Friday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 5:27-32
In today’s reading from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes two more texts from the Old Testament to continue illustrating his attitude to the Law and its meaning.
One of the Ten Commandments says: “You shall not commit adultery”. Adultery is here understood as a sexual relationship between two people, at least one of whom is already married to someone else. But, for Jesus, for a man even to look at another woman with lust (he does not say whether either of them is married) is already to have violated the spirit of the commandment and the kind of relationship that he expects between people. We would need to distinguish here between a man finding a woman particularly beautiful or attractive and, on the other hand, looking on her as an object for sexual gratification. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with the former. We might also add that what is said here of men applies equally to women. If women are not mentioned it is because in ancient society the initiative for sexual activity seldom was available to the woman.
This commandment, in fact, is not primarily about sexual acts; it is about the inviolable dignity of each person. It is about the deep respect that people ought to have for their own bodies and the bodies of others. Other people cannot be used simply for one’s personal pleasure or to satisfy one’s sexual appetites—not even in the secret recesses of one’s mind and heart.
Jesus puts the situation rather graphically. He says it would be better to go physically maimed through life rather than allow oneself be led into a situation where another person could be so dishonoured. In human beings, our sexual powers have a double purpose: to express a deep and genuine love between two people, and for the procreation of new life.
Related to this, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy (24:1): “Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a writ.” The original text reads as follows:
Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife.
The text goes on to say that if:
…the second man dislikes her, writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies): her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that would be abhorrent to the Lord… (Deut 24:14)
Two things seem clear in Jesus’ time: it was men who could initiate divorce and on the flimsiest of pretexts; it was the woman who was considered guilty of adultery by marrying another man, which is why she could not be received back by her first husband.
Jesus strongly challenges both of these traditions. The Jews accepted divorce, but Jesus is ruling it out. The only exception for a marriage to be dissolved is on the basis of “sexual immorality” (Greek, porneia). There is much discussion on the meaning of this term, but it seems that it refers to a special situation in Matthew’s community. Certain types of marriage between Jews were regarded as incestuous, but were allowed in the case of a Jew marrying a Gentile. But Matthew is saying that in the case of a Gentile becoming a Christian (and marrying a Jewish convert), such exceptions would not be allowed and divorce should not take place. Jesus says further that a man who marries a woman who has been divorced commits adultery.
It is important to note that Jesus is first of all putting men and women morally on an absolutely equal level. He is making the marriage contract something to be taken very seriously with grave responsibilities on both sides. This issue will come up again later (in Matthew, chapter 19) and cause some dismay among Jesus’ disciples.
In our day, the whole question of marriage and the family is fraught with serious problems. Among them are divorce and adultery, although the problems here are somewhat different from that of Jesus’ time. The kind of divorce that Jesus speaks about is of a unilateral decision by a husband who wants to be rid of his wife, often for trivial reasons. In modern society, it is more often the result of the painful breakdown of a marriage relationship. While emphasising that nowadays each case must be treated with great pastoral sensitivity, we do need to remind ourselves of the fundamental values and attitudes that Jesus is underlining in this passage.
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Thursday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 5:20-26
In today’s reading continuing the Sermon on the Mount, what Jesus means by saying that he has not come to abolish the old Law but to transcend it is made clear by Jesus’ giving six examples of how a number of Old Testament sayings are to be understood by his followers. In fact, he says that if we wish to be his followers and do his work, we must move forward to the deeper level of understanding he proposes:
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
It is clear from what we see of the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospels, that for them, religious virtue consisted in the most exact external observance of every detail of Jewish Law. The more perfect the observance of the letter of the Law, they argued, the closer one was to God. Jesus challenged that understanding and it led to serious confrontations with the religious leadership.
Of course, the way of the scribes and Pharisees has its attractions. It is a much easier way to measure one’s obedience to God. And one finds the same among other religions today. Among Christians (including Catholics), one finds that there are some people who are very anxious to know whether a certain action ‘is a sin’ or not. Such an approach leads in many cases to scrupulosity and fear, finding sin even in minutiae. God becomes a menacing shadow ready to strike at the smallest wrongdoing.
When speaking of the Jewish law, the first example Jesus gives is of the commandment:
You shall not murder [kill]. (Exodus 20:13)
Jesus’ understanding of this commandment goes far beyond the actual killing of another person. He extends it even to anger and abusive language. And anger can often be totally locked inside and invisible to an outsider. Jesus says:
But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment, and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council, and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.
In other words, Jesus excludes any kind of violent behaviour towards a brother or sister, either in action, or word, or even thought.
He also links our interpersonal behaviour to our relationship to God. It is no good, then, piously bringing our offering to the altar in the Temple and presenting it to God while we are—through our own fault—in conflict with a brother or sister. We cannot separate our relationship with God and with that of a brother or sister. This will be spelt out in other parts of the Gospel. Before we make our offering, we must first be reconciled with our offended brother or sister and only then, after the injury has been healed, make our offering. Jesus also recommends early reconciliation if only to avoid greater troubles later on. It is not worth going to jail simply out of hatred or anger towards another.
All this is very relevant to us. Whenever we celebrate the Eucharist, we should recall what Jesus says in this text and put it into practice. Before we make our offering of the bread and wine, we are invited, at the beginning of the Eucharist, to confess our sins to God and to the gathered community:
I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned…
How often do we really think about what we are saying at this time?
Again, before sharing with others in the Body and Blood of the Lord, we pray:
…forgive us our sins as we forgive those who offend us…
And we are also invited to make a sign of peace with all those around us. For how can we share in the Body and Blood of the Lord if we are at enmity with a brother or sister who is a member of that same Body? But again, so often this is just an empty gesture, with very little real meaning and, for the most part, made to someone we do not even know. Let us work to put the meaning back into what can so easily degenerate into a meaningless ritual.
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Wednesday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 5:17-19
We have said that Matthew’s Gospel is primarily directed at a readership with a Jewish background. It is clear that their Jewish background and traditions were things which were not easy for Christian converts to give up. Both Paul and Matthew go out of their way to assure Jewish converts that Christianity is not a rejection of Judaism, but its natural development. It is everything that Judaism is and more.
So, in today’s passage, which continues the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus solemnly assures his readers:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
Jesus has come not to terminate the Law, but to bring it to a higher level. In a very rough simile, it is like the upgrading of a computer by upgrading its operating system. It is still the same computer doing the same things, only better. The vision of Jesus helps us to see the Law in a new light.
So Jesus says that the Law is still to be observed. Of course, we will see very clearly in the following days exactly what Jesus means. He is not saying that every single injunction of the Law (some of which seem very strange to us) has to be literally observed, but rather that the spirit behind those injunctions is still in force. His words are meant to console, but they are also a challenge, as we shall see. The New Law does not mean simply the addition of new elements. There is what we would call now a ‘paradigm shift’ to a Way which goes beyond laws to the Law of Love.
In our Church, too, we need to be ready to move forward creatively to new ways of understanding our faith and living it out. The traditions of the past are still valid, but we must never get bogged down in them to the extent that we do not respond to the clear signs of the times. Tradition can be understood in two ways: either as a fundamental belief that has existed from the very beginning, or simply a way of doing or understanding things which has been around for a long time.
“When will the Church stop changing?” we hear some people ask. The answer is, hopefully never. The day we close ourselves to change is the day we die, as Paul warns us in the Second Letter to the Corinthians. To quote Cardinal John Newman:
To live is to change; to be perfect is to have changed often.
Cardinal Newman knew about change. He made radical changes in his own understanding of the Christian faith, changes which he saw as unavoidable although they involved great sacrifices on his part, and led him from the Anglican to the Catholic Church.
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Tuesday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 5:13-16
We may be totally filled with the spirit of the Beatitudes, but it will not do very much good unless their effects are clearly seen in our lives. To be a Christian, it is not enough to be good; we must be seen to be so. It is not enough to ‘have a spirituality’ that fills us with a feeling of peace and tranquillity. The spirituality of the gospel is outreaching. We have not only to be disciples of Christ but also need to proclaim him.
In today’s reading from the Sermon on the Mount immediately following the Beatitudes, Jesus presents us with a number of images expressing this. Jesus first says that his followers should be “the salt of the earth”. Salt is an essential ingredient in almost all cooked food (even sweet food) to provide taste. We all know what it is like to have soup that contains no salt; we know how much part salt plays in flavouring mass-produced fast foods.
We are to be like salt; we are to give taste and zest to our environment. We do that through the specific outlook on life which we have and which we invite others to share. At their best, Christians have been very effective in doing this, and have had a great impact on the values of many societies and in bringing about great changes.
To be tasteless salt is to be next to useless. Salt that has lost its taste is fit only to be thrown out. At the same time, in the West we sometimes, too, put some salt on the side of our plate. That salt, however tasty it may be, is still not doing any good unless it is put into the food. And this is an interesting feature of salt, namely, that it blends completely with food and disappears. It cannot be seen, but it can be tasted.
That reminds us that we as Christians, if we are to have the effect of giving taste, must be totally inserted in our societies. We have to resist any temptation, as Christians, to withdraw and separate ourselves from the world. It is a temptation we can easily fall into, and there are many places where the Church is absent nowadays. There is no salt there. For example, in our commercial districts, in our industrial areas, in our entertainment and media centres, where is the visible Christian presence?
Other images used by Jesus today include being the “light of the world” or being “a city built on a hill”. There is no way it can be hidden; it sticks out like a beacon. And what is the point of lighting a candle and then covering it over with a tub? You light a candle to give light so that people can see their way and will not fall. To be baptised and to go into virtual hiding is like lighting and then covering up a candle.
Finally, Jesus gives us the reason for making ourselves so visible—so that people may see our good works. Is it in order that we can bask in their admiration and wonder? No! Rather, it is so that people will be led through us to the God who made them, who loves them and wants to lead them to himself.
It is for us today to reflect on how visible our Christian faith is to others, as individuals, as families, as members of a Christian group, as parishioners and as a diocese. Are there people or places in our area where a Christian witness is for all intents and purposes absent? Can we do anything about that?
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Thursday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Corinthians 3:15—4:1,3-6
We continue the point that Paul was making yesterday. We have a passage rich in meaning and full of allusions to the experience at Mount Sinai. He continues telling the Corinthians that observance of the Law by itself can only bring death, while the Spirit brings life.
…to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds…
Paul now switches from the time of the covenant at Mount Sinai to the present time. He is saying that the Israelites in the time of Moses typify the Jews of the present time, and he may also be referring to some Christians of Jewish origin, who still do not recognise the temporary nature of the glory that was seen in Moses. As a result, when the writings of Moses are read in the synagogue, a veil still prevents them recognising the temporary nature of Moses’ glory. There is, as it were, a veil preventing their full understanding.
When Moses read the Law to the people, he had to veil his face because the people could not stand its brightness. But now, Paul says, the veil is not on the face of Moses, but over the minds of the hearers who cannot see that the message of Moses has been overtaken by the Word of Christ. However, Paul says:
…when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
In Exodus, Moses appeared before God without the veil and gazed on God’s face unprotected. Paul applies that passage to converts to Christianity: when they turn to the Lord fully and authentically, the impediment to their understanding is removed. They can look God in the face:
…the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
The “Lord” to whom the Christian turns is the Spirit of whom Paul has been speaking, the life-giving Spirit of the living God, the inaugurator of the new covenant and ministry. He is also the Spirit of the Christ. And the Spirit of Jesus is a spirit of real freedom, which enables one to follow God’s truth, to love creatively and to become more alive every day. This is in contrast to the smothering effect of the ‘ministry of death’ from the old Law which brought so much condemnation:
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
Here we have the veil image being used again. Christians (Israelites from whom the veil has been removed) are like Moses, standing in God’s presence, beholding and reflecting his glory. Through our ‘gazing’ at the Lord we become transformed, conformed more and more to the likeness of Jesus, who is himself the very Image of God. As Jesus said:
…whoever sees me sees him who sent me. (John 12:45)
The life-giving Spirit of God, who is also in Jesus, is already present in the community where the transformation is already taking place. The community is the Spirit-filled Body of Christ.
Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.
A ministry of this sort generates confidence and forthrightness, even when Paul—as at present—meets with criticism and opposition. He is confident that the Spirit of God is with him and the work he is doing for the gospel.
Paul now deals briefly with some of the criticism that is aimed at him:
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
Here is the final application of the veil image. It seems Paul is being criticised either for obscurity in his preaching, or for the way in which he presents the Gospel (perhaps for his criticism of the Jewish tradition, which is particularly resented by some who see Paul himself as a once zealous Jew). He confidently asserts, however, that there is no veil over his Gospel. If some fail to perceive its light, that is because of their lack of belief. Paul says:
…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing clearly the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
The veil lies over their own eyes, a blindness induced by Satan, “the god of this world”, and a sign that they are headed for destruction.
The criticism of Paul is misdirected:
For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’s sake.
The light that is revealed in Paul’s preaching comes, not from him, but from the glory of Christ of which he is the messenger. Far from preaching himself, the preacher should always be a transparent medium through whom Jesus is perceived. The preacher is a ‘slave’ of Jesus and not someone who just uses the name of Jesus to draw attention to himself. As John the Baptist said of Jesus:
He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)
Again from Paul:
For it is the God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Here Paul alludes to his own dramatic calling when the light shone from heaven on him as he went to Damascus to attack the Christians there. That was the beginning of Paul’s call to serve the gospel of Jesus. Perhaps the quotation is also an echo of the creation of light at the beginning of the Book of Genesis (1:3), and Paul is presenting his apostolic ministry as a new creation. There may also be an allusion to a passage from Isaiah:
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light… (Is 9:2)
Here Paul is suggesting his prophetic calling as servant of the Lord and a light to the nations. And the purpose of his mission is to reveal to others the glory of God visible on the face of Jesus Christ through his life, death and resurrection.
On the one hand, we too, like Moses and Paul, are called to reflect the brightness of God and, at the same time, we ourselves become brighter and brighter as we grow more and more into the image of God. And our light is not, as Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount, meant to dazzle or turn people’s gaze away but rather to help them realise the brightness of God himself and lead them on to him:
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matt 5:16)
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Friday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Corinthians 4:7-15
Having presented an impressive picture of the Christian as someone brighter than Moses’ reflecting the glory and beauty of God’s Word, Paul now goes on to the paradox which this situation raises.
He confronts the difficulty that his present existence does not appear glorious at all, that it is marked instead by suffering and death. He deals with this by developing a topic mentioned earlier, asserting his faith in the presence and ultimate triumph of life, both in his own and in every Christian existence, in spite of the experience of physical suffering and death.
Certainly, many of his critics would have called into question the image he himself offered to the world. And Paul is the first to make the admission:
But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.
The treasure is the glory that he proclaims and into which all those who hear and accept the message will be transformed. But the instruments carrying that treasure are very fragile, like the small terracotta bowls used for oil lamps.
He will make the same point later on in the letter in his famous passage about the mysterious “sting of the flesh” with which he was afflicted, saying:
…whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor 12:10)
In doing the work of the gospel, Paul describes some of the troubles he has experienced, but their net outcome is that others have benefited:
We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed…
The picture is a negative one, but there is always an underlying experience of bringing help and salvation into people’s lives. As, of course, was the ultimate outcome of the appalling suffering and death of Jesus.
And so Paul concludes that we are:
…always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
What a marvellous saying! Jesus is the paradigm. Paul’s sufferings are connected with Christ’s and his deliverance is a sign that he is to share in Jesus’ resurrection. Even when battered and bruised and rejected, he is reflecting the life-giving suffering and death of Jesus. This is a saying that could be applied to many who have suffered for the gospel.
He continues in the same vein:
For we who are living are always being handed over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us but life in you.
In other words, his experience of suffering does not end in himself, but affects others. The Christ-like suffering which Paul experiences brings life to those to whom he brings the gospel. Here is a living out of the eighth Beatitude:
Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
(Matt 5:10)
All of this is an important clarification of what he meant earlier by the dazzling brightness of the Christian disciple and apostle. The greatest brightness is seen in the one who is ready to undergo every suffering and every indignity for the sake of Jesus. It is the thinking behind John’s Gospel where the evangelist sees Jesus’ last agonising moments on the cross as his moment of glory. It was at that moment that the presence of God in Jesus shone brightest. It was the centurion, seeing the dying and battered body of Jesus, who said:
Truly this man was God’s Son! (Matt 27:54)
So Paul makes no apology for all that he has done in Corinth. Quoting from Psalm 116, he says:
I believed, and so I spoke…
For him, there was no alternative. Like the Psalmist, he clearly proclaims his faith, affirming life within himself despite death and the life-giving effect of his experience upon the church.
And Paul continues:
…we know that the one who raised Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and will present us with you in his presence.
Paul sees God presenting Paul and his companions together with the Corinthians to Jesus at the final parousia. We may note the strong expression of unity and reconciliation between Paul and the Corinthians in spite of the difficulties between them. As he says:
Indeed, everything is for your sake, so that grace, when it has extended to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.
Whatever people might say or think of him, Paul had only one aim: the glory of God and that as many as possible should know and acknowledge Jesus as Saviour and Lord. Undoubtedly, Paul had his faults—glaring faults. And some of these faults must have rubbed some people the wrong way, but as he will say later, it is precisely because of these that God’s message shone out more clearly through him.
The same can be said of us. Let us learn to see our weaknesses not as obstacles but as opportunities.
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Wednesday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Corinthians 3:4-11
Today’s reading is part of Paul’s defence of his behaviour and of his credentials with the Christian community in Corinth. However, as often happens, it leads him into making statements which go far beyond his own personal interests and leave us with ideas providing much material for theological and spiritual reflection.
In the verses immediately preceding our reading, Paul has just said that one of his main credentials are the Christians of Corinth themselves.
You are our letter of commendation written on our hearts, known and read by all.
And ultimately he now says that all the credit for what has been achieved in Corinth comes not from Paul himself but from God.
He is the one who has give us the qualifications to be the administrators of this new covenant.
Paul has not appointed himself; it God in Jesus who has called him. And this “new covenant” is not of a written law, but of the Spirit. It is a covenant not confined to a legal document but is the living testimony of the Corinthians themselves.
And, perhaps in a remark aimed at some of his more legalistic critics, he affirms that:
…the written letters bring death, but the Spirit gives life.
It is a remark that should be engraved on all our hearts. Again and again, it has been the lists of laws and rules that has often been the kiss of death for Christian communities, and it is a problem which continues to bedevil us today. For Paul, to cling tenaciously to the letter of the Law is to die, to atrophy.
Paul’s confidence is grounded in his sense of a God-given mission. His qualifications come entirely from God’s calling. Paul is now living in a new covenant, characterised by the Spirit, which gives life. The term ‘new covenant’ comes from Jeremiah:
The days are coming says the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers the day I took them by the hand to lead them forth from the land of Egypt; for they broke my covenant and I had to show myself their master, says the Lord. This is the covenant I will make…after those days. I will place my law within them, and write it on their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jer 31:31-33)
And he goes on in words that must have been very provocative for some of his more conservative hearers:
…if there was so much brightness accompanying the giving of the Law on Mt Sinai, such that the people could not look directly at the shining face of Moses, what brightness must accompany the giving of the Spirit?
Paul’s words here seem directed against individuals who appeal to the glorious Moses and fail to perceive any comparable glory either in Paul’s life as an apostle, or in the Gospel he preaches. He asserts in response that Christians have a glory of their own that far surpasses that of Moses. Not so much because of who they are, but because of the message which inspires their lives.
He refers to the Old Law, carved on tablets of stone, as a “ministry of death”. He is speaking of the Mosaic law in its limitations. It leads to death rather than life, to condemnation rather than reconciliation. For its defendants, it was “glorious”, as indicated by the shining face of Moses. Paul does not deny that, but asserts that its glory was only temporary and fades in the face of Jesus’ ministry of life. The glory of the new reduces the former glory to no glory at all.
If there was any splendour in administering condemnation, there must be very much greater splendour in administering justification.
This is the difference between the law and the Spirit. The law tends to bring judgement on people, but the Spirit gives life and renewal. The law points out the limits for people’s behaviour – ‘Don’t do this’, ‘Don’t do that’. The Spirit calls forward to a much deeper level of living.
If the ministry of condemnation was glorious, the ministry of righteousness will abound much more in glory.
The Law was a complex of things that must be done, and even more things that must not be done. The “ministry of righteousness” we find in the teaching of Jesus is inspiration continually to reach beyond ourselves. It is the difference between the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. In the fact, the Law, which seemed such a great thing at the time, has now been surpassed by a far more inspirational vision.
Jesus said that he had not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfil it. In doing so, he simply left it behind.
For if what was going to fade was glorious, how much more will what endures be glorious.
It is that Spirit which Paul wants the Corinthians to experience rather than go back to the old days of blindly following a legalistic system, whose observance was often measured by what could be seen externally. The Law leads to rigidity and stagnation, the Spirit to spontaneity and creativity.
What Paul said then is equally true for us now. There is a certain tempting security in following a set of do’s and don’ts which some people are tempted to follow, but it leads ultimately to stagnation, and often to a not very attractive self-righteousness. It is the Spirit that gives life and brings people together in love, unity and harmony. That is the only way that the Kingdom can be built.
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Tuesday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Corinthians 1:18-22
It seems that Paul has incurred a certain amount of criticism from the Corinthians and is coming to his own defence. In the verses just preceding today’s reading, he admits that he had intended paying them a double visit. On his way to Macedonia, he intended passing through Corinth and then pass through Corinth again on his way back. He did not do this, and it seems he was accused of being two-faced, of being a ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ person at the same time. Feelings seem to have been so strong against Paul that he had to deal with the problem at a distance through letters and delegations (internal conflicts among Christians are nothing new!).
Unable to deny the change in plans, Paul nonetheless asserts the firmness of the original plan and claims that it does not indicate in any way a lack of constancy in his behaviour and work. He grounds his defence in God himself, who is utterly firm and reliable. So he claims that this quality can be expected to be found in varying degrees in all those who are associated with God. Christ, Paul and the Corinthians all participate in analogous ways in the constancy of God.
So he goes to his own defence and denies that he was in any way two-faced:
As surely as God is faithful, our word to you is not “Yes and No.”
Like Jesus, his Lord, he claims that he together with his missionary companions, Timothy and Silvanus, were never anything but ‘Yes’.
However many God’s promises are, they are always an unequivocal ‘Yes’—not ‘No’ or ‘Maybe’. Similarly, an ‘Amen’ (‘So be it’) from Paul and his helpers goes through Jesus to God for his glory. The real source of Paul’s security in the Corinthians and the one who anointed him and his companions for their work is the same God. Their guarantee of that is their total endorsement of Jesus.
In turn he says:
…it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, who has put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a down payment.
The Corinthians should be assured, then, that his failure to make the promised visit was not due to any insincerity on Paul’s part.
We might note that a number of the terms in the passage, which appear related only in concept in Paul’s Greek or an English translation, would be variations of the same root in a Semitic mind, such as Paul’s. These include the words ‘yes’, ‘faithful’, ‘amen’, ‘gives us security’, ‘faith’, and ‘stand firm’.
Integrity is an essential quality in our Christian life:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
(Matt 5:8)
People need to be confident that what they see in us and hear from us comes from deep within us. Paraphrasing the slogan, we should be able to say of ourselves, “What you see is what there is”. Falsehood or hypocrisy of any kind will seriously diminish the effectiveness of our Christian witness.
Parents and teachers and others responsible for the formation of the young have a special responsibility here. We are not to be like the Pharisees who teach one thing and do differently.
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Saturday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – Gospel
Commentary on Matthew 5:33-37
Today’s third example from the Sermon on the Mount is of Jesus’ ‘filling out’ the meaning of the Law based on the instruction, saying:
You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.
In the Book of Numbers we read:
When a man makes a vow to the Lord or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word; he shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth. (Num 30:2)
Jesus goes far beyond this requirement. He simply tells us to stop making oaths altogether. The true follower of Christ does not need to take oaths or to swear on anything—however sacred—to guarantee the truth of his words. Jesus says:
Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.
The Christian should be a person of known integrity. He can be taken at his word and no further guarantee is required. It is nice to be known as such a person. Truth should be our second name.
Sometimes, of course, people may not be entitled to the whole truth. In fact, honour may require us even to sacrifice our life rather than reveal something that might put another person in danger, but we should never be guilty of positively deceiving another.
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Saturday of Week 10 of Ordinary Time – First Reading
Commentary on 2 Corinthians 5:14-21
Paul continues in his own defence. If his behaviour seemed objectionable, it was simply because he was acting in and through the Lord. But he speaks in a spirit not of antagonism, but of reconciliation. He tells the Corinthians of the force that is behind everything he does and says:
For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for the one who for their sake died and was raised.
Christ’s love for us was so great that he gave his life so that we might have life. He said:
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)
But our response to that is for each one of us to die to all self-seeking and, like Christ and with Christ, give our lives in love for others. This is precisely what Paul is trying to do.
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way.
The death of the man Jesus has produced a whole new way of seeing other people. A natural or spontaneous way of seeing people is replaced by a new way according to the Spirit. In another context, Paul speaks of how Jesus was seen by Jews and Gentiles as someone who was weak, powerless, foolish and mortal but, to those with the eyes of faith, we see the wisdom, the power and the life of God. The paradox can be seen in himself. He is filled with the glory of Christ and yet appears so weak and vulnerable.
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!
Rabbis used to speak of a “new creation” to describe the effect of a proselyte or convert entering the Jewish faith, or of the remission of sins on the Day of Atonement. The “new things” that have come are the new covenant which Jesus has inaugurated. The person baptised into the Christian faith and who lives according to the gospel becomes, in a real sense, a new person, driven by a new vision of life.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
God does not count our wrongdoings. By responding to him in love we are seen as justified in God’s sight, and this contrasts with the covenant that condemned.
This is Paul’s way of expressing the mission Jesus gave to his disciples after the Resurrection:
If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. (John 20:23)
and
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matt 5:9)
The mission of the Kingdom is to bring the people of the world together in truth, love, justice and peace. It is not just a question of ‘converting’ people to our ‘religion’, but ultimately of bringing them back into the loving arms of God. That is what life is about.
So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God.
Paul sees himself as an ambassador of God’s reconciliation and, as God’s emissary, he begs the Corinthians to become reconciled to God.
For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
This is a very striking phrase, not to be taken literally. But in dying as a criminal on the cross and among sinners, he seemed to be one of them, but in fact it was he who liberated us from sin—especially our own sin—and numbered us among God’s own people. Similarly, in Galatians we read:
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”… (Gal 3:13)
And in Romans:
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh… (Rom 8:3)
Paul does not deny that he has perhaps behaved in ways which angered some of the Corinthian Christians, perhaps the Jews among them most of all, but he sees no point in carrying on a vendetta. In the spirit of Christ, the only way forward is for peace and reconciliation.
Perhaps we could see if we are in a similar situation right now and how we can go about bringing healing to strained relationships. And, in general, our mission as Christians is to be agents of reconciliation wherever we find ourselves—again because:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
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