The Rules In Only Two Lines Series

30th Sunday in Course 2020

Plague Year

The Church has had us immersed in St. Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 22, for the better part of a month now, and last week’s Gospel with the famous quote, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God” was a rebuke of the Pharisees. So the beginning of today’s passage from the same chapter is a bit jarring, because the Pharisees were the ones who were silenced last week, and this week refers to Jesus dissing the Sadducees. Well, the Lectionary editors skipped that passage, which was about the Resurrection from the dead. We’ll get to that another time. Today the Pharisees are back for another round in a boxing match they never win, so instead they plot to have their opponent murdered. Nice guys, huh?

All of Torah, all of God’s law is summed up in two lines. That’s good, because after original sin, we humans routinely show ourselves to be pretty stupid, especially with respect to the moral rules that God has set up to help us keep from hurting each other and ourselves. Two lines: love God with all your faculties, and love your neighbor as yourself. So worship God alone and treat every other human just as well as you treat yourself. Easy to understand, but not so easy to follow.

We tend to disobey the rules because when we wake up in the morning and reboot our operating systems, in general I start by thinking about me. How do I feel? Do I really want to get up now? What are my physical needs? Am I hungry for anything? We aren’t thinking about God and we are certainly not thinking about doing good for our neighbor. It takes recollection and probably prayer in order to get us imagining God’s presence and what we owe God. It takes maybe a few hours to think about how we can help other people. If one of my own needs or wants gets into the way, maybe I don’t think about you at all! And, frankly, it takes years of study and experience to put others first, doesn’t it?

So we probably think we treat God pretty well. After all, here you are in church on Sunday, and are even listening to the homily. So you check off the third commandment box. Yes, I keep the Lord’s Day. But after Mass are you going home to be with family, or stopping somewhere for breakfast or lunch? You may not be working, but you are expecting somebody else to work when maybe they ought to be with family or worship. How about commandment 2? Do you take the Lord’s name in vain? Do you ever use “OMG” in a text? What does the “G” mean. Do you swear about unimportant things or reserve that for court testimony? And the first commandment may be the one ignored the most. Is there anything more important than your relationship with God? Money, job, another person? Are you enslaved to the things you own or want to own? Food for thought and repentance.

The Lord is pretty clear in our first reading about how to avoid hurting our neighbor. He is particularly hard on people who abuse the weak and defenseless, symbolized by widows and orphans. Before life insurance, the death of a breadwinner, typically the father, was a catastrophe that often ended up with the widow and children going to slavery. That is an abomination to God. So, obviously, we should all have life insurance, and take care of survivors as well as we can, not cheat them. Those called “strangers” here are really refugees from war, famine or other miseries. They are like the Israelites in Egypt. Now this is not a plea for unregulated immigration, but rather a command to treat refugees, once here, with the same respect as our fellow countrymen. St. Paul holds up the members of the church of Thessalonika as an example to other Christians on how to welcome newcomers, really all of us. We are, after all, strangers in this land, because we are citizens of heaven.

Today the height of our praise and thanks to God is our psalm 18. Let me recommend that as homework for this week you memorize those first two or three lines: “I love thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.” We are all aware of the plague that seems designed to destroy us, and possible results of the current election that could harm the entire country. But God is stronger than any disease, and more powerful than any political party. Tell God every day that you love Him, and examine your conscience each night and repent of any wrong you have done. Ultimately, when Christ comes to save us in our last hour, with all the saints and angels, all evil will be destroyed, and we will rejoice together with our rock and fortress, Jesus Christ.