Our Gospel readings at daily Mass the past week and a half have been an intense series of confrontations rendered by Jesus. The first part of last week, Jesus confronts demons and casts them out of people. Then he turns his attention to the Pharisees and their legalism. Today, he gives the finest homily ever given in oral form, the Sermon on the Mount or the Beatitudes.
This can give us pause and time to reflect what role “law” plays in our spiritual lives.
Religious laws have several functions, but one of them is this: to point out our sin and our fundamental dependence on God and his grace. The law turns our attention to ourselves and helps us recognize that we are sinful people, in need of great humility, and radically dependent on God for all things. Law should turn our attention inward and not be reason to turn outward in judgment of our brothers and sisters. The Pharisees used the law as a reason to condemn others. They failed to see that the law brings death, not life. They were guilty of a form of idolatry in that they seemed to make the law a god.
God alone gives life. Life comes from our sharing in the life and love of God. We are called by virtue of our baptisms to a life of holiness, to divinization (as our Eastern rite brothers and sisters would say), to being drawn up into the life of the Trinity.
Jesus over and over again tries to impress that upon people. St. Paul was vehement about it. Adherence to the law does not give life, only faith (relationship) with God in his Son Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit brings eternal life. God is Life. He shares himself with us. He shares with us his life.
Let us not be caught up in worshipping the legalities of religious practice as if they were the God whom we must worship. Laws are important, as Jesus said. He did not abolish them, he simply fulfilled them, that is, he came to give us the life that adherence to the law alone could not provide.
So, obey the laws my friends by recognizing in them the weaknesses that are ours and our need of divine love and forgiveness. Do not worship them though for you will find no happiness in them alone.
