Today’s Scripture theme is the level of our righteousness.
In light of the New Testament Greek,
righteousness (δικαιοσύνη /dikaiosyne) has a nuance of just verdict or approval, stemming from δίκη/dike, which is generally
understood as justice or execution of
justice. This background is important to
appreciate today’s Gospel text (Matthew 5:20-28) as Jesus addresses our
righteousness in the legal and judicial context.
Jesus has straightforwardly made it clear that the
Kingdom is only for those whose righteousness (δικαιοσύνη /dikaiosyne) is great enough to act with the spirit of
the Law rather than letters of the Law by saying, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven”(Matthew 5:20). What is clear
from this passage is that Jesus wants us to be better than the Scribes and the
Pharisees in terms of our take on the Torah
(Law), in which there are 613 mitzvot
(commandments). In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus picks one mizvah, from the Aseret
Hadibrot (Ten Commandments ) (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17) , and connect
this commandment to another one, Exodus 21:12, in saying:
You
have heard that it was said to your ancestors, “You shall not kill; and whoever
kills will be liable to judgment”. Matthew 5:21
Then, in the same breath, Jesus also said:
But
I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and
whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and
whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Matthew 5:22
Basically, Jesus was telling, “As your ancestors have learned from experts of the Law, such as the Scribes and the Pharisees, you have also learned the commandments about not killing because it would result in your fatal judgement. But, now I am here to tell you that you may face the same fatal judgement, even though you did not kill anyone, if you hold anger toward your brother.
The letters of the commandment say, “You shall not kill”. So, the Scribes and
the Pharisees may not hold you legally accountable if you are angry at another
fellow, as long as you do not act out of your anger and kill this person. However,
Jesus is telling that you may be judged guilty for holding anger toward another
person and may be subject to the same judgement as the judgement for those who
have committed murder (Matthew 5:22). Jesus indicates that this is how God may
judge, while Pharisees in the Sanhedrin, which is the Jewish judiciary, may not
find an angry person guilty or in violation of the commandment of “You shall not kill”(Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy
5:17), as long as he or she did not kill anyone.
So, what is the problem of the Scribes and the
Pharisees, for Jesus to say that our righteousness must surpass that of the
Scribes and the Pharisees?
It is the way they interpret and teach the Law,
given Matthew 6:21-22. In these two verses, Jesus indicates that the Scribes
and the Pharisees have taught the Law only as it is worded. On the other hand,
Jesus gives a better teaching of the Law for us to be able to focus on the
spirit of the Law, beyond the words or letters of the Law, because the spirit
of the Law reflects what God intends in the Law. And Jesus tells that what God
intends in the commandment of “You shall
not kill”, namely the spirit of Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17 is on our
abilities to manage our anger or any other emotions that may prompt us to act
violently and to kill. The spirit of the
Law goes much deeper than the letters of the Law. The righteousness that is
superior to that of the Scribes and the Pharisees enables us to resolve anger
or other emotions that are potentially dangerous to result in murder.
Yes, Jesus has much higher standards of
righteousness for us to be entitled to his Kingdom. Through our Lenten journey,
we are called to attain this level of righteousness – to be able to resolve
anger and other harmful emotions.
Now, it is also important to note that Jesus wants
us to understand how our words or verbal expressions can hurt others and,
therefore, make us legally liable in the eyes of God. So he said in the second
part of Matthew 5:23:
Whoever
says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever
says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.
Saying “raqa”
to someone is like telling this person, “You are empty-headed”. It is insulting
and belittling.
We live in the age of verbal bullying resulting in
suicides. Behind the cyber anonymity, people say senseless things to others.
Their verbal insults soon escalate to threats and curses, driving victims to
suicides. To stop this tragedy resulting from verbal insults, we need to heed
to this teaching of Jesus and repent and go through metanoia, which is a deep psychospiritual conversion, as the word “metanoia”,
literally means “beyond (meta) the
mind (nous)” so that we become more
sensitive to each other in our verbal expressions. We must have metanoia in light of today’s First
Reading (Ezekiel 18:21-28), not to be subjected to “death sentence” by God, the
Judge.
Yes, God is the Judge. But, he does not want any of
us to receive “death sentence”. So He said:
Do
I find pleasure in the death of the wicked—oracle of the Lord God? Do I not
rejoice when they turn from their evil way and live? Ezekiel 18:23
This is why God urges us to turn away from sins and
work on righteousness. And it takes genuine metanoia,
which is deeper than superficial obedience to the letters or words of the
Law. Metanoia
results in change in our emotions, and its natural consequence is improvement
of our righteousness, evidenced in our verbal expressions and non-verbal
actions, acceptable to the Kingdom of Heaven.
As we can see in Matthew 5:23-26, Jesus wants us to
settle our interpersonal conflicts out of our righteousness, keeping them from
the presence of God, Sanctuary (Matthew 6:23-24) and settle them outside the
legal system, such as the court, like the Sanhedrin.
Settle a conflicting matter through the law in the
court is costly, emotionally and financially. It makes only lawyers happy.
Jesus knows this. And he also wants to save us from all the emotional and
financial burden of relying on the legal system, which is symbolically
represented by the legalistic thinking of the Scribes and the Pharisees. This
is why Jesus encourages us to work on our righteousness, making it better than
that of the Scribes and the Pharisees.
Let our Lenten metanoia go
beyond the superficial legalism and affect the depth of our God-given conscience
to make our righteousness surpass the legalistic righteousness of the Scribes
and the Pharisees.
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