Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time A
A
truck driver stops in a restaurant
and
orders himself a big, juicy steak.
But
before he gets to take the first bite,
a rough-and-tumble
motorcycle gang comes barging in.
They
take the man’s steak, cut it into pieces,
and
eat the whole thing between themselves.
The
trucker driver says nothing;
he
simply pays his bill and walks out.
The
bikers are stunned.
“Must
be that trucker can’t talk,” says one,
“since
he didn’t speak a word.”
“And
must be he can’t fight,” says another,
“since
he didn’t lift a hand.”
“Must
be he can’t drive, either,” adds the waiter,
“since
he just ran over every one of your motorcycles
as
he pulled out of the parking lot.”
Not
exactly “turn the other cheek”…
Again
this week,
we
hear Jesus delivering part of his famous Sermon on the Mount.
As
a preacher, he pulls no punches.
Last
week, Jesus took on angry thoughts, hurtful words,
lustful
looks, divorce, remarriage,
and
keeping your word.
This
week, it’s our distorted sense of justice:
our
instincts about retaliation,
about
who we ought to love and who we ought to hate.
With
so many hot button topics on the table,
so
many ways he’s challenging us
to
change our basic approach to relating with one another,
we
can completely miss Jesus’ most controversial words of all.
And
what are they?
Well,
he repeats them over and over:
You have heard it said…but I
say to you…
So…where’s
the controversy in that?
When
Jesus says, “You’ve heard it said…”
he’s
citing the Old Testament law—
one
of the easily recognized Ten Commandments
or another
of hundreds of dictates and decrees.
“You’ve
heard it said…”
Who
said it in the first place?
Who’s
the author of that Old Testament law?
Any
Jew who heard Jesus speaking
could
have told you that that law was the very word of God.
And
to dare to claim to have the authority
to edit, rework, or—heavens!—actually change that sacred law
to edit, rework, or—heavens!—actually change that sacred law
would
be to claim to be equal to God himself.
The
only one who gets to alter God’s law is God.
“If
you’re going to follow me,
and
if you want to be heirs of all that I promise,
then
you have to believe that I am God…
…and
that will change everything.”
And
that, my friends, is something far, far more revolutionary
than
“turn the other cheek.”
Fifty
years ago, the Catholic Church
And
ever since then, there have been cries from many corners
to
keep alive the “spirit of Vatican II.”
Twenty-one
times in her long history—
on
average, once every hundred years or so—
the
Church has found it necessary
to
pretty much stop everything for just a while
to do
some real soul-searching—
addressing
the pressing questions and controversies of the times—
and
to get everything back on track.
And
when a Council is over,
the
Church gets back down to business—
to
proclaiming the gospel, caring for the poor,
setting
the heavy-burdened free—
stronger
and more focused
for
having taken the time to look deeply into her own heart.
Vatican
II, we know,
sparked
some significant changes in the Church—
in
some ways bringing things more up-to-date,
while
in other ways getting us back closer to our roots.
But
the desire to “keep alive” the spirit of the Council
may
have gotten us a bit off course.
For
the last 50 years, you see,
the
Catholic Church has been in a nearly constant state of change,
which
can give the false impression
that
everything about her—
whether
conventional discipline or essential doctrine—
is totally
up for grabs.
That
leaves the Church rather unsettled
and
with a bit of an identity crisis.
It
also leads to factions and in-fighting.
Just
think about how quickly anything said by Pope Francis these days
is heralded
as proof for one side’s argument over the other’s.
Little
wonder we have trouble keeping current members
and
attracting new ones in recent years.
Who
wants to part of an outfit whose
main purpose
seems simply to be figuring itself out? (cf. R. Barron)
It’s
high time we get back down to business!
The
mission and teaching of the Church are not ours to alter at will—
to
remake according to our own preferences
or
pressure from the surrounding culture.
Not
even the Pope himself
nor
the Cardinals now assembled with him in Rome get to do that.
The
Lord alone gets to do the changing, if any change is to take place—
and
when the Lord wants to change things,
he generally
starts by changing us from the inside.
Be perfect, just as your
Father is perfect.
Jesus
has a set an incredibly high standard—
so
high, that it can leave us disheartened.
Why
couldn’t he have just suggested
that
we become “basically good people”?
Our
own efforts will always leave us less than “perfect.”
We
still want to side with that trucker!
But
the heart of the Gospel—the really good
news—
is
that we can become perfect:
not
by our own human power,
but
by the grace of God offered us in his Son, Jesus Christ.
It
is because Jesus is God
that
we are able—in him—to become more and more like God.
If
he were merely a good person, an exemplary moral teacher,
then
Jesus would be able to do nothing of lasting value for us.
But
because he is true God and true man,
because
he is Redeemer and Lord,
Jesus
can transform us
into
ever more worthy temples of his Holy Spirit. (cf. J. Janaro)
Are
we ready to get back to business?
Ready
for some real change?
If
so, then:
Jesus,
change us!
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