Saint Matthew 22: 34-46
18th Sunday after Trinity: 20 October Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
Do you ever get tired hearing about the Pharisees and Sadducees? The better question is do YOU ever get tried of sinning? Don’t poke the hypocrite of 2,000 years ago but rather smite your own breast in repentance!
The Pharisee and Sadducee will always be with us, in us, through us, IS US. Pharisaism, Sadduceeism, SINISM, is like plaque on the teeth, body odor, and fruit going bad. Change and decay in all around I see. You know it. You feel it. It’s the daily challenge, the constant battle against death. It’s daily being hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. The Sadducees, that particular Pharisee who was a lawyer, they are universal examples of “Adam gone bad.” Dust to dust, earth to earth, then and now.
Sin takes of the good and gracious gifts of God and twists them from the light of His Word to the darkness of prideful hearts. The Pharisees, and their “lawyers” (experts in the Books of Moses) took the gifts in the Pentateuch and perverted them into a manageable code of rules and regulations which they could keep and use. The Sadducees, priests of the Temple and its liturgies, perverted them into a works righteous pantomime of “doing something to be doing something.” These rejections of God’s Word continue today in our own failure to see Christ as the heart of the Old Testament and in the scourge of man-centered (Satan driven) “contemporary” (sic) “worship” (double sic)
Then there’s the question in this morning’s reading. But it’s not a question. It’s a devious interrogation. You’ve heard that there’s no such thing as a bad question or a wrong question. That is false. The lawyer’s question proceeds from the same animating lie as the serpent’s question: “did God really say?” The Pharisee already knows the “technical,” “I’ve memorized all of Exodus and Deuteronomy” answer. And The Lord does indeed give the Words of Hebrew Scripture to this Sanhedrin spy. The lawyer fails to see the Law’s condemning and crushing weight, to see his own utter hopelessness in failing to keep any of it. And even that is dwarfed by his failure to see Jesus as The Christ, The Son of The Living God.
Yes, Noah got drunk, but so too do we all abuse our bodies with God’s good first article gifts, we fall prey to chronic addictions that come from selfishness and self-idolatry. Yes Abraham (and Isaac too) lied to save his own life rather than trust in God’s promise of protection, but so too do we all lie daily and embellish/exaggerate/ the facts to make our own egos shinier. Yes, Moses lost his temper and did not do as God commanded, but then we all are angry and vengeful most of the time. David committed adultery, Solomon temporarily apostatized, Peter betrayed Jesus, and Paul was responsible in the murders of faithful Christians. But we all do the same things in our thoughts, actions, and cruel words.
So, from the duplicitous attempt to elicit from Jesus some evidence which can be used against Him by the Council, Jesus speaks simply the Decalogue compacted down to its two tables. Love God. Love Neighbor. The Great Commandment is Torah. But The Great Commandment is Love.
Sinful and fallen man, all of us, thinks in terms of boundaries, borders, exceptions, exemptions, and minimalism. How much do I have to do? How close can I get to the line? How many times do I really have to forgive my neighbor? “Old Adam” tends to think of the Torah as only the Ten Commandments. But Torah is more than Law, though it is, most assuredly. But Torah for the believing and pious Hebrew, like Moses, Elijah, Philip and Bartholomew, was the active, acting, present reality of a moving, speaking, proclaiming God. Torah has the connotations of the Word Saint John uses in his prologue: LOGOS. WORD! The Torah is The Word of God (Trinity). Torah is not static but active. Torah is God going forth, it is The Son, “begotten of His Father before all worlds, who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by The Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary. And was made man.” Jesus is Torah The Word of The Father, and the obedient Son of The Father doing The Fathers’ work and will: coming to you and saving you and making you all sons and daughters.
You do not obey and keep the Word of God written by the finger of God on the Two Stone Tablets. You do not obey Moses and Elijah the Messengers of The Word of The Lord. But to Whom do Moses and ALL the Prophets look too? About Whom did they write all that they wrote and preached? Whose Light of Light did they reflect on the Mount of Transfiguration? He Who redeemed you not by transfiguring but by bleeding and dying. He Who is exalted on High, not that Mount, but Calvary’s hill. There on the crucifix hung all the Hebrew Scriptures. On His two natures, God and Man in one perfect Jesus, nailed into His two sinless hands of obedience and sacrifice, is EVERYTHING finished. There is Love, the end of the Law, for all who believe. Jesus, the author and perfecter of your salvation. He Who is exalted on The Cross is the One Who now is present on this Altar. There was Torah fulfilled and completed by The Incarnate Torah, The Word made flesh. Now is that peace and sonship, which was given and shed, distributed for your life and your resurrected glory to come. There and here is Love the end of the Law for all who believe. Jesus, the author and perfecter of your salvation.
This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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