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Exploring the word

11 Mar 2012 - Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

WHAT’S RELIGION ABOUT, to you? Is it about being good, getting to heaven? Or at least not going to hell in a handbasket? I have a Christian friend who says religion is mainly about good order: keeping society reasonably under wraps, not giving dreadful human impulses full rein. I think for a surprising number of people in churches, religion pretty much boils down to a system for regulating morality. If religion is primarily a morality delivery system, then with all the religion going around we should be living in a much better world than the one we’re inhabiting right now. Or should we imagine that without the induced pressure of history’s great religions, we’d be no better than savages today? Is your faith the only thing that stands between you and murder? What about that moral, charitable atheist who gets dropped into every argument in favor of ethics beyond creeds? Every society since the tribal era has had its precepts to live by, however crude and possibly abhorrent they are to us now. Someone actually sat down and wrote up rules about how hard and under what circumstances you could beat a child, wife, slave, or a passing stranger. Some of these rules made their way into sacred texts and not a few of them are in the Bible. Evidently no one considered the morality of the underlying violence at all, much less the implications of subordinating one class of people to another. As a moral-delivery system, religion is no worse than another—and possibly no better. The Ten Commandments are posted across America, and many of the leaders who ordered their posting seem strangely unfamiliar with their contents. Saint Paul has lots to say about how laws don’t make people better; laws only make people hide the contents of their hearts in more acceptable packaging and under greater layers of hypocrisy. While laws may superficially influence behavior, only the radical redirecting of love can change hearts. So Jesus didn’t issue many laws except the one that directs our love to God and each other. He had the perfect opportunity to rewrite the rulebook or at least reinforce the old one. He did neither. Rather, he flat-out broke laws: working on the sabbath, touching the dead, coming into contact with blood, eating with sinners, ignoring ritual washings. He never said the old laws weren’t important, but clearly some things were more important. When he got to the Temple in Jerusalem, the center of religion itself, he coopted temple authority with his own. In the terms of morality-centered Pharisees of his time, Jesus did not live a moral life. But he did one thing his followers still strive to do: live with God’s love at the center. Related sripture links Gospel parallels: Mark 11:15-19; Matt. 21:12-17; Luke 19:45-48 My temple a house of prayer: Isa. 56:7 In your eyes, a den of thieves: Jer. 7:11 Jesus in his Father's house: Luke 2:49 Jesus the highest authority in the heavens: Phil. 2:9-11; Col. 1:16 Built into living stones: 1 Pet. 2:4-5 God alone: Deut. 6:4-9; Isa. 40:25-28; Jer. 10:10-13 Catechism links Monotheism: CCC 200-202 Idolatry: CCC 1852; 2112-14 Jesus and temple authority: CCC 576; 583-586; 651; 653

Authors Alice Camille

religion morality laws

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Exploring the word

24 Oct 2010 - Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

IT’S AN OXYMORON to imagine the humble soul on top of the world. Humility seeks to be hidden and takes the low road. Yet in the inscrutable gospel reality (where the last shall be first), the humble one is exalted in the end. If we take a quick glance around the world or our assembly, it’s shocking to imagine just who those exalted ones might be. It’s also disconcerting to consider that the exalted ones may not be us. If we’re shocked and disconcerted, then we know we’ve just been parabled. A parable is like a gag gift: It’s conventionally wrapped on the outside, but inside nestles the gotcha. Rest assured when it comes to a parable, the joke’s always on us. Here’s how it works. Jesus is a smart teacher, and he knows that no one likes to be preached to. So he presents stories, which seem easy and pleasant at first—then take a sharp turn toward discomfort. A preacher may tell us the same harsh truths, but we can tune him out the moment he goes down the dark road to perdition. A storyteller, by contrast, captures the imagination, and we tend to travel with him or her further—all the way to the troublesome ending. Parables conceal something, like chocolates in a box. You have to bite in to find what’s at the center. By the time you discover it, it may be too late to refuse it. Parables draw comparisons between what we know and what we don’t know, conventional understanding up against gospel truth. They begin in familiar territory, if you live in an agrarian society: sheep and goats, sowers and seed. Or with recognizable local characters: the debtor and his master, or the Pharisee and the tax collector. First we say: Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Then the sharp corner is turned, and we swallow hard. We don’t like where this story is going; that isn’t supposed to be the way of things. We learn two things about parables. First, that their intention is to clarify moral mysteries. Second, that just as often they leave us deaf and blind. The mystery is resolved for those with eyes to see in the first place, people already intent on obedient listening. Parables may delight or frustrate. The result lies mainly in the heart of the one who hears them. The humble soul, like the despised tax collector in the story, will find justification and a reason to rejoice. The self-righteous listener will more likely face a challenge that may prove unacceptable—and will leave it on the table. Jesus knew his audience. That he kept telling these stories implies they operated just as he meant them to do. Related scripture links Tax collectors paired with sinners: Mark 2:13-17; Matt. 9:9-13, 11:19, 18:17, 21:31-32; Luke 5:27-32, 7:34, 15:1 God knows the human heart: 1 Sam. 16:7; 1 Chron. 28:9; Matt. 12:25; Luke 16:15; John 2:24; Acts 1:24, 15:8 Saul the Pharisee: Acts 8:1-3, 9:1-6, 22:3-5 Christians vis-à-vis Paul the convert: Acts 9:10-14, 20-22, 26-29 Catching fish: Mark 1:16-18; Matt. 4:18-20; Luke 5:1-11 Catechism links Sinners are forgiven: CCC 1443 Humility: CCC 525-526; 559; 724; 2540; 2559; 2628; 2631; 2706; 2713

Authors Alice Camille

Humility parables morality

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13 Mar 2016 - Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle C

“Neither do I condemn you.” As with many “entrapment” stories in the gospels, Jesus’ enemies were trying to force him to speak against the Law, but he completely dismantles the situation and makes an important point in the process. The woman’s sin was not simply a sexual indiscretion; it was her defiance of the role as faithful wife and mother the community expected of her. Jesus, however, associated himself with this outcast person and bent down to her level. What he wrote on the ground doesn’t matter. The point was he reversed the momentum of the violent judgment of the woman. He then played the Law card himself: It would be un-Lawful for a sinner to cast a stone; to enforce the Law would violate it. Jesus’ words and actions move the story from being a morality tale to one about the dangers of self-righteous religious legalism. The Law never overrides God’s mercy. Only God stands in judgment of human beings.

adultery morality judgment

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Homily themes

25 Jul 2010 - Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims. Paul uses the language of debtor and creditor to describe how God, through Christ, forgives. It's as if God tears up the record binding us in debt for our transgressions. A Jewish prayer says, "Through your great mercy erase the writing that accuses us!" God not only forgives but also eliminates the terms of the old system and, in Christ, opens up a whole new way for us to relate to God. Through this larger message, Paul is also attacking the particular rules and practices his opponents are trying to impose on the Colossian community. Homily points Crime and punishment is a familiar way for the world to speak of justice. Is God as moral as we are, or is divine morality something much better? Abraham's bargaining with God raises the bar on morality in arguing for the expiation of guilt through the activity of the innocent. Jesus Christ is the innocent one who takes away the sin of the world once and for all.

Abraham paul morality

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