6th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s gospel scene - the Sermon on the Mount
– presents Jesus to us as the Wisdom of God.
But here we need to be absolutely clear.
Wisdom is much more than knowledge.
Knowledge gives us the facts of life; it knows about life. Wisdom knows how to live. Knowledge can define life. Wisdom decides how we are to live life this
day.
Jesus is the Wisdom of God. He shows us how to make decisions that
fulfill “the law and the prophets” – meaning – how to make decisions that do
God’s will – decisions that will make God’s vision of life into everyday
reality. So it would be deeply wrong to
understand what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount as offering us
wonderful ideals – a powerful ideology to inspire us. What Jesus is saying is not there for us just
to appreciate and applaud, however fervently.
Rather, Jesus tells us: “whoever obeys and teaches these commandments
will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Obeying is actually doing the
commandments. The obeying is the
doing. And when we actually do the
commandments, then, in that way, we also teach the commandments. The Sermon on the Mount is all about obeying,
doing, teaching. It’s all about obeying
Jesus by doing Jesus – and so teaching Jesus.
When we don’t do Jesus, then we reject him. And we deny his divinity. After all, he can’t be much of a God to us if
we do not obey him by doing him. And perhaps
we have found something else or someone else to rely on - maybe our American
culture - perhaps ourselves.
The Sermon on the Mount wants to be a
practical sermon on how we are to live Jesus – do Jesus – and so, teach Jesus
to others. And take note of this. In the
sermon Jesus pays special attention to where our actual behavior comes
from. His thinking is that if we can get
a handle on that, then we have a real chance at doing what he says.
For example, he says our violence comes from
the heart – from our anger. If we have a
care for where our heart is and where our anger is leading us, then we can
begin to do Jesus. Imagine a family, a
parish, a church – where we keep in touch with where our hearts are. That’s a community where anger can be transformed
into forgiveness.
Jesus says our adulteries – our abuse and
betrayal of others – these come from how we perceive people. “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust,…”
he says to us. We need to become aware
of how we really do perceive people. They
are not there for our use and convenience.
People are not appliances. That
would be the worst kind of pornography.
He takes on the culture of his day and its
practice of divorce. In that culture the
husband only needed to make a declaration of divorce to effect the divorce and
send his wife away. Marriage and divorce
embodied male privilege. Jesus is saying
to us: become aware of the power structures in which you live. Unjust structures enable unjust
behavior. “Thou shalt not” also applies
to accepted institutions and practices.
What is powerful and who are powerful must be held to
accountability. I think in the Church we
have a challenging journey ahead of us: to create suitable structures of
accountability for all the people of God – including pastors and bishops.
Finally, he talks to us about how we are to
talk and communicate with one another.
And he says we are to let the simple truth guide our conversations –
simply the truth. Doing that simple
truth will enable us finally to trust one another. That’s a trust we so much need to move beyond
our suspicions and cynicism.
Above all, we should let our lives speak Jesus
– speak Jesus simply. He is our
way. He is our truth. Jesus is our life. As Pope Francis reminds us, what the world
yearns for is not more words, however clever and eloquent. What the world yearns for is witness – the
witness of our lives as disciples of Jesus – the living Christ.
Let us obey Christ. Let us do Christ. Let us teach Christ – the Wisdom of God.
Fr. Pat Earl, SJ
No comments:
Post a Comment