Filling the Law full

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today illuminate the difficulty of applying law to the behaviour of people. The Wisdom of Sirach which Friar Jude Winkler notes was written during the time of domination of Palestine by Greek rulers is a presentation of the quality of Jewish wisdom and thought in an environment dominated by Greek influence. The choice of life or death which echoes Deuteronomy and the freedom given to people to follow the guidance of God or to go on a path to death without the Wisdom of God is one which has prompted the question to God and religious leaders of what it is we must do to follow God. The psalmist prays that God teach him the ways of His statutes. The application of the Law seems to be at question here. Teachers often struggle to have their students move under the guidance of the spirit of the rules rather than the letter of the rubric. DrPeter Pett in his commentary on Matthew 5.17-48 describes Jesus as filling the law full and bringing out its deeper meaning. The details of regulations, which Friar Jude reminds us preoccupied the Pharisees who applied the tithe rule to grains of salt and leaves of mint, may give us excuses to forget compassion, mercy and love as we work to draw people to a law of love which Paul reminds the Corinthians that the wise of his age could not see or hear because Jesus who lived the fulfillment of law died on the cross as witness to the Divine Will of Love as the Law fulfilled. Joan Blandin Howard of Creighton University tells of a proceeding at court which is oppressively legal yet concludes with an enormous need to be filled with love, forgiveness and compassion for be anywhere near the justice of God. Our intention and our movement toward the treatment of the other as less than a child of God which we do by relating with them for our benefit, satisfaction or justification is the attitude which Jesus identifies as sinful anger, lust and deceit.  Joy J. Moore asks “What Is the Lord's Justice?” as she writes that Jesus exercises authority over the household laws and customs to call to account male privilege and lust. These sins, she notes, which start in the heart, cut to the most-intimate relationships.  Sirach reminds us: Choose wisely. Act rightly.