What Does God Care About? (Lk 17:11-19)

 

The story about the ten lepers is a story about faith, gratitude, and the mercy of God.  Notice the lepers do not ask Jesus for healing.  They ask Jesus for mercy—Master, have pity on us, they say to him.  Today, we think of mercy more as a matter of kindness, a subset of justice, rather than as a principle on equal footing with justice.  In fact, we often think that the principle of justice trumps the principle of mercy.    

Yet, when God first reveals himself to Moses from the burning bush on Mt. Sinai, this is exactly how God describes himself, as a God of mercy.  From the bush, Moses hears God say, “I have seen the affliction of my people…I have heard their cry…and I intend to deliver them by your hand” (Ex 3:7-10).  Before Moses returns to carry out his role in that regard, he wants to know the name of the one who speaks.  God says, “I am Who I am…a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love and fidelity” (Ex 34:6). 

No wonder mercy is what the lepers ask of Jesus.  By law and by ritual in those days, the faith community viewed leprosy as God’s punishment for sin.  The leper was no longer holy before God.  No one could touch or even support a leper for fear that the moral impurity of the disease was as contagious as its physical defilement.  Thus, the leper was cut off from the faith community, and stood to forfeit for all time his or her relationship with God and with all other members.  The only way a leper could rejoin the faith community was to be declared cured, and therefore clean, by competent religious authority.

To that end, the leper had available two options only—to be healed through a direct intervention by God (Ex. 15:26), or through an appeal to God’s mercy by a prophet (Ex. 15:25; II Kings 2:21; II Kings 20:7–8).  The ten lepers choose the second option and ask Jesus for mercy as the more likely avenue to be made clean.  Jesus hears more in their request, however.  What Jesus hears is their faith in God. 

Jesus acknowledges their faith by responding that all ten should present themselves to the priests.  Because they trust his word, they immediately carry out his instruction.  On the way, all ten realize they have been healed.  Their trust in God has made them whole again.  Only one, however, the Samaritan, an outcast, perceives that God is the source of his healing, and only he returns to give thanks.  The Samaritan perceives the presence of God in the person of Jesus.  He sees what the Pharisees failed to see, and he gives thanks.

This show of gratitude at the feet of Jesus acknowledges Jesus as more than a prophet.  Jesus is the one who validates the Samaritan’s faith by calling attention to the end result, his salvation—Stand up and go; your faith has saved you—Jesus says (Lk 17:19).  The Samaritan’s realization that he has been “healed” by God becomes a realization that he has been “saved” by God.  His faith has made him whole in both body and spirit.

It should be noted in this encounter between Jesus and the lepers that Jesus does not require them to express any repentance or renunciation of sin before their healing.  Nor does he ask them to change their ethnic or religious identity.  Jesus goes further and ignores the idea that leprosy is punishment for sin or that Samaritans are rivals of the Israelites.  Jesus overlooks all of this.  All that Jesus looks for is faith.  The lepers’ request for mercy is enough to demonstrate their faith in God and trust in Jesus.  In response to their faith and trust, Jesus reaches out to them where they are and heals them.  

The healing of the ten lepers demonstrates God’s unconditional love for all people regardless of their social, religious, or ethnic status.  Faith and unconditional love are what God cares about.  This is why Jesus yearns for us to seek him with all boldness, without fear, and without condition.  “Come to me all you who labor and are burned, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28).  Jesus does not restrict who may seek him.  Clearly, the lepers sought Jesus WHEN they were in need of healing, BEFORE they were made clean.  Jesus did not say to them:  Go get holy, and then knock on the door.  Rather, Jesus says:  Knock on the door and I will open it; seek and you will find.

This story shows that gratitude, love, and mercy are the more compelling aspects of faith.  From wherever we are on our faith journey, we can approach Jesus no matter what our circumstances might be.  Jesus simply looks for faith and is eager to respond to the faith that each of us can muster, however little or much that might be.  We can trust that Jesus will respond to our needs with compassion.  For, compassion is the natural and universal response of unconditional love, and gratitude is the natural and universal response of the one who receives such love.  As the Psalmist puts it, “Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has done marvelous deeds” (Ps 98:1-4). 

What do we want from Jesus?  What do we ask for?  What do we seek?  Why do we knock?  The goodness and mercy of God are reason enough to place our trust in him for our journey through life.  Trust in God leads to wholeness of spirit.  Here I am Lord.  Tell me what to do Lord, and I will do it.  Like the lepers, we express our faith in Jesus, and Jesus responds.  In turn, we can trust Jesus.  We follow his instruction, and we are made whole (Is 55:3).  Thus, we have every reason to give thanks to God.

Son of God or Child of the Devil? (Lk 11:15-26)

 

The Pharisees’ accusation that Jesus is an agent of the devil reveals a disturbing aspect about religion.  Religions can become dangerous when their adherents use their entrenched beliefs about devils and demons to depersonalize others and label them as “children of the devil”[1].  History shows that the danger comes from the way this label creates the illusion of an enemy who must be defeated in any way possible.  This type of psychological scapegoating of others is then often used to justify many forms of aggression and violence[2].

This is the dangerous path followed by the Pharisees.  They demonize Jesus with the lie that he is a child of the devil.  This illusion relies on their claim that Jesus derives his power to drive out demons from Beelzebub, the prince of demons.  This is a self-serving premise that allows the Pharisees to see Jesus as an enemy they aim to kill.  Jesus knows their type.  He therefore responds to their unfounded and distorted claim with a dilemma to expose the illusion created by their lie. 

On the one hand, if the Pharisees are correct, then their own people rely on the same power to expel demons.  In that case, Satan is a house divided and on the verge of falling.  If, on the other hand, they are wrong, then Jesus derives his power from God, and the kingdom of God has arrived.  In that case, the Pharisees are on the wrong side of history.  As Jesus puts it, “whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.”  There is no “in-between” when it comes to following Jesus.

The interesting question raised by this encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees has to do with the effectiveness of a lie.  Why does a lie work?  What is so appealing about the illusion that a lie creates?  A lie always operates on a self-serving premise that promises the illusion of satisfying some physical, psychological, or emotional need.  The greater the need, the greater the appeal of the illusion.  This makes it difficult at times to know the difference between a lie and the truth.  Some lies cannot be detected.  That is the nature of a lie.

But, Jesus shows us how to detect a lie most clearly in his own encounter with the devil in the desert.  We know the story.  After Jesus spends 40 days fasting in the desert, the devil offers him three proposals.  Each proposal operates on a self-serving premise that the devil uses to create the illusion of satisfying some need.  Jesus relies on the Word of God, his faith in God, and his love for the Father in crafting his response to each proposal (Mt 4:1-11). 

In the first proposal, the devil suggests that Jesus turn stones into bread to satisfy his physical hunger.  The devil hopes to create the illusion that life of the body takes priority over life of the soul.  Jesus responds with the Word of God to this first illusion by asserting that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Mt 4:4).  In other words, stay focused on the word of God as a sure guide to the right road.  The justification for satisfying all our needs has no better reference point than scripture itself.       

In the second proposal, the devil suggests that Jesus can prove God’s love by jumping off the parapet to test whether God will save him from harm.  The devil relies on a common fear of loss to create the illusion that God is unreliable and therefore will not save him.  Jesus responds with love for his father to this second illusion.  Because Jesus loves his father, he knows that our relationship with God calls for trust rather than suspicion (Mt 4:7).  Thus, Jesus responds to the second illusion with his command not to test God.  The point is, no matter what happens, God works all things to the good for those who love him and seek to do his will (Rm 8:28).  There is no better safety net than the one provided by the love of God. 

In the final proposal, the devil offers worldly kingdoms to Jesus in exchange for worship from Jesus.  The devil relies on the human propensity for greed to create the illusion that material wealth brings untold power and control.  For the greedy person, however, enough is never enough.  In that case, the pursuit of material wealth above all else is greed that amounts to worship of a false God.  Jesus responds with faith in God to the third illusion, and says that worship belongs to the true God alone; he is the only one to serve (Mt 4:10). 

Word, Faith, and Love are the tools Jesus relies on in exposing and responding to each illusion presented by the devil.  Jesus relies on the Word of God to feed his soul, his faith in God to sustain him in time of troubles, and his love for God as the guiding purpose of his life and mission.  His response in each case reveals the sure tools we also have to detect and disarm illusions of any kind, especially those offered by the devil (1 Cor 10:13; Jm 5:16).  In the words of St. James, with all humility and confidence, call on God [in Word, Faith and Love] for power to resist [the illusions offered by] the devil, and he will flee (Jm 4:7-10).

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[1] “A brief history of belief in the Devil” by Izak Spangenberg, Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 39 (2013), pp. 213-230.

[2] “The Zeal of Phinehas: The Bible and the Legitimation of Violence” by John J. Collins, The Journal of Biblical Literature 122 (2003), pp. 3-21.

Walk in the Light (Lk 10:13-16)

 

Jesus expresses frustration and disappointment with the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.  Although they were God’s chosen people, they had lost their bearings and no longer followed the way of the Lord.  They cherished their sins in a way that made them hard of heart and spiritually blind.  They no longer saw a need to repent.  Jesus performed many miracles in their cities to persuade them of God’s love for them, but their hearts remained closed.  As a result, they did not recognize God among them and refused to repent of their sins (Jn 9:41). 

To express his anguish over their being pigheaded, Jesus compared their response to the response of many people in the cities of Tyre and Sidon, who were pagans.  Although Jesus did not perform his mighty deeds in those cities, many there heard about his miracles and went to him for healing.  Their spiritual hunger generated hearts eager to receive the love of God.  With that goal in mind, they embraced the words of Jesus and came to believe in him (Mk 3:8; Lk 6:17).  Jesus indicates that many more would have repented had they seen the mighty deeds performed for God’s own people.    

The fact that those who witnessed the signs and wonders of Jesus, and yet, did not repent, reveals an everyday shortcoming of human nature.  We often tend to make ourselves spiritually blind to the extent that eventually we no longer recognize the love of God in our lives.  The reasons are many, but the end result comes about over time as a consequence of keeping our hearts closed (Rm 1:19-23).  We grab hold and hang on to those sins we cherish as rationally justified.  We no longer see them as sins, and we no longer see ourselves as rejecting the love of God.  We have made ourselves spiritually blind.

St. Paul seems to have understood more than most how to avoid this outcome. In his letter to the Ephesians, for example, Paul claims we guard against such results by choosing to put on a new self in imitation of Christ (Eph 4:22-24).  In Paul’s view, such a choice puts us in harmony with the Holy Spirit.  By deliberately renouncing our cherished sins—our anger, bitterness, jealousy, prejudice, injustice, and many others—we abandon that way of thinking and create room in our hearts for the love of God.  We free ourselves to follow Christ, and the love of God then motivates us to be more kind to one another, understanding, compassionate, and forgiving (Eph 4:30-32).  In the words of the prophet Ezequiel, we are transformed with new hearts made of flesh rather than stone (Ez 36:26).

We do not want to be like the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida who knew how to “judge the appearance of the sky” but could not judge the signs of the times (Mt 16:3).  That happens to all of us when we turn a deaf ear to the Holy Spirit.  We can say no to the Holy Spirit and go about our own way of doing things (Heb 3:7-9).  On the other hand, we can choose the right road with the light of Christ.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (Jn 8:12).  The light of Christ nourishes us and opens our hearts to perceive him whenever and wherever he shows himself.  With his light, we can see the way to imitate his love for others (Ps 119:105).