Today’s readings: 2 Sam. 12,7-10.13; Galatians 2,16.19-21; Luke 7,36-8,3.
Today we live in what is commonly defined a secular age. Charles Taylor, a Canadian and Catholic philosopher, has written extensively about this in his renowned classic. For too long the idea of secularity brought fear to our circles. It sounded too threatening, it was seen as dismantling what generation after generation upheld as the basic reasoning where religion in society and in people’s lives is concerned.
Now much of this has changed. Things seem to have got out of hand and there is a way of thinking we are finding hard to come to terms with. Secularity is not simply saying there is loss of belief. It’s about an age characterised as ever by spiritual restlessness yet with people ever more distancing themselves from structured religion.
In the second reading from Galatians, St Paul speaks of the shift he himself experienced from obedience to the law to faith in Jesus Christ. They are not the same. It is faith in Jesus that ultimately saves and gives interior freedom. It is the law that was made for man not the other way round. This is one of the basic principles of Jesus’s gospel.
Luke’s gospel is eloquent in demonstrating this. In one of the most beautiful gospel narratives, what St Paul writes takes concrete form in Jesus’ response to the behaviour of Simon the Pharisee and the woman known only as the village sinner. Luke depicts what may be considered an eloquent liturgy, where Jesus inaugurates the religion of love, which can give forgiveness and healing, in contrast with the official religion represented by the Pharisee.
We have here probably the most significant words ever uttered by Jesus affirming that it is love that heals and forgives. We have always thought things the other way round. With a legalistic frame of mind, we still insist on dictating that it’s not love but a contrite heart that is needed to be forgiven our sins.
We are failing to put things in the right perspective, and for many who have left it’s too late now to put things right. Many have switched to a religionless spirituality. We all carry a big responsibility if we want to continue preaching a gospel that is credible and that conveys to people what they are in search of. We cannot afford to perpetuate the standpoint of Simon the Pharisee, a stagnant religion incapable of coming to terms with situations that call for an adequate understanding rather than a mere legal action.
With Scriptures like the ones we have today, why is it so hard for the Church to let go of its rigidity? St Paul is extremely clear when he says it is not through obedience to the law that people are ultimately justified.
Our mission today, more than just teaching religion and doctrine, is to facilitate the way for people to encounter Jesus Christ. We are still dishing out sacraments without any grounding whatever in what faith is about.
At times we present religion as a sort of fantasyland, pretending to halt the flow of time. In a country like ours, particularly at this time of year with the festa season in full swing, religion seems to have stopped in time with no connection with life as we live it today. It is pure alienation.
Jesus behaves in a manner that is subversive. Speaking of the primacy of love and downplaying the role of the law was risky. He was giving dignity to a woman whom he should have judged. Unfortunately, the logic that still shapes the fabric of our religion finds this hard to digest. But this is the core of Christian belief as it was handed down by big names like Gregory of Nyssa, Irenaeus, Catherine of Siena, Thomas Merton, and so many others.
This is the prophecy of Jesus in Luke’s gospel. This is St Paul’s prophecy. Religion is about celebrating God’s grace, not putting people on God’s blacklist. In the wake of a religionless spirituality, people today are moving away from the God of dogma while still being in search of the living God. It can be that the God we still preach is long dead for them.