Week 9 Saturday (Week 2)

Readings: 2 Timothy 4:1-8; Psalm 70; Mark 12:38-44

The poor widow who gives her whole living to the Temple is mentioned in Luke's gospel as well as in today's passage from Mark's gospel. For some reason the Christian tradition decided that Jesus was praising her for what she did. It is more likely, when we look at the context, that her appearance at a time when he was criticising the corruption of the Temple system simply provided him with a perfect illustration of the kind of clericalist exploitation of the poor that he was talking about.

In one moment he is criticising the clerics for their love of display and honour while at the same time they 'swallow the property of widows'. In the next breath he points out such a widow, who happens to come along, giving more than she can afford. In Luke's gospel whenever a person is praised by Jesus he makes a comment such as 'go and do likewise', or 'she went away justified'. But there is no such word of praise for the widow either in Luke's gospel or in Mark's.

What seems to have happened is that the call to follow Jesus, and to give our life for his sake, along with the self-giving of Jesus himself in his passion and death, have come to colour the donation of the widow who puts in everything she possessed, all she had to live on. It seems as if Jesus must be praising the widow for doing this because it seems to be in line with the call to follow him, seeking to live what T.S Eliot called 'a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything'. But look again at the context in which the widow appears, whether in Luke or in Mark, and you will see that it is not what Jesus is teaching at that moment.

Today's first reading on the other hand is an unambiguous presentation of the complete dedication to which Jesus calls his followers. Paul is saying, in effect, that he has put in everything he possessed, all he had to live on. He has given all his time and energy to the task of preaching the gospel. His words are among the best known and most beautiful in the Bible and we hear them from time to time especially at funeral masses: 'my life is already being poured out, I have fought the good fight to the end, I have run the race, I have kept the faith'.

Concerning his own economic support from the communities he founded the evidence from Paul's correspondence is complex. Jesus had said that the labourer deserves his wages and Paul returns to this point from time to time. But he also wished to preach the gospel freely without making economic demands on his listeners. He was anxious also, in the face of his critics, to head off any possibility that he might be charged with preaching in order to make money (Acts 18:3; 1 Corinthians 4:12; 9:6; Philippians 4:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9).

So let us stand with the widow in thinking about justice and injustice, exploitation of people's sensibilities whether religious or political or cultural or of any other kind. And let us stand also with Paul in thinking about generosity and self-giving, as he writes those stirring words, 'my life is being poured out as a libation'. How do we put it together, the call to generosity and self-sacrifice, and the call to defend what is just and not allow ourselves or others to be exploited? Be careful always to choose the right course, Paul says to Timothy, and be brave under trials. We can imagine him saying the same to us, at the same time not giving us an easy answer about how to live up to the demands of the gospel in certain particular circumstances. He simply reminds us that we must live our lives seeking to be generous, even at some cost to ourselves, while at the same time seeking to remove any system that oppresses or exploits the poor.

It is better to suffer for doing good than for doing wrong, there is no doubt about that (1 Peter 3:17). At the same time the religion acceptable in God's eyes means not just keeping ourselves unstained from the world but also engaging with its corruption and injustice, if we are to come to the aid of widows and orphans in their need (James 1:27).

Week 9 Friday (Year 2)

Readings: 1 Timothy 3:10-17; Psalm 118; Mark 12:35-37

When Christians gather to celebrate their faith the central and most important of those celebrations is the Eucharist, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It is the summit of the Christian life, the highpoint of the community's week. It is also the source of that life, because there we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, this extraordinary sacramental gift. And there too we are consecrated as the priest calls down the Holy Spirit first on the bread and wine, that they might become the Body and Blood of Christ, and second on all who share in Christ's Body and Blood, that they might become one body and one spirit in Christ.

But we are also 'consecrated in the truth' during the celebration of the Eucharist because its first part is the 'Liturgy of the Word' in which we are fed on the Word of God in the scriptures. When it has been proclaimed in the readings we hear it explained in the teaching of the homily, we receive it in joy by singing psalms and alleluias, we respond to it by professing our faith in the love song that is the Creed, and by praying for the Church and the world, for all in special need and for the dead. The proclamation of the Word also has a sacramental character - it brings about what it signifies because Christ is really present with us in His Word as it is proclaimed and taught among us.

The readings today focus on this aspect of our life of faith. The short gospel reading shows us Jesus teaching in the Temple, explaining a verse of scripture, and using it to put to the people a provocative question: how can the Messiah be the son of David when David calls him 'Lord'? Why the majority of the people hear this 'with delight' may be a bit puzzling for us. In the context it is Jesus' first chance to put a question of his own after a series of questions addressed to him by various groups - Pharisees, Herodians, Sadducees, scribes, lawyers - they have all had a go at him and now he stands on his own ground and puts his own question to the people. Perhaps it was the thought of enemies being put under the feet of the Messiah that delighted the crowd. Or they were simply enjoying the conflict especially now that Jesus, having survived a series of ambushes, was beginning to fight back.

To ask good questions is one of the tools of teaching and Jesus does it here as he often does it elsewhere. In fact his usual way of responding to a question put to him is to ask a better one in response. He also says this: David wrote this verse under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so we are dealing with something true. He is taking his stand on the holy scriptures of Israel's faith. Paul emphasises the same thing in the first reading. Scripture is the foundation of your teaching, he says to Timothy, as it is the foundation of what we know and what we believe. All scripture is inspired by God, Paul says, and so is useful for teaching, for refuting, for guiding people's lives, for teaching holiness. The scriptures carry to us a wisdom that leads to salvation and to know them is to be fully equipped and ready for any good work. But expect opposition too, Paul says, which inevitably comes the way of anybody who tries to live in devotion to Christ.

So we have two short readings but rich in reminding us of the essential source of our faith, the holy scriptures, the Bible. Its authors were inspired by God as they wrote. And all those texts bear witness in some way to Christ, to who he is and to his mission. We have the chance to be fed and watered at this source every Sunday - every day if we wish. Through the Word of God in the scriptures we come to know truth, learn how to live and are shown at what we should aim. Christ is with us each day in his Word, comforting and challenging, illuminating and inspiring, teaching and guiding. How could we not run each day to such a spring, and there drink deeply with delight?

Week 9 Thursday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Psalm 24; Mark 12:28-34

Some years ago an English actor did the round of theatres in Britain and Ireland with a one-man show. He simply spoke the King James version of St Mark's Gospel from beginning to end. As an actor, an interpreter of scripts, he brought out all kinds of subtleties and shades of colour that our normal public reading of scripture never captures. Where most liturgical reading is solemn and a bit monotonous, he illuminated the story in a remarkable way bringing out the humour, anger, irony, sarcasm, gentleness, poignancy, bitterness, and many other things that lie hidden in the text. It was a stunning performance.

So what about today's gospel reading from Mark, what moods or shades of colour might be found in it? The scribe seems a bit patronising or perhaps he is simply naive. Is he condescending? His repetition of Jesus' summary of the law adds to it and changes it in subtle ways: is he correcting the amateur rabbi from Galilee? Is there a barb in Jesus' answer - you are not far from the kingdom of God - effectively telling him that he has hit the nail on the side? Is this what the scribe is saying to Jesus, you got it almost exactly right? Is it what Jesus is saying to the scribe, you are 'not far' from the kingdom? How near is 'not far'?

The answer to that question depends on what we are talking about. Augustine in his Confessions tells about a moment when he was not far from the kingdom of God. His spiritual condition was like a man who from a wooded summit can glimpse the homeland of peace for which he has long searched, he has it now in his sights, but there is still the question of how to get into that kingdom from where he is. What will carry us across, bridge the gap, when a person is not far from the kingdom of God? For Augustine it is the cross of Christ by clinging to which he makes the journey from his viewing point home to the kingdom. Charity is established in the humility of Christ, he says. If we want to live by the great commandment we must embrace the humility of Christ, his cross. The pride of man - all that gets in the way of our loving God and loving one another - is only undone by the humility of God. The cross is the key that unlocks the door of our pride and opens us to love.

'Beautiful' is how we might translate the scribe's comment to Jesus when he summarises the great commandment: 'you are right'. Jesus sees that the scribe's answer is wise and intelligent. So perhaps there is more understanding between them than might seem at first. Love opens up the space in which the other can be, and can flourish. It begins with the understanding a person already has and invites him or her to embrace that understanding more fully, to test its depths, to see where its truth leads.

Of course another meaning of 'not far' is that it refers to the scribe's physical proximity to Jesus himself. In John's gospel the great commandment takes the form 'love one another as I have loved you'. The content of the new commandment is not a written law, not even a sacred and hallowed piece of scripture. Most of us can easily quote the text and tell others what the great commandment is. But its content is Jesus Christ, the one who has fulfilled the law in every detail. He loves the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, strength, and he loves his neighbour as himself. He shows us what these things involve but, more than that, he is the only teacher who can enable us to carry it out.

So to be 'not far from the kingdom' is to be not far from Jesus. To be living the life of the kingdom is to be living in Him, sharing the same Spirit, the Spirit of God's love which is the only power that enables us to observe the greatest of the commandments.

Week 9 Wednesday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Timothy 1:1-3, 6-12; Psalm122 (123); Mark 12:18-22

Arguments against another person's religious beliefs often take the form of trying to make those beliefs appear irrational, absurd and ridiculous. Even if faith is beyond reason, expanding the horizon of reason and giving it new things to think about, believers still want it to be rational. We believe that what seems to us now to be paradoxical and even contradictory will be seen not to be so when the mysteries are finally illuminated for us.

Jesus is on the receiving end of such a criticism in today's gospel, an attempt to show that what he believes is ridiculous. A woman ends up marrying seven brothers in fulfilment of the Law - whose wife will she be in the afterlife? The Sadducees, who put the question, did not believe in the resurrection of the dead - their question aims at showing such belief to be absurd. Other such arguments in the ancient world asked how there would be space for everyone, or who the rightful owners of property would be if it had been occupied and used by different people at different times.

Jesus responds 'in kind' to the Sadducees. He does not do what he normally does in answering questions, shifting the argument to a deeper level of understanding. He simply compounds what they would have regarded as nonsense by speaking not just of resurrection but of angels - the Sadducees did not believe in them either!

But the main point of his response is the second part, where he invites them to think again about God, and how God speaks of himself, as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Here they were on shared ground. The Sadducees would have accepted this. 'And you think He is the God of the dead?', Jesus asks, a question which now threatens their faith with absurdity. They cannot say 'yes, he is God of the dead' but saying 'no' implies that the patriarchs are alive in God.

The encounter is unsatisfactory, perhaps the most unsatisfactory in all of the gospels. Nobody comes to believe in Jesus as a result of it, nobody agrees to follow Jesus onto a deeper level of understanding. It serves to remind us that this kind of religious argument is usually sterile, leaving all the participants in exactly the same place as they were at the beginning.

Jesus does make an effort, even if it seems uncharacteristically restrained. He not only counters their argument but invites them to think again - about their understanding of God, about God's power in creation and what it might reach to (invisible realities as well as visible), about the testimony of scripture (he appeals to Exodus, part of the Torah, the only section of the Bible the Sadducees regarded as authoritative) that Israel's Lord is God of the living.

The Sadducees - the high priestly caste, guardians of the Temple system - were at the heart of the opposition to Jesus and were a main target of his criticism of contemporary religious practice. The encounter we read about today is just the opening skirmish in what was to become an ever more violent rejection of Jesus and an ever more vocal, and even violent, critique by him of what the Temple system was doing to Israel's faith. 

The final answer to their skeptical question comes later, with the resurrection of Jesus himself after they had brought about his death. And - horror of horrors! - the fact of his resurrection will be announced to the women by 'a young man dressed in white' (Mark 16:5). He was, it seems, the angel of the resurrection.

Week 9 Tuesday (Year 2)

Readings: 2 Peter 3:11-15, 17-18; Psalm 89; Mark 12:13-17

Probably the earliest recorded copyright dispute is that involving Colmcille (521-597) and his abbot Finian (c.495-c.589), an argument adjudicated by the high king of Ireland, Diarmait mac Cearball (died c.565). The problem arose because Colmcille decided to copy secretly a psalter belonging to the monastery. Finian was angry that he had not done things in the proper way. What did it matter, Colmcille argued, as long as the Word of God was disseminated and reached as many people as possible? We might hear religious people saying similar things these days when they sit lightly to the rules about copyright.

Diarmait judged in favour of Finian with the famous words 'to every cow its calf, to every book its copy'. Just as the calf belongs to its mother, the copy of a book belongs to the original. The aftermath was terrible, eventually leading to the deaths of many people and the exile of Colmcille to Scotland. But, in God's providence he founded the monastery on Iona which became a spring from which the Christian message spread across Scotland and into northern England.

To every cow its calf, to every book its copy. The image belongs to the original. Jesus says the same in today's gospel. 'Whose image do you find on the coin', he asks. 'Caesar's', they reply. 'So it belongs to Caesar', he says, 'You must therefore give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God'.

This is sometimes interpreted as meaning that the territory of human life is therefore divided up between Caesar and God, between the profane and the sacred, the secular and the religious. But think about it for a moment. If the image of Caesar is found on the coins of the Roman empire, where is the image of God to be found? There is only one answer: the human being is the image of God. And it is not just the human being in part that is God's image, or the human being in some of his activities. It is the human being simply and in her totality that is the image of God and so everything about human life, all aspects and activities, all areas of interest and endeavour, all relationships and commitments - everything that belongs to the image of God, belongs to God.

'Go on growing in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ', we read in today's first reading. There is a sense in which the image of God in us is to be found simply in our created nature, in those gifts that mark us off from the other animals, gifts of intelligence, freedom and creativity. This is how many Christian teachers have spoken about it, seeing the image of God in us in what makes us to be a particular species, homo sapiens.

Two further comments can be made about this.

One is that the image of God, for Thomas Aquinas for example, is found not just in what is specific to us but in what belongs to us comprehensively. So our physical nature, which we share with all animals, also images God because just as the soul is everywhere in the body so God is everywhere in creation. And our sexual nature also images God, because just as man and woman unite in love and bear fruit in the procreation of children so God is creative, in himself, with the generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit, as well as bearing fruit in many different ways at all times.

The other comment is, as Augustine for example emphasises, that the image of God in our intellectual faculties is only properly present when those faculties - knowledge, freedom, love, memory, decision - have as their object God himself and the search to know him and to grow in his grace.

So the encouragement in today's first reading - 'go on growing in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and saviour' - is a way of saying 'go on growing into what you are, the image of God by creation, the image of God restored and exalted in redemption, the image of God destined to be transformed in glory on the Day of God when the new heavens and the new earth will mean also the revelation of the new man and woman, the new redeemed and glorified humanity'.

To every cow its calf. To every book its copy. To the Creator and Lord of all things belongs that in which His image is to be found, the human being simply, in her totality, and everything about him and her, without exception. And God is continually strengthening that image in grace, enabling it to grow in knowledge and love.

Week 9 Saturday (Year 1)

Readings: Tobit 12:1, 5-15, 20; Tobit 13; Mark 12:38-44

It is usually assumed that Jesus is praising the widow for giving all she has to the Temple. But neither Mark's gospel nor Luke's gospel, each of which records this moment, has Jesus praising her. We find none of the usual words of praise, nothing like 'go and do likewise' or 'I tell you she returned to her home justified', nothing like that.

So why do we assume that Jesus is somehow praising her for what she did? Could it be that we easily align ourselves with the type of religiosity peddled by the Temple system so that we imagine Jesus too as some kind of cleric who is happy to devour widows' houses, to take all they have, and to praise the poor for giving so generously?

If we look at the story in context, whether in Mark or in Luke, we see that the widow serves not so much as an example to follow as she is a warning, an illustration of the kind of corruption Jesus talks about in his criticisms of the Temple system. She is its victim. We know the Temple provoked him to anger when he saw its commercialization. The Father's house of prayer had become a den of thieves. This commercialization, along with the exploitation of ordinary people, and the hypocrisy he points out in the scribes and Pharisees: all combine to create a monstrous religious system which devours widows' houses. Ordinary people, people seeking simply to be faithful, people like those we have met in the Book of Tobit, are seduced into giving away all that they have. 

So the widow is a warning rather than an example, an illustration of how corrupt religion can become. The rich can afford to spread their wealth around; the poor are making themselves even poorer in sharing what they have.

If the widow is an example or a type in any sense then it is of Jesus himself that she is an exemplar, a kind of forerunner. Though he was rich he made himself poor, Paul says, so that we who are poor, desperately poor, might become rich. He is the one who will put all he has into the treasury of the Temple, the heavenly Temple, because his treasure is in heaven. He gives up his spirit, putting his whole living into his final great work, allowing himself to be devoured by the powers of evil, sin and death.

His death is not a final sacrifice to some demonic religious system but an assertion of love in the face of all demonic systems, exploitations and hypocrisies. He is of course on the side of the widow for it is widows and orphans who are the particular concern of the Heavenly Father. The most shocking injustice is that perpetrated against widows and orphans, the most vulnerable people in society. Is it any wonder that Jesus is moved to fury when he sees such injustice in the place of prayer, mercy and grace? It is obscene that that place, whose currency ought to be prayer, mercy and grace, has become a place of business, cheating, and lies.

In today's gospel reading we are not, then, being encouraged by Jesus to give all our possessions to religious systems or individuals who will always have far more than poor widows will ever have. We are being warned against something which easily attaches itself to religion. And we are being called to think about the One who contributed all he had, his whole livelihood, not manipulated by demonic forces, whether economic, social or political, but in freedom, out of obedience, because of His love for the Father and for the people.

Week 9 Friday (Year 1)

Readings: Tobit 11:5-17; Psalm 146; Mark12:35-37

We come towards the end of the book of Tobit which we have been reading all week. The ending will be that they all lived happily ever after. Tobit is cured of his blindness, Sarah is freed from her demon, Tobias finds a good wife, and Anna can relax because the family is now prosperous and secure. The archangel Raphael has been with them, guiding and healing them, seeing to it that this family of faithful people will be able to live happily into the future.

Since last week we have remembered many martyrs, Justin, Marcellinus and Peter, Charles Lwanga and his companions, Peter of Verona the first Dominican martyr, and Boniface, apostle of Germany, bishop and martyr. We remember them and celebrate them for their courage in remaining faithful even to the point of death. We celebrate them also because we share the same hope with them, the hope of living happily ever after in the kingdom of God. This hope enabled the martyrs to accept suffering and even death, confident that the Lord would bring them to his kingdom to be happy with him forever.

Today’s gospel reading is a bit puzzling. It is not clear why there was such delight among the people at the question Jesus puts to his opponents. Maybe it is that he has begun to fight back and they are pleased at this. We have seen a whole range of groups and individuals approaching him to ask questions, questions designed to corner him and embarrass him. Now he asks a question of his own, one not easy to understand and so not easy to answer. Maybe the people are delighted that he has done this, that he has put his opponents on the back foot for a change.

It could be for other reasons that they are delighted. The question of Jesus contains a prediction of his Ascension to the right hand of the Father. The psalm he quotes, Psalm 110, is used by the Church to illustrate his Ascension. When his work on earth was complete, the Incarnate Word returned to the Father to take his place at the Father’s right hand, to reign forever in glory. He is to be there happily ever after and perhaps the people are delighted because they sense something of this in what he is saying.

In his divine nature he is always the Eternal Son of the Heavenly Father and so is always with God in the kingdom of heaven. In his human nature he stepped down from that place of glory, to take on the tasks of salvation and redemption, but now that his victory has been won he returns there, where the glory that is his as the Only Son from the Father and the glory that is his as the Leader and Guide of all people are now one in an eternal joy which all are called to share.

To live happily ever after … it is the lot of Tobit and his family in this life, just as it is what the martyrs hope for in eternity. Jesus’ question, showing that the Messiah was there before David spoke of him, shows that there is an eternal happiness shared between Father and Son, a happiness ever before, which is opened up for humanity through the work of the Son. We pray that this gift may be ours now and in the end when, delighted, we will possess this happiness securely and live in it ever after.

Week 9 Wednesday (Year 1)

Readings: Tobit 3:1-11a, 16-17a; Psalm 25; Mark 12:18-27

‘You know neither the scriptures nor the power of God’: it is a striking statement to take with us from today’s readings and to ponder throughout the day.

Today’s first reading introduces us to another of the main characters in the Book of Tobit, Sarah who will become the wife of Tobias, the son of Tobit. She has her own strange misfortune, pestered as she is by a strange demon that kills off her husbands as soon as she marries them. She is in despair about this at the same moment in which Tobit is in despair about his situation. Each of them is simple, honest and direct in their questions and in their laments, and it endears them to us.

The Sadducees by contrast are not simple, honest and direct. Like the other groups we’ve been hearing about in recent days, they are trying to catch Jesus with their question. It comes at an angle and is not honest. They do not believe in the resurrection of the body and nor do they believe in spirits. It is strange that materialists should have provided the high priests, for it seems that the high priestly families at the time of Jesus were Sadducees. They present an argument to show the absurdity of believing in the resurrection, telling an unlikely story about a woman marrying seven brothers. But their interest is not in the truth or in the happiness of people. Their interest is in catching Jesus out and putting him in a corner, if possible embarrassing and compromising him.

‘Get to know the scriptures and the power of God’, is Jesus’ answer to them. Tobit and Sarah are about to be helped by the power of God in the form of the archangel Raphael who is sent by God to resolve the problems of both. Through the angels, God’s power is applied to particular situations and circumstances. God does not want Tobit or Sarah to die and he wants to rescue them from their despair. Raphael is his servant in fulfilling this plan, helping them to live and to live happily.

Jesus reminds us that God is about life and not death, that he is God of the living and not of the dead, and that what God wants is life and the abundance of life. Death as we experience it now was not part of his plan. It is the devil’s work but this last enemy too is overcome in the resurrection of Jesus. His victory over death establishes definitively and forever that God is the God of the living and not of the dead.

Let us seek to live as Tobit and Sarah, simply, honestly and directly, knowing the scriptures and the power of God. We pray that we may enter ever more deeply into the wisdom contained in the scriptures and that we may experience in our lives, even today, the healing presence of God’s power.

Week 9 Tuesday (Year 1)

Readings: Tobit 2:9-14; Psalm 112; Mark 12:13-17

Today's readings present us with two men under pressure, Tobit and Jesus. Tobit has gone blind as a result of bird droppings falling into his eyes. Some years have passed since then, and he and his wife are having difficulties making ends meet. He is a man of scrupulous integrity, not prepared to compromise in any way his observance of the law. His wife, Anna, seems to be at her wit's end, doing what she can to keep family life going. When she brings in a goat she has received as a gift Tobit is suspicious and wants to have nothing to do with it in case it is stolen property. She speaks to him in much the same way as his wife spoke to Job, asking their men to be reasonable, but they are not for compromising. 'If we receive happiness from God's hand, must we not accept suffering too', Job says to his wife. 'Your true character is showing itself', Anna says to Tobit - in other words your pig-headedness and unreasonable scrupulosity.

Jesus is under pressure in another way. Pharisees and Herodians come to trap him in his speech. Beginning with flattery (what the Irish will recognise immediately as plámás) they then question him about paying taxes to Caesar. If he says 'pay' he is in one kind of trouble, if he says 'don't pay' he is in a different kind of trouble. Instead, and as usual, he takes the ground from beneath their feet and changes the basis of the question completely. Whose image is on the coin to be paid? Caesar's. Then give Caesar what is his. And give God what is His.

Sometimes this has been taken to mean that human life and affairs can be divided between a realm that belongs to Caesar (the state, political matters) and a realm that belongs to God (the Church, religion). But there is something wrong about the idea that there might be an area of human life that does not belong to God. And Jesus endorses our suspicion by what he says. Not explicitly, but very clearly.

If whatever bears the image of Caesar belongs to Caesar then whatever bears the image of God belongs to God. What is there that bears the image of God? If the image of Caesar is found on coins, where is the image of God to be found? We know from the Bible that it is the human being that bears the image of God. So it is the human being that belongs to God. And this cannot mean only some parts or aspects or activities of the human being, it must mean the human being in his or her entirety, in all her activities and relationships, in all his projects and commitments. It must mean also each and every single human being since no distinction is made: each and every one is created in the image and likeness of God.

It is a supremely clever answer. While seeming to divide human affairs between two masters Jesus does exactly the opposite, relativising our loyalty to 'Caesar' while acknowledging it, making it abundantly clear that such loyalty is always within a deeper, more all-embracing, and transcendent loyalty, that which is given to God alone. Give to God what belongs to God: in other words, everything.

Job and Tobit recognize this supreme demand of the law of God, its claim beyond all human laws and beyond all human compromises. They fumble a bit perhaps in trying to explain and defend it. But in the teaching of Jesus it is crystal clear. And in Jesus' service of the Father, whose perfect image he is, it is given its most powerful explanation and defence.

Week 9 Monday (Year 1)

Readings: Tobit 1:3, 2:1-8; Psalm 112; Mark 12:1-12

Crowds are terrifying. They provoke at least two kinds of fear. One is the fear of a crowd turning angry and violent. Then it is like water or fire, there seems to be no end to the damage it could do. The other is a fear that is more like awe or wonder, and that stirs us when we witness huge demonstrations, whether in sport or music or religion. Any great event, celebrated on a massive scale, involving crowds of people, is awe-inspiring.

Existentialist philosophers warned about the power of the crowd. The crowd is a mighty force, swallowing us up and moving us in a particular direction. The gaze of the crowd - what other people think, and think of us, 'society' or 'public opinion' - is also a powerful force, a kind of 'superego' which seems always ready to criticise and condemn, to mock and humiliate. For such philosophers the crowd is an enemy of authenticity and the individual is obliged to assert his individual identity over against it. He must stand back from it, and apart from it, and away from it, if he is to be himself. As Sartre dramatically put it, 'hell is other people'.

We are told in the gospel reading that the chief priests, scribes and elders were afraid of the crowd. Earlier they had refused to answer Jesus' question about John the Baptist because they were afraid of the crowd who regarded John as a prophet. In today's passage we see that they are once again afraid of the crowd and hesitate to take action against Jesus who in this parable is clearly being critical of them.

We might think that the saint, then, is the person who stands back and apart and away from the crowd, a striking individual who stands out and is courageous enough to stand, even alone, over against the crowd. In this the saint is like the existentialist hero, a single authentic individual. Tobit is such a person in today's first reading. One of the crowd's most powerful weapons is mockery. Even more than physical violence or ostracisation, mockery is a very powerful weapon in making people conform to group thinking. Humiliation, whether feared or actual, is one of the most important factors in understanding human behaviour.

But the saint is not one who despises other people even when they are welded together in a crowd. Tobit, like Jesus, or the good person of the psalm, is with people, caring for them, and at their service. Jesus is busy about the task of building a community, which is a very different thing from a crowd. Such heroic people are not afraid to take action that is individual, original, creative. The Holy Spirit is not in the business of creating clones but of stimulating a whole variety of gifts and services. Grace diversifies and individualises, it does not shrink and collapse. The holy person will act rightly in spite of opposition and even mockery. But he does not regard other people as hell.

We need to be careful that we do not swap one crowd for another, one public for another, one kind of group thinking for another kind of group thinking. The security offered by the group is attractive, of course. But it becomes a crowd when we begin to sacrifice something of our freedom to it. For freedom Christ has set us free, Paul says, don't go giving away your freedom again. The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone: the first part of a new structure, the first member of a new community. It is not a community of existentialist heroes, however, a kind of Stoic monastery, but a community of good people who have come to understand what love means. A community united in love allows space and complete respect for both the nature we share in common with all other human beings, and the individual spirit that God has created each one of us to be and whose flourishing in its unique authenticity is a wonder and a joy for all of us.

Week 09 (Year A), Sunday -- 6 March 2011

Readings: Deuteronomy 11:18, 26-28; Psalm 30; Romans 3:21-25, 28; Matthew 7:21-27

Beware the lure of the second reading. You probably know how the readings are chosen for these Sundays in ordinary time. Each year we read more or less continuously through one of the gospels and the first reading is chosen to go with the gospel reading. The second reading is separate. For that we read continuously through various letters of St Paul and there is no necessary link between the second reading and the gospel and first reading.

We need to be careful then that the second reading might pull us in a particular direction in thinking about the gospel. It is a particular danger today with Paul’s clear contrast between works of the law and salvation by grace. It could pull us towards a particular ‘groove’ into which it is easy to slip fairly often in interpreting gospel passages. The groove I mean is one that would make too easy, too simplistic a contrast between the ‘old law’ on one side and the ‘new law’ on the other. The old law, so this groove tells us, is burdensome, external, many in its requirements, Jewish, not so good. The new law is less burdensome, internal as a matter of the heart, making fewer demands, Christian, better. Apart from the fact that this is not quite accurate to what we are presented with in the gospel, it is also quite dangerous because it is a groove that has led Christians over the centuries not only to think about Judaism in particular ways but to treat Jewish people in particular ways.

So leaving the second reading to one side for now, what we have just heard are the closing verses of the Sermon on the Mount. It is very striking how Jewish the teaching of that sermon is. There is practically no verse that does not echo and even quote some text from the Old Testament. It is itself the realization of what Jesus says in the middle of it, that he has come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to bring them to completion. The law, the prophets, the writings: there are many references in all of these on which the teaching of the sermon on the mount is based. It is an inspiring, radical presentation of one strand of Jewish thinking, a development of it to be sure, but still in the line of familiar Jewish teaching.

Here, for example, is a quotation from a biblical commentary, as it introduces the work of one of the important personalities in the Bible. In speaking about the teaching of this person it stresses ‘his conception of the law as an ‘inward’ force, his respect for the function of love in true religion, his concern for the person as an individual’. Now who might that be? The law as an inward force? The function of love in true religion? Concern for the person as an individual? It is not, as we might think, Jesus who is being introduced but the prophet Jeremiah and it comes from the Jerusalem Bible’s introduction to his writings. What we might regard as the novelties of the sermon on the mount – a religion of the heart, an emphasis on love, concern for individuals – are already found in the teaching of Jeremiah. He it is who speaks about ‘circumcision of the heart’: it is all very well having your body circumcised but what matters is a circumcision of the heart. He it is who speaks about a new covenant, one not now written on tablets of stone but written on human hearts. Jeremiah gives a central place to love. In this he is influenced by the prophet Hosea, who also has much to say about love, about God’s love for the people and their love in response.

Another book which, the scholars tell us, originates in the neighbourhood of Jeremiah, is the Book of Deuteronomy from which today’s first reading comes. This is the book with which, we might say, Jesus arms himself in his struggle with the devil. Just before the sermon on the mount, not long before in Matthew’s account, we read about Jesus’ temptations and in each case he replies with Deuteronomy: ‘man does not live on bread alone’, ‘obey the Lord your God and serve him only’, ‘you must not put the Lord your God to the test’.

So the Sermon on the Mount emerges within this strand of Jewish thinking and is an inspiring development and presentation of it. It is radical, yes, but it is also within this tradition. Another thing that tempts us towards the easy groove – old Jewish law not so good, new Christian law good – is that we assume Jesus is already in conflict with the Pharisees and that he is attacking them in the Sermon. But there is not much of that going on yet, at least as Matthew recounts the story.

It is, surely, a concern of Judaism as well as of Christianity, of all great religious traditions, that their adherents would be concerned about things reaching the heart. What will get this teaching, this example, these requirements, into our hearts? If nothing else a concern for sincerity, the desire not to be hypocritical, will raise this issue. How is it to find its way into the heart and soul? The first reading speaks of this: ‘put these words of mine in your heart and soul’. We might find the Jewish custom of phylacteries quaint, putting the little box with the texts in it on your forehead so that it will be near your mind, putting in on your arm so that it will be near your heart, but it is no more quaint than scapulars and medals and icons and all the other ways in which we try to keep our minds and hearts fixed on what we believe, ways in which we try to bring what we believe into our hearts and minds.

But if the way to the kingdom of heaven is not through religious practices like these alone, neither is it through what we might regard as more sophisticated religious practices. ‘It is not those who say ‘Lord, Lord’ who will enter the kingdom of heaven’, Jesus says. So not those who give inspiring homilies or lectures in theology, that doesn’t guarantee anything either. And neither do works of impressive spiritual power, even prophecy, exorcisms or other miraculous things.

So who is that gets to enter the kingdom of heaven? Well it is the one, Jesus tells us, ‘who does the will of the Father’. This is the person who enters the kingdom of heaven. Who has done the will of the Father? Well Jesus is the only one who has done it, who has observed the law, whether it is the old law or the new law. How is the will of the Father done? It is done in time of suffering and loss, it seems. To go back to Jeremiah and Deuteronomy, these texts were written at a time of great crisis for God’s people, a time of loss and exile, when all the institutions and structures of their religious life were taken away: the Temple destroyed, the people exiled, Jerusalem occupied. When it seemed as if everything was lost, then these beautiful texts about love and a religion of the heart were composed.

So it was also in the life of Jesus, through the experience of suffering and loss, the loss of everything and the need to trust completely in his Father, it was then that the new law was established. Jesus did not give us the new law in the Sermon on the Mount, he gave it to us on Calvary. This is what we believe, that the new law is not an alternative code, an easier legislation, another text even if it is a shorter one. The new law is the love that makes the observance of the law possible. The new law is the grace of the Spirit, the love come into the world through Jesus, which makes it possible for us to do what is good, to observe the law, to choose virtue.

And that brings us back to the second reading and Paul’s comment there about faith, and faith as the only way of entering into salvation. It is in our openness to the Father, and to the Father’s will in our lives, an openness we learn only, it seems, in the way we respond when we suffer.