A New Law For New Life

A New Law For New Life

Seventh week of the Year: Friday, May 20, 2016

Mark 10:1-12. Year I: Sirach 6:5-17; Psalm 119:12-35; Year II: James 5:9-12; Psalm 10:1-12.

Jesus cannot be accused of remaining abstract. Having established that the Good News is greater than anything humans could conceive of, both in what it promises and in what it demands — and having shown himself transfigured as the source of it — he goes on to show how the Good News transfigures two of the most basic values in human life: sexual love and (Mark 10:21) property ownership (see Monday, Eighth Week).

Some Pharisees introduce the first issue by asking what Jesus thinks about divorce. Knowing their legalistic mentality, Jesus asks, “What did Moses command you?” They answer, “Moses permitted divorce.” Jesus replies, “He wrote that commandment for you because of your hardness of heart.” Then he goes on to explain what marriage is in God’s eyes: “The two become one flesh. They are no longer two, but one flesh. So what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Jesus didn’t get into a discussion about divorce under the Old Law. He goes to a different level and explains the ideal of sacramental marriage as God sees it, and points out that—on the plane of his New Law, where words take on a higher meaning—to divorce a wife just to marry another is like adultery. But before we presume that “adultery” means the same thing every time it is used in the Bible, we need to consult the Scripture scholars. In our ordinary speech there is a difference between the clear adultery of having an uncommitted affair with a married person and the less clear “adultery” of entering into an official, if non-sacramental, second marriage with a divorced person, intending to sustain the new relationship “till death do us part.” How was Jesus using the word when he applied it to those who remarried?

If we take Jesus literally when he says, “Whoever divorces his wife… and marries another commits adultery,” we have to take him literally when he says in Matthew 19:9 and 24, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”—that is, impossible. The inescapable literal conclusion would be that we have to deny Communion to everyone who is rich.

Divorce is not part of God’s plan; it goes against the way things are supposed to be — something keenly felt by every person who has suffered through the experience of one. This prompted the great moral theologian Father Bernard Häring to write: “Personally, I would be ashamed of myself if I felt even the slightest temptation to judge divorced and remarried people as ‘living objectively in a state of grave sin’ after they have suffered so much pain and humiliation in the total breakdown of their first marriage” (Priesthood Imperiled, pp. 24, 42).

Jesus is not making a precise law. He is holding up an ideal. But in her pastoral policy the Church doesn’t have that option. She has to translate ideals into practical laws to keep the community united. Where Jesus just speaks of “divorce,” Canon Law specialists will spell out precisely “after a ratified and consummated sacramental marriage between two baptized persons.” And they will specify the legal consequences of entering into another marriage not recognized by Church law. Jesus isn’t speaking like this.

Church law allows divorce and remarriage in certain cases and for the sake of a higher good: for example, the conversion of one of the parties. And laws have changed over the years (see the New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship, 1990; Code of Canon Law, 1141-1150; and google “Pauline, Petrine Privilege”). Jesus’ focus was not on crafting a law, but on presenting marriage as God envisions and desires it. He is teaching us how to “be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). To be authentic Christians, this is the kind of marriage we have to believe in. Whether we are always able to live up to it in practice is important, but most important is our heart’s sincere desire to try, and never to be comfortable with less.

Initiative: Give God’s life: Clarify why, as an ideal, Church teaching on marriage inspires you.

What Shocks Doesn’t Scandalize

What Shocks Doesn’t Scandalize

Seventh week of the Year:  Thursday,  May 19, 2016

Mark 9:41-50. Year I: Sirach 5:1-8; Psalm 1:1-6; Year II: James 5:1-6; Psalm 49:14-20.

Jesus likes children because they are still discovering the world; they haven’t got fixed ideas yet that rule out anything new. They are open to truth.

This also makes them vulnerable to error. If they see bad behavior and values accepted, they may accept what they see as normal. As adults we need to be aware that children are never just observing us; they are learning from us. And more from our actions than from our words. Jesus warns us not to “scandalize” them.

To “scandalize” does not mean to shock. People seldom imitate what shocks them. To scandalize is to cause others to lower their ideals. This usually happens when we do something not blatantly bad, but just a little less than what Jesus teaches. Usually it is some little thing that at first appears contrary to what Jesus has said, but which, on second thought, seems reasonable. Or at least not worth bothering about. We lower each other’s ideas one notch at a time. We scandalize by inches.

When it comes to the radical teaching of Jesus, scandal becomes the rule rather than the exception. The “doctrine of the cross,” calling us to “love back” even at the cost of our lives, is not reasonable; it goes beyond reason. God said, “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). Peter himself protested against it (Mark 8:32). Jesus’ own disciples couldn’t understand it (Mark 9:32).

But Jesus doesn’t back down. As has become clear, we are not in “Christianity 101” anymore. Jesus is not feeding us “baby food.” He is teaching us now what we need to know to accept him as the Messiah he really is. He is giving us the whole Good News, and he knows it sounds like bad news. So he says, “If anything is holding you back, get rid of it. If your hand or foot is an obstacle to what I say, cut it off! If your eye is, pluck it out!” This is nothing new: he has already said, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:35).

It is simple arithmetic again: better to live lame than die whole. Jesus is counting on his disciples to be the “light of the world” and the “salt of the earth” (Mark 4:21; Matthew 5:13-16). But if salt loses its taste, “It is no longer good for anything.” He ends, “Keep salt in yourselves, and you will have peace.”

Initiative: Give God’s life: Check your roots. What are the deepest principles you live by? 

Don’t Fight Friends

Don’t Fight Friends

 Wednesday: Seventh week of the Year       May 18, 2016  

Mark 9:38-40. Year I: Sirach 4:11-19; Psalm 119:165-175; Year II: James 4:13-17; Psalm 49:2-11

Probably most fights start over issues of property, power and prestige. But there is also something in us that makes us see anyone who is different as a threat.

A sociologist once asked his class to make two columns listing “Them” and “Us.” In the “Us” column, no one included “the human race.” Jesus would have.

John, whom Jesus nick-named “Son of Thunder (Mark 3:17), said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” John didn’t look at what the man was doing — the fact he was “casting out demons” — but just at the fact he didn’t officially group with the disciples. John wanted to stop him from giving people the impression that he had any relationship with Jesus. Jesus said not to stop him. Then he taught another fundamental principle that Christians, with most other people in the world, have yet to accept: “Whoever is not against us is for us.”

Jesus sees an ally in everyone not identified as an enemy. Christians take sides against other Christians: Catholics vs Protestants, “conservatives” vs “liberals,” Latin-Massers vs those who embrace the reformed liturgy, strict rule-keepers vs those free to adapt. When is this a legitimate, or even necessary, defense of truth, and when is it sinfully divisive?

Jesus did not forbid disagreement but hostility; argument can be simply inquiry. There is nothing wrong with arguing, so long as we accept each other and do not go to war against sincerity. The Pharisees who questioned Jesus did not wait for answers or respond when he gave them. They were just against him.

Jesus told us to weigh results. “You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns?” (Matthew 7:16). If people are “casting out demons,” they are not people we want to cast out, even if they are partially in error. Not, at least, if they are “for us” in what we are basically trying to do. Jesus said God will reward anyone who “gives you a cup of water because you bear the name of Christ” (Mark 9:41). Why should we not be grateful for all who accept us as believers and accept them in return?

One thing we can always do is pray together. And share our experiences of God. We can simply not focus on doctrinal differences until we know we are united in heart. This lets the Spirit act.

Initiative: Give God’s life: Pray together before you argue. You may find you don’t need to argue. 

In the Church, Prestige is Corruption

In the Church, Prestige is Corruption

Seventh week of the Year: Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Mark 9:30-37. Year I: Sirach 2:1-11; Psalm 37: 3-40; Year II: James 4:3-10; Psalm 55:7- 23.

As they walked back toward Galilee, Jesus was concerned about his disciples’ lack of faith. Not just ordinary faith: they had enough faith to believe in him as an impressive teacher and miracle-worker. But not enough to accept him as a Messiah who would let his enemies kill him rather than use power against them, human or divine, to save his life. Or theirs!

The prayer of the father they had just left was still echoing in his ears: “I do have faith. Help my lack of faith.” Jesus knew his disciples in the Church would not have power to cast out the real demons of society, of any human culture, unless they accepted the root principle of Christianity: the “doctrine of the cross.” They had to accept Baptism as a dying, with and in Christ, to everything this world offers, and a rising to live only as his risen, saving body on earth.

They had to accept every Eucharist as a renewal of the covenant, joining themselves consciously to Jesus on the cross, saying with him to every member of the human race, “This is my body, given up for you.” Without that, the demons accepted as the unquestioned rulers (ruling principles) of every human society would still keep casting one nation after another “into fire and water, to destroy it.”

So Jesus repeated, with emphasis: “The Son of Man is to be betrayed. His enemies will kill him. And after three days, he will rise again.”

But they “did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” They didn’t want to hear it.

Jesus’ response was to push harder. He shook another fundamental principle of cultural values. He told them they were to consider, not only power, but prestige also as a danger to their faith. He forbade them to attach prestige to any function in the Church: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

Another radical principle. In every area of life — business, politics, the military — those with more authority are given greater signs of importance and respect. Through titles, dress, rules of protocol. But in the Church that must not be.

We ignore this teaching. Jesus knew we would. So he “took a little child in his arms,” and said to them, “You want to know who is important? Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” The essential dignity of all Christians, equal for all, is their identification with Jesus in grace. To pretend that office or position increases that dignity is to deny a fundamental principle of Christian life.

Pope Francis said to the Corallo Association, March 22, 2014:

No one needs to feel he is small… compared with someone great… Who is more important in the Church? The Pope or that old lady who prays the Rosary every day for the Church? Only God can say… because the Body of Christ is harmony in diversity, and the One who creates this harmony is the Holy Spirit...

“Clericalism…is one of the evils of the Church… We must overcome this temptation. The layperson must be lay, one who is baptized, with the power that comes from his baptism… Why is the deacon or priest more important than the layperson? No!… Why treat the laity’s Christian identity lightly?… This is another form of harmony, because the priest cannot carry out the role of the layperson, and the Holy Spirit is free: sometimes he inspires the priest to do something, at other times he inspires the layperson.

But to accept this mystery, we have to become like little children ourselves, looking at life with new and open eyes (Matthew 18:1-4).

Initiative: Give God’s life: Rethink power and prestige. Start with Jesus and go from there.