EPIPHANY VII 2017

Christ the King

• Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18  • 
• Psalm 119:33-40  • 
• 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23  • 
• Matthew 5:38-48

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul reflects upon one of his favorite themes – the foolishness of the Christian faith from the point of view of the world at large. The Gospel passage set for this Sunday provides more evidence in its favor. Jesus raises the bar of good conduct higher and higher. Rules laid down in the lesson from Leviticus  -- hard enough to follow at the best of times – are replaced with far greater  demands. Jesus urges his followers beyond reciprocal justice, loving their neighbors, doing their duty, and tells them to give up on getting justice, submit to tyranny and do good to the very people who are out to destroy them. If these are rules we are meant to live by, they are contrary to every human culture that ever was. They make nonsense of legal systems, military forces and human rights. So, to declare that Jesus’ teaching looks like foolishness ‘from the point of the world’ seems to take the edge off a balder, much more uncomfortable judgment. Christian teaching just looks like foolishness.

‘Counsels of perfection’ are standards of conduct that we can never expect people to keep. That is what makes them foolish. We know full well that human life can’t be run in accordance with them, a truth confirmed as much by the unhappy divisions and conflicts in the Church as in any other human organization. Jesus doesn’t make it any easier to avoid this conclusion when he summarizes his instructions by saying “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." How could we be? We are not God, and to think that we could be like God is spiritual pride of the worst sort, surely.

Day appears at Last

All this is true. And yet it is no less obvious that the realities our legal and military systems try to contain, arise from deep flaws in human nature. They are, we might say, the fault lines of the human condition. It does not take much imagination to see that the legal and political remedies we turn to to deal with injustice, hatred, tyranny, and so on, a very poor instruments indeed. But we can only see that because we are aware of a different possible world, one in which all the things that are evidently good and right prevail.

Here is the paradox. We can't help longing for such a world, one in which human beings properly reflect the perfection of the heavenly Father who made them and loves them. At the same time we know that such perfection will always elude us. Here is the hope. The perfect God who knows our weakness, has chosen to be one of us, to be the one human being who can truly love his enemies, turn the other cheek, go the second mile. We cannot be perfect, but we can dedicate (i.e. give over) our lives to one who can – Jesus Christ. Of course, there will be many to whom this too looks like foolishness. It is the role of the readings for these weeks in the run up to Lent to show us why it is not – and what redemption truly means.