God made you in order for you to Create yourself!
Leviticus 19:1-2, 17-18; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23; Matthew 5:38-48
Every student of political theory knows the importance of social contracts and laws. Laws come from a society’s decision that there are some things individuals cannot do for themselves, and that there things that are better achieved and achievable as a group than individually. For instance, human beings have realized that they have to live with other human beings, and in order to live together, laws are necessary so that the strongest will not prey on the weakest. In this regard, laws are the building blocks of communities and unity among human beings. Laws and contracts are responsible for the unfolding of societies and communities, no matter how small or large.
What political theorists and statements and politicians and families fail to realize is that they are imitating God – the first to put the terms of unity and harmony together under law. The book of Leviticus deals with laws of worship and prescriptions for priests and worshipers. Some consider it a liturgical book. Although true, that Leviticus is about liturgical laws, there is a deeper law which harmonizes all the laws therein – the law of bonding or covenant. When we look at the book of Leviticus as a book of laws, we miss the intent of God – the God who wants to be in relationship with us, and who wants us to be in relationships with one another. If relationships are not created, laws are useless and meaningless.
The essence of laws is to create relationships. Relationships are formed from covenants or agreements between peoples or among individuals. If we read the whole of Leviticus 19, from where our first reading is taken, the very first kind of worship described is “communion sacrifice” – a sacrifice where the person who sacrifices participates in eating in the sacrificed specie. The essence of eating from the sacrificial specie is to create a bond or unity between the sacrificer and the divinity receiving the sacrifice.
When the Lord addresses the Israelites in the following words of Moses, “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them: Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:1-2), it simply means that there is a bond between Israel and God, a bond which makes Israel a community, instead of individuals. Here is the idea of God creating a society, a community of persons on the basis of his law, on the grounds of relationship. The “holiness” of the community flows from the holiness of the contracting persons – those who belong to God share in his holiness.
What appears illusive to people is the meaning of “holiness.” It is not the aggregate of laws and how we succeed in keeping them that make one holy. From the “holiness” of God, human beings are taught the meaning of “holiness”: “love your neigbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). The purpose of the law is defeated when we don’t realize that love is the summary and fulfillment of the laws of God. In other words, what God wants is for human beings to bond as one through love. “Love” is the ability to make or turn “many” into “one.” The power of laws to foster unity is what we call “love.” “Love” remains an abstract concept without a real and concrete family, couple and individuals living in unity and at peace with one another.
Because God is love and builder of unity, he isolates, according to our gospel reading today, two laws that do not build up unity and promote love, and he advocates for their abrogation: “Jesus said to his disciples: ‘you have heard that it was said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil” (Matthew 5:38). The law of revenge or lex talionis has no place in God. In fact, God says that “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” (Deuteronomy 32:33). But our God has a track record of love and compassion, not vengeance. As a matter of fact, our earlier statement that we share in the holiness of God comes out clearly in this statements of today’s gospel: “You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:43-45). God’s children should behave like God their Father – love their enemies.
The two elements, gleaned from the first and gospel readings, imitation of God Our Father as God of love (gospel) and the law of love which builds communities and engenders unity (first reading), combine to provide the “temple of God,” according to Paul, in the second reading. What needs to be taken seriously is the fact that God is building a temple upon earth, with human beings as his bricks. From the Greek version of the second reading, it is clear that Paul is not talking about individual Christians but the whole assembly of Christians as the Temple of God and the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
Charity, love in action, is the building block of the Temple of God. It is love that helps us to tear down walls of divisions and build bridges of unity because we are products of God’s love, sustained in love and build up in love. Love is the architect of God’s Temple that We are. God made you and me in order for us to create ourselves into the one Temple of God. He made us individually and gives us the freedom of creating and building a Temple for God. The Holy Spirit in us is that force of God nudging us forward and giving us the courage and the power to create the Temple of God and the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
Each time we are charitable to anyone, we show that we belong together as members of the temple of God. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist together we reveal the unity of the Temple of God. Whenever we assemble as a Church, we prove the unity of the children of God, turned into the Temple of God. Solidarity with those in need and identifying with the weak ones are the hallmarks of charity and the manifestation of the Temple of God. It for the creation of this Temple of God that God made us, but create ourselves by being bricks of love in order to fit into the edifice which is the Temple of God. Yes, every act of charity brings humanity one brick closer to the realization of the Temple of God.
Assignment for the Week:
Try to assist someone either in cash or kind this week.