Most of us probably feel good about ourselves. We're not murderers, we're not extreme racists, we're not the greediest of CEOs. We are ordinary citizens with ordinary lives in ordinary jobs. We can't be that bad can we? As long as I don't intrude on to others, I'm not a menace to society. Yet Jesus does not aim for the minimal amount of goodness; he aims for perfection.
As he continues to preach the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord begins to talk about the law of Moses. He begins to extend the meaning of that law not nearly to the words of the law, but to the spirit of the law, the intent of God in the law. Jesus announces from the beginning of this passage that he is not setting up something new, something completely foreign to all that they had known. He comes, as he said, "not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.“ Everything that Jesus is doing here is based on the law and the prophets, all of which flow from and point to himself. But now that he has arrived, he reveals to us the full meaning of the law.
The law of God is not merely the literal words of the law. If that were the case, but all that we would need to be was one of the Pharisees, who sought to observe those little words as perfectly as possible. However, Jesus calls his disciples to a righteousness greater than that of the Pharisees. How is that possible? It is only possible if it means more than what is written on the stone tablets of the Commandments, more than can be found in the prophets.
Our Lord begins to explain what he means by pointing to the most important and the most commonly observed Commandments. He begins to show us the great depths of the law and how they apply not merely to action but also just thought, not just the outside but the inside as well. Many of these things seem easy to do: how many of us actually kill? How many of us actually commit adultery? How many of us actually swear? But Jesus begins to reveal the fullness of truth, the fullness of the law.
Most likely, none of us have committed murder in the physical sense. But, most likely, all of us have committed murder in the way we have treated others. Through gossip, rumors, lies, we murder the character of others. Most likely not a few of us have physically committed adultery. But most likely all of us have committed adultery in the way we are treated others. By our use of the media, by the way we gaze at others, by the way we fantasize about others, we violate our vows of marriage or the state of chastity to which all of us are called. He even goes so far as to overturn something allowed by Moses: the right of divorce. Jesus will say later on in the Gospel that Moses allowed this because of the hardness of our hearts, yet the true state of marriage as instituted by God does not permit divorce for any random reason.
In all of this, our Lord is wishing to elevate us beyond a legal perspective of goodness or holiness, to a more divine perspective. God desires not a purely legal observance of the law, but a total observance. This can be seen not just in the teachings of Jesus but in the example of his life, in which he shows us His complete obedience to the Father in everything that he does, even the cross. It is not an obedience that merely seeks to get by, to do the bare minimum, but the obedience of a child wishing to please their father.
This is the wisdom that Saint Paul speaks of in our second reading. It is not the human wisdom that seeks only pleasure, but the divine wisdom that desires love. It is this divine wisdom that is revealed by Jesus for our good, for our sanctification. His desire in all of this is to lead us away from the fires, away from falling into Gehenna, His image for Hell. He desires not merely that we avoid hell, but that we seek to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, by not only obeying but also teaching these commandments to others so that they may obey, so that they may enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Sirach in our first reading talks about two paths: fire and water. Shall we choose the path that leads to the waters of eternal life, or shall we choose the path that leads to the fires of hell? Brethren, we still have a long way to go before we are completely good. Perhaps we are not Hitler or Stalin or any of the great despots, but we still have a long way to go to become what we were created to be. As the season of Lent approaches in a few weeks, let us renew our desire to obey the law; not just the law on the stone tablets, but the law written into our hearts and revealed to us by Jesus. Let us abandon our sins and take up the word of Christ that offers us salvation. Even if we have failed, let us run to the confessional to receive his mercy and to start anew on this path of salvation. Let us pray that we may completely obey the law as Jesus did so that we may indeed be worthy of entering into the kingdom of heaven.
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