Deacon Tom Writes,
“Following the Rules: Easier Said Than Done”
Question.
How many laws are necessary to help us lead dignified, well ordered, and
morally responsible lives?
Answer. Not many!
In today’s first reading we recall a time when the Israelites
were instructed to follow the laws and statutes that God has given to them. According
to Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, one of the greatest medieval Jewish scholars, there
were 613 mitzvot (commandments). Of these commandments 248 were positive – thou
shall commandments and 365 were negative – thou shall not. These commandments
stated the obvious in some cases such as: 1) to know that D-d exists; 10) to imitate
His good and upright ways; 27) not to stand idly by when a human life is in
danger. There were also some interesting commandments such as: 159) not to slaughter and animal and
its young on the same day, or 364) not to work with beasts of different species,
yoked together. There were commandments for every facet of daily life and they
were intended to help the people live together in peace and harmony. But that ideal was never realized.
Then Jesus enters the scene. It is easy to understand His
compassion for His fellow Israelites who by that time were suffering from the
burden of so many unnecessary “statues and decrees”. In the hours He spent in prayer He must have asked, “How many
commandments do we need to live wholesome, peaceful, and humble lives”? Jesus
takes all these “statues and decrees” and reduces them to a single one with two
equal parts… “Love God with all your
heart, mind, and strength; and, love your neighbor as yourself”. So when
Jesus is challenged by some Pharisees about washing His hands before eating, He
calls them what they are, “hypocrites”.
Jesus knows that this notion of ritualistic purity is a diversion from doing
the real work that God calls us to do. In fact, a lot of the work God calls us
to do is pretty dirty, if not totally ritualistically unclean. Working with the
homeless or in AIDS clinics or with the people who frequent our soup kitchens,
the lepers of our day, may get your hands dirty but such activity is sure to
open your eyes to a level of poverty and personal degradation many poor men,
women, and children experience each and every day. There is a large contingency
of our brothers and sisters today for whom eating off of dirty plates is the
least of their problems. Newsflash… Jesus is not worried about us eating from
dirty dishes! The filth Jesus wants to alert and cleans us from is that which comes
from within – our hardheartedness, our deafness to the needs and concerns of
others, our self-centeredness, our out of control desires, our lusting for
what’s not ours. So again, how many commandments do we need to save us from ourselves?
Ten? Seventeen? Do we decide which number is right for us – just like the Serta
sleep bed, or are we going to listen to what the teacher has to say…and take up
our cross and follow Him by loving God and placing ourselves in the service of
one another?
God didn’t bring us into creation to get caught up in the
minutia. Nor did Jesus die on the cross to defend prevailing legalistic way of
Jewish life. We do need rules to
guide us and govern our lives. And so Jesus gave us some simple ones to live by.
If we want to live happy and fulfilling lives, we must see in ourselves and in
each other the dignity that God has given to us. We must come to recognize that
God dwells in each and every one of us. And, we must realize that we come to
know, love, and serve Him by knowing, loving, and serving one another. We don’t
need a lot of rules to live a good life. Rather we must, in the words
of St. Paul, “Be doers of the word and
not hearers only” following Jesus’ example by Loving God and each
other.
Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom
Photo Credit : Newseum, Washington,
D.C.
No comments:
Post a Comment