Word to the Wise
Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - 3rd Week of Lent - Wed
[Deut 4:1, 5-9 and Matt 5:17-19]Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
We Americans have great veneration for our constitution. We have enshrined one of the original copies in a special display case in a special building in the nation's capital. We would be very uneasy if some public official considered himself "above the constitution," or claim to personify it and therefore replace it! We have rejectedsuch institutions as monarchy or a cult of the leader in favor of a democratic system that is itself enshrined in the words of the constitution. We are particularly sensitive to the part of the constitution called "the Bill of Rights." Our reverence for the constitution as somehow containing "the American way of life" can help us to understand today's scriptures, both of which refer to the Mosaic Law.
The community to which the Gospel of Matthew was originally addressed seems to have had many Jewish members who were concerned about the continuation of their way of life and especially about the Law of Moses, which, for them, represented God's will. Matthew shows Jesus as a kind of "new Moses" who brings a teaching which respects the law of Moses, but transcends it. The same concern would create a terrific tension in the ministry of St. Paul, who would argue successfully that those who were not Jews originally would not be bound by the law of Moses when they became Christians!
Nevertheless, we Christians must never forget that our fundamental moral code comes from the law of Moses in the form of the Ten Commandments! Furthermore, we should never forget that Jesus quotes sections of the law of Moses when he teaches that love of God and neighbor is the highest law! We accept Jesus as the "fulfillment" and "replacement" of the law of Moses. We should not consider him as the "eraser" of that revelation. He is, as the Gospel of Matthew portrays him, the "new Moses!" Perhaps this Lent we could read his "sermon on the mount" and see it as a Christian "constitution" that builds on all that came before it. AMEN
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