Several times this week we’ve read from Jesus’ great Sermon on the Mount. The sermon is the first major teaching discourse in the Gospel of Matthew. From atop Mt. Sinai, God gave the commandments of the Law to Moses to be taught to the people. And from atop the Mount of Beatitudes, God-in-the-flesh taught the fundamentals of Christian discipleship in the Sermon on the Mount.
Reading through the Old Testament, the laws and commandments some quite difficult, stringent, perhaps even excessive. But when we read the Sermon on the Mount honestly, Jesus’ teaching is pretty demanding.
Consider how the Gospel passage begins today: “Unless your holiness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees you shall not enter the kingdom of God.” The scribes and Pharisees practiced zealous concern for keeping the laws of Moses, their concern for ritual purity was extreme. I’ve met Catholics who couldn’t recite 3 of the 10 commandments, let alone all the ritual purity laws that the scribes and Pharisees kept to the utmost. And Jesus says, our holiness is to surpass their holiness.
On the one hand, Jesus does often condemn the scribes and Pharisees for their mere external obedience to the law’s regulations. They kept the law outwardly, but inwardly were devoid of love, charity.
Certainly, as Jesus’ followers, we are to seek interior conversion, not only the keeping of God’s commandments, but a fiery love for Him and genuine concern for neighbor.
But the standard of righteousness go for Christians does in fact go beyond that of the scribes and Pharisees. As the great biblical scholar John Meier said, Jesus’ teaching calls for “a radical interiorization, a total obedience to God, a complete self-giving to neighbor, that carries the ethical thrust of the law to its God-will conclusion”.
We are not simply to act kindly, but seek healing of the interior roots of resentment, unforgiveness, anger, selfishness, perversion. Jesus calls us to make the interior journey to healing and wholeness through a wholehearted trust and obedience toward the heavenly Father that radiates God’s love to the world.
Our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving helps us to achieve the Christian perfection to which we are called, the perfection for which we are made. Are we making use of the time we’ve been given to become as holy as we are meant to become? Are we making use of the means at our disposal to grow in faith, hope, and love?
May the Holy Spirit help us, this Lent, to make serious and honest examinations of our lives, motives, attitudes, and habits, and come to that radical change of heart to which the Lord calls us, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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For greater devotion in our Lenten prayer, greater self-restraint in our Lenten fasting, and greater selflessness in our Lenten almsgiving.
That civil leaders will use their authority to protect the dignity of human life and the well-being of the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, those who suffer from discrimination, and the unborn. We pray to the Lord.
For those preparing to enter the Church at Easter, that these weeks of Lent may bring them purification and enlightenment in the ways of Christ. We pray to the Lord.
For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation or illness: that the tenderness of the Father’s love will comfort them. We pray to the Lord.
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