SIXTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME A

[cappie]

Today's Gospel lesson is a continuation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.  Matthew obviously had some purpose in mind as he produced his edition of Jesus' teaching.  The Sermon on the Mount, establishes Jesus' authority as a teacher.

The community for whom Matthew was writing were Jewish Christians, Jews who believed the Gospel. These Jewish Christians were being persecuted by other Jews: charged with heresy and beginning to be expelled from the synagogues. It is possible that some in Matthew's community were beginning to believe that their critics were correct that the Jews who followed the teacher Jesus had abandoned the Torah of God, which made a Jew a Jew.

Countering this belief Matthew emphasizes that Jesus did not put aside the Law, rather Jesus says: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil...For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (5:17, 20).

Jesus now quotes the Law and then comments on it. He quotes the commandment on murder, on adultery, on bearing witness. But in his commentary, he expands it: one kills not just in the act of taking a life but whenever one is angry or levies abuse and insults. Likewise, one commits adultery not just in the physical act, but whenever one lusts after another, even if only in the imagination of the heart. It is not good enough that one not bear false witness but at all times a person's word must be truthful

In short, Jesus commands his followers to go beyond merely observing the Law. They must expand their observance of the Law into all aspects of their lives, inwardly as well as outwardly so that their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, in order that there be no grounds for the charges that the Jewish Christians had abandoned the Law, the basic religious and moral code of Jewish society.

What has that got to do with us?  Is this teaching applicable in our situation? 

Just as those first century Jews -Christians to whom Matthew was writing had to live by a moral standard above and beyond what was legitimately expected by their contemporaries, so too, we 21st century Christians are called to live by a moral standard above and beyond that expected by our society.  And this striving for perfection must affect every facet of our lives, from the way we deal with our anger to the value people can put on our speech, knowing that whatever we say, whenever we say it, is truthful.

But then you say, "That's impossible, I can't be perfect. Besides, are you telling me that I have to work my way into heaven?"

None of us can achieve on our own that perfection to which we are called.   We do it because of Jesus. Jesus has called us to share the perfect life of the Kingdom of Heaven with him. And we strive for that perfection knowing as Paul tells us and the Corinthians in today's Second Reading, that God gives us the ability to grow, to grow into the full, mature stature of the sons and daughters of God, to be transformed bit by bit by the grace of God into the perfect life of the Child of God, Jesus our brother.

That is our calling: to be transformed daily in the way that we live inwardly and outwardly in order to reveal to the world around us that in Jesus we have found something. We have found a new way of living. It is a way of living marked by a desire to make peace with those whom we have wronged or who have wronged us. It is a way of living marked by a respect for others for who they are not as mere objects. It is a way of living marked by a commitment to the truth so strong that our "Yes" means "Yes" and our "No", "No". Above all it is a way of living made possible only through the Grace of God, who loves us, who has redeemed us from sin and death and who makes us Holy.