Justice Sunday!
Exodus 22:20-26; 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10; Matthew 22:34-40
Going by happenings around the world—the wars and killings— there is a clear proof of anthropological poverty. The human person is left behind through human greed and debasement. The needless deaths, hunger, and impunity oppressors visit on the poor are crying out to heaven for redress. Church, synagogue, and mosque attendances have become camouflages for religious piety, without social justice and equality to back it up. All these scenarios make this Sunday “Justice Sunday”!
Our first reading puts social justice on the front burner of today’s readings. Exodus 22:20-26 situates the meaning of the law of Exodus 20 within the purview of inter-human relationships. The degree to which we treat one another well, to that degree do we accomplish the meaning of God’s commandments. In fact, the liberation of the Jews from Egypt is possible for every enslaved human being, not only for the Jewish people alone, because the lesson God himself expects us to draw from that liberation is to become liberators of other people in difficulty. This is the case because the love God showed the Jews is what he expected them to show to others or face punishment; they were to give to others what they had received or experienced themselves.
The Babylonian exile could be read as God’s punishment of the Jews for their failure to reciprocate “good neighborliness” expected of them as the beneficiaries of God’s beneficence to them in Egypt. No wonder Paul talks about “modeling” in our second reading today, “so that you became a model for all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.” Before the Thessalonians could become models, they were first and foremost “imitators” of the apostles. Going by the logic of our first reading, we need to imitate the God who led Israel out of bondage in Egypt, and the Jewish people were supposed to imitate his largesse by treating other human beings well. A close reading of our second reading suggests that when we fail to imitate God, in Jesus Christ, then the future might be catastrophic—“to await his son from heaven, . . Who will deliver us from coming wrath.” The “wrath” of God will visit those who fail to imitate the life of God in Jesus Christ.
Nevertheless, our gospel reading starts out with an acknowledgment of the failure of the Sadducees party to entrap Jesus, “When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.” Curiously, that did not dissuade the lawyers from attempting to entrap Jesus—how stubborn and obstinate human beings are in sin and evil! At stake is the meaning of the “resurrection” and the meaning of marriage (Matt 22:23-33). What gave rise to the question of entrapment by the lawyers in today’s gospel reading is the accusation of ignorance Jesus brings to bear on the Sadducees in the preceding passage to our gospel, where Jesus says “you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt 22:29).
The lawyer’s question to Jesus—“Which is the greatest commandment?”—is very pertinent today, but more pertinent and relevant is Jesus’ answer: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Any one incapable of loving, helping and accommodating other human beings is neither a keeper of God’s commandments nor a follower/imitator of Jesus Christ. An intellectual knowledge of God with no practical love is useless.
The imitation of Jesus Christ is definitely problematic to Christians today since class segregation and status symbols are engrained in our societies. Even the poor still sub-classify themselves, the Nigerian concept of “I better pass my neighbor!” Racial and gender superiority complexes are ubiquitous in our societies today, be they African or Western societies. The needless poverty experienced in Africa and many so-called Third Worlds are proofs of this human inhumanity to other humans. Gun violence and mass murders and genocides show the absence of love of neighbors around the world; corporate greed and sexual exploitation and forced migrations are all symptomatic of a society in need of neighborly love. Our world needs justice—the keeping of the law to love one’s neighbor as oneself!
Charity is contagious, at least, it is supposed to be, and it is our responsibility to spread it around. The power of charity to transform human lives and societies is emphasized in our readings this Sunday. To the degree to which the poor and rich experience love as charity, love as sharing, to that degree can we claim that there are still Christians in the world today. We need other Mother Teresa of Calcutta and St. Vincent De Paul, etc. if our Christianity is to continue to have a positive image in the world.
Assignment of the Week :
Do something that will make the beneficiaries of your kindness forget about you, but think about God.