The
book of Exodus (20:1-2) states, “I, the
Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of
slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols
for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below
or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or
worship them [….] You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.” Through
Moses, this is clearly communicated to the people of Israel, but they almost immediately break the First
Commandment of the Sinai covenant and worship the golden calf (Ex 32:1-35).
After this deviation, the ten laws are drastically multiplied into 613 with
do’s and don’ts, as a “yoke of discipline” against idolatry and aids to true worship.
But they are used as suppressive measures by the highly clerical society.
Later, prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others
predict that these laws will be written in the human heart (Jer 31:31-33; Ezk
11:19), acting in full freedom as sons and daughters of the Father. The New Law
of love is internalized by means of imbibing socio-moral virtues for a total
union with God as His children. It depicts the prodigal portrait of God,
who is love itself (cf. Mk
12:28–34).
And we are destined to access this
divine love. Following the law of “spiritual physics” this love-gift possessed
only in the measure it is given away, says Bishop Barron. If you cling to it,
it disappears. In John Paul II’s term “the law of the gift” is the ‘defining dynamic’
of the Father that all sons and daughters will have to follow.
The
Israelite’s Shema of loving God with all heart, mind, body and strength,
invites us to examine our conscience. What bothers me from the ultimate concern
of my life as a child of the Father? How
do I woe total allegiance to a God that I cannot see? The solution is here: the
Shema is fulfilled, – as Jesus adds the second to the first – only
through loving my neighbour as I love myself. In Mark 12:28-34, Jesus reminds the Scribe, “The Lord our
God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength (Deut 6:4-5). The second is
this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). Those who do not love their brothers and sisters
whom they see, cannot love God whom they do not see (1Jn 4:20). The power and
wisdom of the new law lies in not making the unseen Father’s house (family, Church) a marketplace, through
over-ritualistic functions. Instead, “Whoever loves God must also love his
brothers and sisters”(1Jn 4:21). Doing so “is worth more than all burnt
offerings and sacrifices.” According to Bishop Barron the logic is simple: God
who is love, loves everything and everyone. Therefore, if I want to love God,
I need to love what and whom God loves.
Today, there is the urgent need to reject false ‘gods’ we have created
for ourselves, and love the true God the Father whose children we are. Like
Jesus, we are called to do the Father’s will on earth. Love of God and neighbor
is the ultimate law of unified love because this God of love is the only
true God of the whole universe. Love needs to be responded with love. The ineffective
sacrifices of the past are to be replaced by the ‘sacrificial fire of love on the Cross’ for
the love of neighbour. Jesus’ sacrificial
love becomes the source and model for the Christian love of neighbour (Mary
Healy, The Gospel of Mark, 248). Here is then the challenge to
continue loving for the Kingdom’s sake.
The salvation history is premised on a humanity being
part of God’s family as sons and daughters, extended to all the nations and its citizens. The
human-made Religions with its mores, codes and creed are to direct us to live
unitedly in God’s family, through love of the Father and love of our brothers
and sisters – a guide to a spiritual path of relationship. The gift
of God’s love on humanity through Jesus was made flesh (Jn 1:17). The corrupt
religions of hatred and violence are to be replaced by true love of neighbor in
spirit and truth. It is a call to cleanse the evil and unjust practices.
The awesome power and wisdom of God is
manifested through the crucified Jesus
who died out of concrete love for humanity, fulfilling his Father’s will. Similarly,
we are called to share in the divine communion as sons and daughters. The goodness
of God is manifested through us, when we love each other as brothers and
sisters. When we listen to the Father and heed to his voice (will) in our life,
we commune with God by being in communion with each other. As prophets we translate
“faith into the everyday life of a community before God” (Benedict XVI, Jesus
of Nazareth, 4).
In Lent, we are asked to join Jesus, follow his standard of loving our
enemies (brothers and sisters), while witnessing to his mercy and salvation by
turning our hardened hearts into hearts
of flesh that can truly love. With resistance to the hypocritical legalism
and the corrupted institutional
religions that Jesus fought against, we
too are called to transform them — Church, doctrines, priesthood, sacrifice, liturgy—
into a loving relationship between the
Father, and sons and daughters, – ever building up the family of God. Beyond
abstraction, institutional norms and mere ‘change of mind’, we are to change
our hearts of ‘doing’ (concrete actions) through a spiritual power and our availability
towards our brothers and sisters.
As God is ever faithful to his sons and
daughters, we are to called to be His faithful sons and daughters, rebuilding
God’s family of love. As the Father is
full of mercy, so too we are to be
‘vessels of mercy’ in the world today. If we know we have offended our
brothers/sisters, we open our hearts and encounter and reconcile with them in
humility, imitating God's mercy without
counting the cost. A heart that is open to the
needy around, shows true love in action. We have to rise from our prayerful knees
and go out to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, comfort the
sick and visit the prisoner, for we find the Father in them who are in need.
Therefore, love of neighbour is the
concrete expression of our love of God who is truth, goodness, love and beauty.
This love is worship, more important than prayers and sacrifice.
No comments:
Post a Comment