The Rules Aren't Enough

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When you jumped in your car to come to Mass this morning, I suspect you didn’t worry that you might make it here alive because of the other cars on the road. You probably came close to maybe a 100 other drivers on your trip, but didn’t even give it a second thought. And why is that? Because we understand and obey the rules and laws for driving, and expect others to follow then too.
The same thing goes for the food we eat – we don’t worry much about being poisoned by Winn Dixie, Publix, or Target because laws ensure the quality of what we buy. We LIKE rules and laws – even those we may not fully agree with – because they give order and structure to how we live our lives. They help us understand what we should do. I might nudge the speed limit a bit, but when some guy blows by me doing 100 on the interstate I’m sure happy to see a police car.
We like rules in our spiritual lives and our faith, too. Say Grace before eating. Go to Mass every weekend. Keep the Ten Commandments. In a lot of ways we’re not that different from the Jewish people of Jesus’ time, especially the more religious. We LIKE the rules – and so did they – because they help us believe we’re on the right path, the path to salvation. But Christ tells His people – and us – that simply keeping the rules isn’t enough. He calls us to move beyond the “WHAT” to the “WHY” of God’s commandments.
Today’s Gospel continues a series from the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus expands upon the rulesand laws of the Ten Commandments. Yesterday we talked about murder and anger as differing degrees of the same vice. Today’s reading focuses on the sin of adultery and lust, and tomorrow’s Gospel continues the trend with oaths and lies. But the common theme is that simply adhering to the rules misses the point.
If a man lusts after a woman, he reduces her to an object, not the child of God that she is. If someone holds a grudge or belittles another and refuses to reconcile, in their heart they reduce that person to less than God’s creation, in effect murdering their humanity. If we need to swear an oath to tell the truth, then we are effectively acknowledging that we are liars at other times. In each case, the point is this – you need not just avoid the BIG sin, but to strive to eliminate the little ones as well.
And for most of us that means removing opportunities for sin, distractions and obstacles on our path to salvation. Christ’s language today is graphic – what’s more dear than your sight or your hands – but His point is this: Nothing in this life, no matter how dear to us, should come between us and eternal salvation.
So yes, if you get to Mass before the Gospel reading, it will fulfill your Mass obligation. But if that’s your purpose for coming, you’re probably missing the whole point. The Gospel tells us that we have been called to more than the rules – that it’s time to live beyond the WHATs of our faith to get to the WHYs.
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