The Gospel reading for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A (Matthew 5:17-37) is loaded with an important preventive Rx by Jesus, the physician (and psychologist)! If we fall in the trap in the law, our hearts gets hardened (spiritual problem) and we exhibit what Albert Ellis calls "musterbation" (psychologically). And, then, the law becomes like the salt that lost its taste! Jesus in the 6th Sunday Gospel story gives the Rx without charging even a penny!
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As a mental health clinician, as well as a pastoral minister
in the Roman Catholic faith tradition, what comes to my mind in response to the
6th Sunday Gospel reading (Matthew
5:17-37) on Jesus’ teaching about the law is a psychological problem that
Albert Ellis described as “musterbation”.
Ellis, who developed Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT),
coined the term, “musterbation”, in
describing how cognitive rigidness can result in fixed, obsessive, and
demanding emotions and thoughts, often result in verbal expressions like, “must”,
and “should”, as well as “shouldn’t”, “should have”, “shouldn’t have”.
As a psychotherapist, I recognize a rigid cognitive and
emotive process in clients and patients with “musterbation”. And, from a
psychodynamic perspective, I also see tremendous repressed anxieties and fears,
behind their “musterbation”
symptoms. In light of Morita Therapy, a
Japanese psychotherapeutic method, such clients’ and patients’ “musterbation” symptom is understood as “toraware” , which is an apprehension due to “shuuchaku”, obsessive attachment, to certain objects.
In reflecting his teaching on the law in Matthew 5:17-37, which
is a part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us that we may blind
ourselves in the law if we become obsessed with the law itself. This obsession
leads to a tunnel vision in the law. In
light of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), generally including REBT, such a tunnel
vision phenomenon is a clinical sign of obsession or “traware” due to a pathological attachment to the law. People who have developed this clinical
problem often exhibit “musterbation”,a
s their verbal expressions are loaded with “must” and “should”, whether to
themselves and to others. A good
clinical case study is the Pharisees – how the Pharisees observe the law and
how they treat others in regard to the law.
This case study is consistently found throughout the New Testament.
In fact, it is not just Jesus’ discourse in Matthew 5:17-37
that is considered as an Rx to prevent from getting lost in the law in our
efforts to observe it but rather, Jesus himself is a solution to this clinical
problem – because he has come to fulfill, not to abolish the law (Matthew 5:17). In the original Greek text, Matthew uses “πληρῶσαι” (plerosai) in place of “to
fulfill”. This Greek word also means for
completion. Thus, when Jesus says that he
is to fulfill “πληρῶσαι” (plerosai)
the law, it also means that he is to complete the law. So, what does it mean that Jesus is to
complete the law?
The law that the Pharisees were boasting about their “perfect’
observance, though given by God to us through Moses, was not perfect. It was because the law entered into our life
because of our repeated sins and unrepentant hearts. Before the Original Sin, there was no law at
all. But, through our history of repeated sins, which are offense against God, God
really have to put some limitations on our freedom – though God never take away
our freedom – free will. So, the very
first restriction we got through our very first sin, the Original Sin, was
suffering and death (Genesis 3:16-24; Romans 5:12-14). Through the Original
Sin, we traded our eternal life in the Garden of Eden for wisdom. So, our
wisdom comes with the price of our own life and sufferings – biblically
speaking.
At that time, we still did not have the law. It means that we had much more freedom with
our free will. But, instead of using it wisely , in spite of wisdom we have
gained by eating the forbidden fruit, we continue to abuse our freedom to sin
more and more. So, God had to do some serious cleansing of His Creation. Thus,
the great flood took place. But, God
saved certain people and creatures, including Noah and his family. This is when
a covenant entered into our life (Genesis 9).
A covenant is not a contract. Thus, it is not about the law.
And, the law was not yet in our life. God made a covenant – a promise rooted in
trust – with us through Noah. Had we
lived as faithful as Noah and Abraham, then, we would have never needed the
law! But, alas, we continued to
disappoint God by continuously sinning and sinning, abusing the freedom and the wisdom.
So, during the time of Moses in Exodus, God really had to step up in guiding us
to stay on the right path with the law (Exodus 31)!
So, basically, we have “earned” to have the law, as our own
behavioral consequence of sinning and sinning throughout the history, including
all the narratives of our sins in the Bible.
When God gave us the law through Moses, it was not to make
us become a bunch of the Pharisees – to cause our cognitive and emotive
rigidity, “musterbation” symptom, and
obsession out of fear. Rather, God’s
intent behind giving us the law was to ensure that we would not sin any more.
So, the law was mean to be the guide for us to stay on the right path. But, our
ego, which makes us self-centered, thus causing our tunnel vision, interpreted
the law as the burden on us. It makes me
wonder if devil is hiding in our ego, trying to manipulate our perception of
the reality, twisting it self-centered, putting distance from God. I wonder if
the id (Freudian psychology)has something to do with this culprit – or if manas-vijnaana
(Yogacara psychology)in the depth of our mind has.
Whether it is id or manas-vijnaana, there is something in us that twist
our perception and cognition to keep us away from God. Psychologically, it can
be the marks of the Original Sin, which has the propensity to corrupt us and make
us sin. To put this in Buddhism, it is
what causes kleshas, making us to commit Three Poisons (anger/hate, ignorance,
and attachment/obsession), psychologically speaking. No wonder Jesus said what defiles us is
within us (Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:2-23)!
So, this is a psychological process behind sinning. This is like how the serpent misguided Eve to
believe that it was OK to eat a fruit of the forbidden tree (Genesis 3). What defiles us from within is like the
serpent whispering to our consciousness to alter our perception and cognition,
leading to our stinking and rotten attitudes to make us sin and to make it
difficult for us to repent.
As we let the defilers within us – whether id or manas-vijnaana
or something else, twist our senses, our perception and cognition of the law
tend to become a narrow vision. Then, we
become blind to the spirit of the law – God’s intent of giving us the law, as
our narrow vision’s focus is on our ego – ego preservation. Thus, we tend to
develop a knee-jerk cognitive-emotive reaction to the law with our fear of punishment
for failing to observe. And, this makes
a down-spiral vicious effect with intensifying the fear, making our vision even
more narrower. This also turns our sensory information’s emotive and cognitive
process system more rigid. Thus, creating the Pharisee-like obsessive “musterbation”.
When we develop this “musterbation”
symptom, then, our head is spinning with “I must observe the law”, “You must
observe the law”, “I must be punished if I failed to observe the law”, and “You
must be punished if you failed to observe the law”. And, we tend to reason like the Pharisees, by
saying things like, “Because it is the law”, but never think even what the
spirit of the law and what God intended through the law.
Basically, in Matthew 5:17-37, we appreciate Jesus preparing
us for the best way of dealing with the law – not to sink into the cognitive
and emotive quagmire of rigidity through “musterbation”.
If we heed Jesus’ teaching here, and further, Paul’s teaching
on the law – especially in Romans 7, we
realize how we can relate ourselves to the law. To put this in a
psychodynamics term, Matthew 5:17-37, further expounded by Romans 7, offers a direction
for the most fruitful our object relation to the law. By forming such an object relation to the law,
we have nothing to fear. Thus, the law is not a burden. And, the law is not an
object of our fear-driven obsession. Therefore, we will never suffer from “musterbation” in dealing with the law.
If we think we might
heading toward “musterbation” with
the law, or anything else that can cause you fear-driven obsession, maybe you
can seek a psychotherapist like Albert Ellis, who practices or incorporate
REBT. But, as a pastoral psychologist, it is very important that you seek out
Jesus. And her these words of him:
Come to Me, all who
are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon
you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND
REST FOR YOUR SOULS (Matthew 11:28-29).
The yoke in this statement of Jesus is the law. So, Jesus is
saying that the law that he is fulfilling (see Matthew 5:17) for us is not a
burden to us. That is why he wants us to
learn from him. He invites us to learn about the law with the right attitudes –
with the right object relation – because he does not want us to suffer from “musterbation” with the law.
If we did not learn from Jesus on the law – if we do not
seek him when we are slipping toward “musterbation”
with the law, ignoring clinical symptoms leading to it, then, we would become
like the Pharisees, who loses their ability of compassion in the face of the
law (John 8:1-11) and whose narcissism cannot be restrained with love, becoming
self-righteous hypocrites (Luke 8:9-14), because of their own twisted perception and
cognition of the law – due to their pathological object relations to the law.
Their loss of love in the face of the law really is an irony
because love is what the very law that Jesus is fulfilling. And, that is why Jesus called us to be the
salt of the earth and the light of the world, as he wants us to partake in his
efforts to fulfill the law with love. If
you understand this, you know that Jesus was not “violating” the law when he
worked on the Sabbath day (Mark 2:23-27; Matthew 12:1-8; Luke 6:1-5). By working on the Sabbath day – though the
law made the violation of the Sabbath law is punishable by death (Exodus
31:14), Jesus demonstrates what he means by he came to fulfill the law (Matthew
5:13) with love and mercy (compassion). That is why Jesus will teach us to even
love our enemies and overcome hate with love in the next Sunday’s Gospel
reading (Matthew 5:38-48).
Psychologically, if we follow Jesus’ teaching, we keep our
mind and heart from hardening and stay out of developing “musterbation” with the
law. Love - agape - fulfills and completes (
“πληρῶσαι” (plerosai)) the law!
“πληρῶσαι” (plerosai)) the law!
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