“Can’t you just do as you’re told for once!”
Maybe you remember being on the receiving end of that comment, or maybe you’ve been on the other side of the conversation. Maybe you’ve been fortunate not to have said it out loud, but haven’t you felt it sometime?
Instructions, commandments, “just do it” – they are a natural part of the way we think. So the fact that God should give us instructions and commandments, and expects us to comply, seems quite natural to us. Jesus says in today’s Gospel (Mt 5:17-37) that he hasn’t come to change anything about that. The rules are still the rules!
But is that really how Jesus is looking at it? He actually goes on to modify “the rules” in a pretty major way. And he takes another clear swipe at the scribes and the Pharisees, who were the preeminent guys for following the rules. So maybe we need to take another look at this whole Law / Commandments / rules deal?
What is striking about Jesus’ reformulation of the rules is not so much that he seems to be making them stricter, but that he is personalizing them. He is asking us to look beyond a rule of conduct to the relationship that it relates to. The Law is not a set of rules to be followed mechanically, but a way of living – a way of living that puts us in relationship with God by focusing on our relationships with those around us. That’s why there are so many passages of scripture that talk about the Law giving life (Psalm 119, for example, is an extended meditation on this point). No one ever talked about the California Code or any other set of human laws in that way!
We might also note that over the centuries the Church seems to have taken an all too human perspective on law (and punishment). The shifting of this perspective which was evident at the Second Vatican Council and is often very apparent in the words of Pope Francis can be disconcerting. But just as saying to one’s children, or anyone else, “just do as you’re told” is not usually a winning strategy for improving a relationship, so we should be willing to consider that that is not how God wants to treat us either.
When a relationship breaks, whether a friendship, a marriage or any act of violence, what Jesus is giving us is not a set of even stricter laws that we can throw around – he telling us to go fix the relationship. And that goes even for our relationship with God – swearing an oath is a particularly pointless way of abusing our relationship with God. God doesn’t want to be treated as a party to some sort of legal contract. He wants to love us, and for us to love him.
Even before Jesus, Sirach points out (Sir 15:15-20): If you choose you can keep the commandments
… Not to say we won’t do things wrong, but we can hold onto that relationship which God offers: Then they will save you
… if you trust in God, you too shall live
The first demand is trust. Obedience follows on. And when it’s imperfect (as God knows it will be) then trust carries us through our failures.