Word to the Wise
Wednesday, October 23, 2013 - Wednesday in the 29th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rom 6:12-18 and Luke 12:39-48]Sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires. And do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons for wickedness, but present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace. [Romans]
There is a humorous old saying about Catholicism that one unfortunately still finds true from time to time: "Everything is prohibited until it is permitted and then it is mandatory!" This reflects a world where nothing escapes legislation and regulation, giving rise to the attitude that only those things explicitly acknowledged and proclaimed by church authority are helpful to salvation! This exalts law over grace - as if God can be controlled by church legislation! In order to put this in proper perspective, the statement should be reversed: Grace is to be exalted over law! Once that is in place, then any law must reflect the aims of grace.
St. Paul faced this problem. If one did away with all the laws that governed Jewish identity and behavior, what was left to help people know how to behave and live as Jews? Would moral anarchy result? He says, "No! The new relationship with God through Christ in the Spirit will show that certain moral conduct is completely incompatible with faith." He did not do away with the Ten Commandments! The same would be true for gentile converts. If one reads the Letters to the Corinthians, there are some lists of improper or sinful behavior that St. Paul attacks! So, faith in Christ and rejection of the Mosaic Law did not mean "anything goes!" One's good behavior need not change at all, but comes about not because it is commanded by a law but because of the relationship with Christ. On a more prosaic level it is a bit like doing something not because we are commanded by a written rule but because we embrace a relationship and values. Salvation is a relationship and not a legal status. It cannot be legislated. At the same time we do need common ways. Jesus provided for these in ways that developed into the sacraments as we know them today. Even there, it is an encounter with Christ and not just a ritual! All of this reflects the constant challenge of understanding why we do what we do. is it because we have to obey a law, or is it because we believe in God and want to share this in common ways with other believers? AMEN