"Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.— Aref Mashali (@aref4950) February 21, 2018
Romans 13:9-10 pic.twitter.com/pnSYHQ1Djg
The Book of Deuteronomy details the character of Law to the Israelites and its attractiveness to other people.
In the Gospel from Matthew, Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, connects to the Law of Moses as He teaches His role as the “New Moses” and fulfillment of the Torah Law.
* [5:17–20] This statement of Jesus’ position concerning the Mosaic law is composed of traditional material from Matthew’s sermon documentation (see note on Mt 5:1–7:29), other Q material (cf. Mt 18; Lk 16:17), and the evangelist’s own editorial touches. To fulfill the law appears at first to mean a literal enforcement of the law in the least detail: until heaven and earth pass away nothing of the law will pass (Mt 5:18). Yet the “passing away” of heaven and earth is not necessarily the end of the world understood, as in much apocalyptic literature, as the dissolution of the existing universe. The “turning of the ages” comes with the apocalyptic event of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and those to whom this gospel is addressed are living in the new and final age, prophesied by Isaiah as the time of “new heavens and a new earth” (Is 65:17; 66:22). Meanwhile, during Jesus’ ministry when the kingdom is already breaking in, his mission remains within the framework of the law, though with significant anticipation of the age to come, as the following antitheses (Mt 5:21–48) show.Don Schwager quotes Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D on actions for making daily progress towards God.
"As Christians, our task is to make daily progress toward God. Our pilgrimage on earth is a school in which God is the only teacher, and it demands good students, not ones who play truant. In this school we learn something every day. We learn something from the commandments, something from examples, and something from Sacraments. These things are remedies for our wounds and materials for our studies." (excerpt from Sermon 16A,1)Friar Jude Winkler discusses how the Israelites knew the rules through the Law of Moses unlike most other ancient cultures. For Matthew, Jesus is not to do away with Law of Moses but to fulfill its spiritual meaning beyond what is said by religious authorities of His time. Friar Jude mentions the converted Pharisee who edited the Gospel of Matthew was very careful to refer to The Kingdom of “Heaven” in respect for the Jewish tradition of not writing the name of God. He contrasts Paul’s teaching on the Law with that of Matthew.
Jack Mahoney SJ writes that the Sermon on the Mount is intended to identify the ways in which the followers of Jesus should behave in living a life of acceptance of God’s gracious invitation to enter the kingdom of heaven.
The sermon is an unpacking of what the true relationship of Christians to God must entail, as contrasted with the ways in which their opponents, the scribes and Pharisees, are (polemically) portrayed as behaving. As with Paul in his letter to the Romans, the famous but elusive biblical term ‘righteousness’, or dikaiosune (based on the Greek term dike, or justice), attempts in the Sermon on the Mount to capture how a forgiving God takes the initiative in relating to us and how we in turn should correspondingly respond from our hearts to this generous heavenly father.Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, reminds us that from the beginning of the Bible to the end, it is clear that a loving God includes all of creation in God’s Kingdom. His friend and fellow Franciscan Jack Wintz wrote a book entitled Will I See My Dog in Heaven? In it he takes the scriptural, Christian, and Franciscan traditions to their logical conclusions: Yes, of course!
Sadly, if we are self-centered, even if we say the Bible is the “inerrant” word of God, we will hear only what we want to hear! God’s salvation—and every biblical covenant—is clearly a social, historical, and universal concept rather than the merely human and individualistic version of salvation that most of us were taught. This made Christianity into a largely ineffective religion. The notion of salvation became so guarded and so stingy it was finally not available to the vast majority of humans!The good news is our invitation to live in the “Kingdom of God” today. The “clear rules” of the Commandments are strong guideposts to living in a social environment where we present this invitation to all people.
References
(n.d.). Deuteronomy 4.1. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/bible/Deuteronomy/4:1
(n.d.). Matthew 5:3. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from http://www.usccb.org/bible/matthew/matthew5.htm
(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/
(2017, December 30). 2018 Daily Meditations - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://cac.org/2018-daily-meditations/
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