September 4, 2011 - Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading - Ezekiel 33:7-9
Thus says the LORD: You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me. If I tell the wicked, "O wicked one, you shall surely die, "and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked from his way, the wicked shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself.
Responsorial Psalm - Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9
R. (8)If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us sing joyfully to the LORD; let us acclaim the rock of our salvation.
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us joyfully sing psalms to him.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the LORD who made us.
For he is our God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides.
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Oh, that today you would hear his voice: "Harden not your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the desert, Where your fathers tempted me; they tested me though they had seen my works."
R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
Second Reading - Romans 13:8-10
Brothers and sisters: Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not covet, " and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence, love is the fulfillment of the law.
Gospel - Matthew 18:15-20
Jesus said to his disciples: "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother. If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that 'every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church.
If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Reflection
Frequently, we feel oppressed by “the law.” Stifled. Suffocated. Restrained. Handcuffed. Possibly even imprisoned. We perceive “the law” as a constraint on human freedom and an implicit indictment of our ability as moral agents to make good decisions. We don’t trust you to drive at a safe speed, so we establish a speed limit and post cops along the side of the road to enforce it. We can’t be sure you won’t abuse alcohol or other controlled substances, and so we draft legislation that curtails who can have access to these chemicals and under what circumstances they are made available. And that’s just the criminal code. The majority of law, at least in the United States, is civil law. Contract law. Property law. The sorts of statutes and clauses that spell out exactly who owes whom what, for how long, and at what cost. Codifications of the process by which comes to inherit a piece of land or the deed to a house, and the concomitant tax law delineating precisely how much that newfound property will cost you. The law is not something that elicits a great deal of affection from most ordinary citizens.
And yet, in today’s readings, we encounter a decidedly different description of the law, i.e. “love is the fulfillment of the law.” If one were to plod through the entirety of the United States Internal Revenue Code or pore over the details of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, “love” is unlikely to be the first word that comes to mind to describe them. So what does it mean for Paul to assert that, in loving one another, we fulfill the law?
For the Jewish people, the law was not understood to be a constraining apparatus, preventing them from living as they pleased; rather, The Law, or Torah (for Torah means “Law”) was seen as given from God for their flourishing. The purpose of the 611 commandments contained in the Biblical Pentateuch was to facilitate social relationships in such a way that the community coexisted peacefully and cooperatively. There are the 10 (major) Commandments, of course, that quite obviously aim to prevent a descent into conflict, insofar as adultery, theft, and murder tend to be pretty serious obstacles to social cohesion in a tribal society (or any society, for that matter). But even the more obscure commandments, such as those governing the proper response should a neighbor accidentally kill one’s ox, were designed to allow the community to live in harmony and stability. (The unintentional killing of a goat might be forgiven by one neighbor, but another might be willing to go to war over it. Having a clearly laid out set of rules by which such matters are to be resolved was essential to tribal life.)
Underlying all of these laws, then, was the foundation of human relationship. All of Torah concerns itself with the question of justice, of dikaiosune, as it is translated in Greek. Not justice as we commonly conceive of it, but as being in right relationship with every other created being in the cosmos. Thus, dikaiosune does not simply concern itself with what I owe the government, should I inherit a large amount of money from a deceased relative, but with what I owe everyone and everything in my daily life. What I “owe” my mother as her child. What I “owe” the environment as entrusted with its care and stewardship by God. What I “owe” both the guy down the hall who drives me nuts and myself, as persons, each of us, created in the image and likeness of God. Clearly these sorts of relationships are not all the domain of “the law” as we often think of it, i.e. the law of the state. Rather, such laws permeate every aspect of our life, inasmuch as we are intrinsically relational beings.
If relationships undergird the law, then love must be both its impetus and fulfillment. Too often, we view adherence to the law as a product of fear, usually fear of consequences should we fail to do so. When we are young, we obey our parents for fear that they will punish us otherwise, and once we are older, we obey the speed limit because we are afraid we will get caught (and hit with a speeding ticket). Properly understood, however, both of these forms of “obedience” ought to be aimed at love. I listen to my mother’s instructions that I be home by midnight not because I am afraid of getting grounded if she finds out I’ve disobeyed, but because I love my mother and I do not want her sitting up all night, racked with anxiety over my whereabouts and well-being. Likewise, I drive under the speed limit not because I fear a ticket, but because I love my neighbors so much that I could never consciously decide that it was worth arriving a few minutes early at the ballpark if my recklessness endangered other people’s lives.
Paul exhorts us to begin first with the conviction that love is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Christ. From this, our love of those around us compels us to cultivate right relationship with them, whatever that may mean. If we start from a place of love—and see still greater love as the goal—then it will not feel like we “owe” our obedience to authority or adherence to the law. Instead, we will begin to feel a genuine sense of joy, that we are able to express our love to others through the establishment and furthering of these right relationships.
Parents are often asked what they would like for their birthday, and it is not uncommon for them to respond something to the effect of, “What I’d really like is for my kids, just for a day, to do all their chores; not to start fights with one another; and to listen to everything I say.” Ask any parent, teacher, or coach. Far more demonstrative of the authenticity of one’s love than any present purchased at the store, is a sincere attempt to be in right relationship with that person. Teachers don’t want their students to express love by giving them $25 gift cards to Target (although those are nice); they want their students to be quiet in class and listen when instructions are given.
This is what Paul means in his letter to the Romans, and this is what Jesus expounds upon throughout his many teachings on the law. To love our neighbor, as Jesus commands us, means to cultivate right relationship with them. And, in doing so, we will find that the love between our individual selves is multiplied and compounded, becoming a part of the larger collective of love constructed by the entire Christian community. Our challenge, then, is to discern what that love requires from us in each of our distinct relationships—to our parents; to our friends; to our siblings; to our bosses, coaches, and instructors; to drought-afflicted populations in Africa and to war-torn regions in the Middle East. There may be no national statute articulating what we “owe” to homeless veterans who loiter outside local restaurants, nor any international political body with the authority to legislate what we “owe” children dying of dysentery in Haiti; but justice, dikaiosune, invites us to consider what we “owe” them, what love compels us to do, out of love.
Questions for Reflection
1) When you hear the word, “law,” what are some of the first words that come to mind? Do you generally have a favorable view of “the law?” Unfavorable? Begrudging acceptance as necessary for life in a civilized society?
2) Are there any particular laws, whether of the civil state or the Catholic Church, that you struggle with? What about them causes you to struggle? If you had to describe what you think the purpose/motivation for them was, what would you say it was?
3) What are some of the important relationships in your current life? Roommates, boy/girlfriends, parents, professors, etc. What does justice, i.e. “being in right relationship” with each of them entail?
4) How does it strike you that love might be motivated by and fulfilled in love? If you were to start from a place of loving the other, how might some of your interactions with those you are in relationship with, be different?
5) Jesus instructs us that we should “love one another as you love yourself”… what does loving ONESELF require? How might we do justice, that is, be in right relationship, with ourselves? What sorts of “laws,” (e.g. get enough sleep; eat healthy; find time for prayer; etc.) might we obey out of love for self?
