Friday Gospel Recharge: A Reflection on the Gospel of Matthew 5: 20-26

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Matthew 5: 20 - 26 

(1st Friday of Lent, Year B of the Liturgical Calander, 2024)

Beyond the embodiment of Dogma: mercy

If you're not familiar with the Gospels, Jesus' main opponents are the Scribes and Pharisees. Aware of the Roman occupant and the burdens they impose, Jesus notes their hefty tax on his people, though it's not a significant issue in his earthly ministry. The insignificance of the Roman occupants may relate to Jesus' vision of a new Jerusalem, restructuring the Davidic Kingdom to include all nations and ethnic groups in the divine family.

 

Jesus' concern with the Scribes and Pharisees lies in their strict adherence to the written law, suggesting a legalistic approach to religious practices. Jesus is deeply troubled by their strict interpretation of the law, recognizing the burden it imposes on people's physical and spiritual well-being. They have either forsaken the Mosaic Law in favor of pagan practices or grown accustomed to a rigid observance, lacking mercy in their social and pastoral approach to the Judaic community. To address this, Jesus confronts not the foreign occupants, but those hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees whose understanding and practice of the Law deviate from a traditional interpretation centered on God’s letter of the text—love and mercy.

 

In today’s Gospel, the Scribes and the Pharisees feature once again in another of Jesus’ messages: “‘If your virtue goes no deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus presents this message to his audience so to challenge them to go beyond the superficial adherence to rules and regulations. Indeed, it’s just “not to kill,” and to present those who do murder “before the court,” which we read here. However, God’s measure of justice goes beyond the strict line that could only see it to mean giving unto one what one only deserves. In fact justice should be an act of mercy and mercy an act of justice. In numerous occasions Jesus presents this notion in his teachings. For example, the parable of the workers in the vineyard, Jesus teaches us that mercy is at the heart of justice. In this parable, the vineyard owner pays those who do a days work a days wage, and those who work only half or one tenth of a days work also a days wage. 

 

In today’s Gospel account, Jesus brings home the message emphasising that mercy is a virtue that proceeds from God. He says, if anyone is angry with his brother, be reconciled with him first, before making your offering of sacrifice. For the measure of love one shows to another will be the measure God will show unto him. Jesus wants us to empathise with those who disappoint or break relationship with us. People are complex beings and often their distorted thinking, their broken ways will determine how they act. They don’t necessarily mean to harm us, it’s just that their judgment in executing the good is an erroneous one, and this can be forgiven. God understands we can fail him a lot of the time too; he is aware that our fallen nature informs our decisions which is unpleasant and frustrating to him; however he wants us to hold off the cane and see how those who have hurt us or others in the community as God would, empathising with his plight.

 

Showing mercy is tough. This is because we have a very bad opponent, the devil, who entices us to remain unreconciled people. Yes, we may have opponents in this world: former friends, colleagues, enemy nation states, although our greatest opponent is the devil: for he influences humans to become our opponents. The best approach to warding off this vile creature is by staying close to the principalities of heaven such as our guardian angel and all the angelic and saintly hosts of heaven. We must pray to them for their protection; indeed we can pray directly to God too for his intercession however God’s community in heaven do not exist in a passive state. They are active in our redemption longing that we might be saved along with them. So, pray to your guardian angel or any other heavenly host with whom you have or want a close relationship. If we fail in this area, we might indeed fester human opponents for a lifetime. As this gospel message suggests, lifelong opponents amounts to an unfavourable judgment. if this case might be, we will then have the devil and his colleagues of hell accuse and torment us for an eternity, asking the question: why did you not reconcile with your brother when you had the chance. A scary yet just and merciful outcome for those who die in their sins.

 

As we continue to journey this Lent, towards Calvary where Jesus died for the forgiveness of sins, let’s pray for the grace to ward off the evil spirits that prey we might become rigid and unforgiving people. Let us also ask for the insight in people’s plight and the grace to be forgiving people. Let us pray that our broken relationships might be mended, representing the divine essence of the tri-persons of God which is love. 

Friday Gospel Recharge: A Reflection on the Gospel of Matthew 9: 14-15

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Matthew 9: 14 - 15

(Friday after Ash Wednesday, Year B of the Liturgical Calander, 2024)

Desiring God again through our Lenten observance

As humans, we can be very ambitious creatures. This is very evident in the world we live in today; it’s observed in people’s pursuit for money, power, fame, riches, honour, innovation - a phenomenon that stretches as far back since time began: “Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens’” (Exodus 11:14).

We don’t want a small portion of these pleasurable goods either, it’s always in abundance and more than we could possess. People’s pursuit for pleasurable things come from an innate desire for them. When we desire something, be that money, maybe even just a single scoop of banana flavoured ice cream, the chase is on until we behold the desire stirred within. Until the desirable object is secured, our wanting will still remain strong.

The idea of desire can also be found in today’s Gospel. We hear of Jesus’ disciples criticised for not fasting while the disciples of John the Baptist do. Jesus addresses his critics by saying that when the bridegroom is absent, his followers will fast. After all, what is the point of fasting in times of a feast? When we attend a wedding banquet, often we find an abundance of food, drink, sex. Very rarely - if ever - are we invited to put on sackcloth and mourn for the newly wedded.

The discussion on fasting in this Gospel seems contradictory in comparison with the idea of desire, for desire often draws one towards what they want strongly instead of stepping back from the goods and pleasures that give quality and proper satisfaction. If we desire pleasure of all sorts and to experience them must come through consumption instead of fasting and abstinence of them, then this Gospel indicates something more than what we already know about the phenomenon of human desire.

Other than seeking pleasure in the usual natural goods, people everywhere have a desire for a higher good, something which is not exactly composed of form and matter. “They seek me day after day” says Isaiah in our first reading, “they long to know my ways,” continues the prophet. From all ages, every culture and ethnic race from Solomon Islands to Sweden have wanted to intimately know a higher being known as God. Some cultures have reduced God to an animal or some vegetable matter, while other cultures have reduced him as a man. Perhaps the reduction of God as a form of some material object is so that through our senses, humans of times past might possess that most desirable object which has spoken to the heart since our first parents took their first breath.

According to our faith, God is neither here nor there. He is above and beyond this timely existence; he, as that brilliant theologian has taught, is the act of existence whose essence cannot be distinguished from his existence. Our faith also teaches that God is one of love who knows no limit; this is best represented by Jesus on the cross. However, our faith goes on to teach that irrespective of our personal longing to know God, God is also jealous of our love and attention, delighting in our pursuit after him: “You shall not bow down to them (idols) or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20: 5-6).

If our God is one of love and yet is also jealous for our attention, it informs that our means to being with God is through the pathway of love. Love always entails sacrifice, and since God’s love is unconditional, our sacrifices should follow similarly. It means that when we give, we do so from the point where we expect nothing in return, desiring only that the other we have shown service towards may receive the best and all that our labour is worth. When our sacrifices are not geared towards our unfocused-selves, entailing something in return, even just the slightest recognition for the activity done, then our sacrifice cannot be described a true sacrifice. For Jesus our example did not take the honour for his death on the cross but for the glory of God, and it’s because of the glory he gave to his Father we remember him and can truly love him.

Lent is a period in the Church’s liturgical calendar that summons the faithful to fasting and abstinence. It’s a period where we take on more sacrifices. The purpose of our Lenten penances isn’t for the sole purpose of developing a habit to endure self-inflicting pain, or to focus ourselves on glum penances. Instead, Lent is a time to learn to desire God again, through the sacrifices we make for him. It’s in sacrifice of money, wealth, and the other pleasures of life that something greater outside ourselves and the world exists, whose love for us and can give us more than anything the world can give.

This is what Jesus meant by today’s Gospel. When he has gone to the Father, his disciples will desire to be with him again. Until then, they will fast. For now, they remain in the good company of God whose presence satisfies their hearts desires; they need not to fast. So remember, when you have decided your Lenten penance, it’s done to draw us closer to God, to trust in his support for our existence, to support that innate desire to be with him again. Do not fear of giving something up this Lent, for God is with us during this time of fasting and abstinence.