Today’s readings: Leviticus 19, 1-2.17-18; 1 Cor. 3, 16-23; Mat 5, 38-48.
Leviticus is the third book of the Bible and it teaches the holy requirements of God in worship and life. There is an entire section of the book of Leviticus dedicated to the law of holiness, which sees God as the foundation of the world and of all that binds people together.
Holiness is a radical demand which mainly, and on a very practical level concerns the everyday wisdom that should inspire our being and doing.
This is very profound teaching that we need to recover if we want to really understand what Christian life is about. Christianity is not just about morality. Very often we continue to enter that rut without acknowledging that our proclamation is not mainly of a moral nature.
Rather, it is basically about the God we worship, about acknowledging God as our creator. The Leviticus word, “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy”, has its replica in Matthew: “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect”. This is not about perfectionism.
Ultimately, all questions about shaping the good life boil down to questions about the potentials of human nature. Religion always had a good deal to say about this. As the 4th-century Church father Gregory of Nyssa wrote, human nature is endowed with a desire for goodness that can only be satisfied in God.
When one chooses to love something other than the divine source, one moves away from that source and becomes mired in the shadows, confused and lost, seeking what is imperfect and changing, rather than the immutable and eternal.
According to the biblical perspective from the Old Testament to the New with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the way to access God’s own holiness is the other, one’s neighbour. The “eye for eye and tooth for tooth” law goes radically against this openness and acceptance that in us can only be a reflection of God’s own image and likeness. Believing harder will not make one stop being an imperfect human being.
In the sermon , Jesus urges us to opt out of the process of revenge which leads nowhere. This is the everyday wisdom that is needed not only for order on a social level, but primarily for our mental sanity.
There is a lot of suffering which blocks communication and kills relationships, and which at the end of the day makes life hell for so many. Beyond all economic prosperity we can dream of, it is mainly this everyday wisdom that can better the quality of our lives.
Jesus seems to go overboard when he asks of us, as his disciples, to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. But, I would ask, what is the alternative? The alternative makes us enter into ruts that lead nowhere and which generate further suffering and pain and wounds.
In The Pain of Being Human, Eugene Kennedy writes: “Forgiveness cannot coexist with closing off inner chambers of personality in which we keep the fires of bitterness banked until some opportunity for revenge comes our way”.
Jesus proposes new openings when he says: “Offer the wicked no resistance”. Hatred and violence can be prisons we build for ourselves.
Hate talk seems to be a way of life for many. ‘Small talk’, ranging from gossip corners, through the print media, to modern-day blogs, which seem to know no limits or regulation, causes so much suffering. But at times we ourselves encourage it.
In A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer writes: “The rationale for non-violence is simple and self-justifying: we act in ways that honour the soul because the soul is worthy of honour. When we act from that motivation, we may or may not change the world. But we will always change ourselves for the better by practising reverence and respect.”
Reverence and respect towards God without reverence and respect towards the other is sheer hypocrisy. It is that schizophrenia we often carry within ourselves, or even on the level of society, that hinders the way of perfection and blocks all possibilities of self-improvement.