Charity is contagious, Spread it Around!
Exodus 22:20-26; 1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10; Matthew 22:34-40
From the conspiracies of the Pharisees, the theologians of the Jewish people, we now move to the Pharisees’ connivance with the Herodians, the political class among the Jews. Today, we arrive at the participation of lawyers in the saga of Jesus’ betrayal. In other words, all the major aspects of the society – religious (Pharisees and Sadducees), Politicians and ruling class (Herodians) and Lawyers (interpreters of the law) are all involved in this conspiracy. This sounds like the three arms of government, in a functional democracy.
Nevertheless, our gospel reading starts out with an acknowledgement of the failure of the Sadducees party to entrap Jesus, “When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.” At stake was the meaning of the “resurrection” and the meaning of marriage (Matt 22:23-33). This indicates two things, 1) a new conspiracy or coup plot against Jesus was underway, and 2) a successful teaching of Jesus Christ on the meaning of heaven and eternal life/resurrection is underscored. However, what gave rise to the question of entrapment of the lawyers in today’s gospel reading is the accusation of ignorance Jesus brings to bear on the Sadducees in the preceding pericope/passage to our gospel, where Jesus says “you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God” (Matt 22:29). One thing the lawyers were sure of was the fact that they knew the law and its jurisprudence, hence their question to Jesus – “Which is the greatest commandment?”
If the question of the lawyers was a trap – “which is the greatest commandment,” there must have been a discrepancy among lawyers as to the existence of a so-called “greatest law” or a dispute about which laws could be dispensed with. During the missionary days of the Europeans in Africa, one heard of some communes who were ready to keep the whole commandments except the sixth commandment! Perhaps, the commandments of God were so many that the Jewish people themselves were debating the possibility of keeping them all. Well, the fact that there were 615 laws to be kept by the Jews, and the fact that St. Paul took issues with the understanding of the Laws of the Old Testament given the reality of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the question of the lawyers provides Jesus with the opportunity to overhaul the meaning and interpretation of the Law among the Jewish elites of his day.
First, the addition of the “Beatitudes” (Matt 5-7) into the gospel of Matthew provides us with the idea of a transformation of Old Testament beliefs, given the advent of Jesus Christ. The Beatitudes starts Matthean rereading of Jewish laws and practices. Today, Jesus provides the summary of the law – love of God and neighbor – as a rereading of the laws of the Old Testament. The exclusive anchorage of salvation on the basis of works of mercy in Matthew 25:31-46 is another Matthean novelty. This is the context of the question of the lawyers of today.
Second, Matthew’s rereading of the Law is not novel, it started during the Babylonian exile and continued after the return from Babylon. This can be seen in Deuteronomy 6:4 – “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”. The Jewish life was inundated by laws so much so that a synopsis of its essence was already sought after. In fact, the laws were not kept, that accounted for the Babylonian exile. It’s like contemporary situation, especially in the West, human beings have developed the 11th commandment – “thou shall not be caught” – because there are many laws and people are not interested in keeping them!
Well, what we call “intertextuality,” the comparison between or among texts of Scripture, helps us to understand the meaning of today’s gospel. Notice that Deut 6:4 lacks the addition we have in Matthew 22:36-39 – “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” However, Deut 15:4 says this “there must be no poor persons among you”. This simply means that good neighborliness is at the heart of every law, if it is to qualify as divine – how do you treat your neighbor? This reconciles the two perspectives to the Decalogue – the human and the divine perspectives/relationships. The human person was so neglected in the maze of life and in the Jewish Jurisprudence of Jesus’ time that Jesus needed to address that concern, which the Lord is addressing for us today also. As a matter of fact, the motifs and pretexts the Jews sought to kill Jesus was part of this compromise of the paramount importance of the human life; they had no respect for human life, as must of us today do too, that they felt it was justified to do away with Jesus or kill in order to protect God or do God’s will.
One proof that our analysis is on track comes from our first reading of today. 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 was 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 was to become liberators of other people in difficulty. This is the case because the love God showed them, he expected them to show the same to others or face punishment; they were to give what they had received or experienced themselves. The Babylonian exile could be read as the failure of the Jewish people 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 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.
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 evidences of this human inhumanity to other humans. Gun violence and mass murders and genocides show the absence of love of neighbor around the world; corporate greed and sexual exploitation and forced migrations are all symptomatic of a society in need of neighborliness love.
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 are 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 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.