6th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Feb. 16, 2020
CollectSir 15: 15-20
Matt 5: 17-37
Ursulines, Willow Dr., New Rochelle, N.Y.
“O God, … you abide in hearts that are just
and true…” (Collect).
Today’s collect pleads that God take possession of our hearts, that he come to dwell in them. We ask this as a grace because it’s not within our natural powers completely to cast out sin. Rather, we need the Holy Spirit to make his home within us.
In a sense, the Book of Sirach gives us false teaching today, shades of the Pelagian heresy in Christian theology. The author tells us, “If you choose you can keep the commandments; they will save you” (15:15). If only it were that easy! Few are they who can keep the commandments flawlessly—especially when we take seriously Jesus’ commands about our hearts, when we hear him command faithfulness to every jot and tittle, every iota and dot of the Law (Matt 5:18. Some older translations seem to me more elegant than the banality inflicted on us by the NAB).
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| Sermon on the Mount (Copenhagen altarpiece) |
A great many people who come to confession accuse themselves of getting angry. In their self-accusations, at least, they don’t distinguish between their feelings of anger and perhaps of having been abused or misused by a spouse, a relative, or someone they work with, and acting on what they feel by nurturing resentment, making attempts to retaliate, planning revenge, and of carrying out some of that. Jesus cites the example of verbal abuse, calling someone a fool (5:22)—something most of us are quite willing to do, in various phrasings, some of which we may think are semi-polite: “He’s an idiot.” “She’s a moron”; and other names or accusations we don’t voice in polite society. Jesus finds verbal assault on someone as sinful as a physical assault. Giving way to the anger one feels is what’s sinful. Unchecked anger, anger that simmers, is only the start of something worse.
Jesus speaks in a similar vein concerning lust. The problem isn’t finding a person physically or emotionally attractive, or even feeling temptation. The problem is letting those feelings lead to willed imagination and desires, looking at the other “with lust in the heart” (5:28), and perhaps allowing such desires to lead to some form of lust-driven activity.
When Jesus turns to truthfulness in our speech or writing, he demands complete transparency, no fudging the truth. Not many of us are 100% true in our speech or writing, preferring a “white lie” or an omission or a “yes or “no” of convenience. Of course, there are polite ways to evade a delicate subject or tell someone, “Mind your own business.” But how many times the evasion or the fib is to protect our own pride or self-image, or to cover up some failing. We laugh when Flip Wilson explains, “The Devil made me do it,” but we offer similar excuses.
So Jesus requires of us a supreme degree of holiness. So we beg the Lord that “we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you” (Collect). We need the Holy Spirit to take control of our hearts, to guide our thoughts, our tongues, and our deeds. “Immense is the wisdom of the Lord; he is mighty in power, and all-seeing,” Sirach says truthfully (15:18).
The Spirit who “scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God” (1 Cor 2:10) scrutinizes us, too. But not only to condemn the anger, lust, or deceit we’re sometimes guilty of. St. Paul writes to the Romans, “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness” (8:26) and “The Spirit intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will” (8:27). For it’s God’s will to extend mercy to us who are weak, to us sinners. “If you trust God, you too shall live”—again, Sirach is right (15:16).
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