Woe to you, blind guides, who say,
'If one swears by the temple, it means nothing,
but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.'
Blind fools, which is greater, the gold,
or the temple that made the gold sacred?
Assigned to Louisiana for seven years, I learned to play a popular variant of dominoes, where only the multiples of five count as points. When I returned home to Kentucky or played with friars in Minnesota, they suspected I was making up the rules as we played. The fact that I usually won didn't help. They soon tired of my rules and my winning and we played something else.
Jesus saw clearly how the Pharisees were replacing God's law with their own arbitrary rules. By Pharisaic rules, they always won God's love, while everyone else faced eternal condemnation.
The governing classes (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians) generally agreed to suppress all spontaneous demonstrations of faith in Israel, so as to prevent popular uprisings against the all-powerful Roman army. But Jesus saw how their arbitrary rules also discouraged faith in God. Their Big Brother surveillance of religious, dietary, and social customs sabotaged the freedom of God's children. They could be neither happy nor holy under the Pharisees' regime.
Today's Church faces a different challenge. Democratic and socialist governments don't oppose Catholicism per se, but they have different agendas. They are governed by a consumer culture which is determined to maintain the status quo on a dynamic planet. If evolution adapts continually to environmental change, consumers like things just the way they were -- yesterday. Where our sexual impulse would produce children, the market threatens to impoverish large families. Where our nurturing instincts would care for the sick and the elderly, an efficient economy sponsors euthanasia, assisted suicide, and eugenics.
Unlike democratic governments, the Church is governed by God's Spirit which insists that we honor the human dignity of the poor, sick, elderly, and imprisoned. Even our enemies should be respected and loved. God's rule, as we see so clearly in the Bible, demands that we anticipate the future with a fearless, sacrificial spirit. Nothing is sacred to us except God's governance. We can live well with less security, fewer freedoms, and less stuff. We can adapt to life on a dynamic planet even as we respect individual integrity, the covenant of marriage, and the dignity of our human nature.
We are not governed by an obsession for freedom or security but by a readiness to trust the Spirit and the will of God. As we examine our spiritual life daily, we worry more about the loss of spontaneity and happiness, and the encroachment of fear, anxiety, envy, jealousy, or resentment.
Challenged by inflation we remember the God who led his people out of prosperous slavery into the freedom of an arid wilderness. We assure ourselves, God is always good, and today he's better. And, God will provide. Even as we count our dollars we read, "In God we trust." (I checked; yes, it's still there.)
The Lord says to us daily, as Atticus Finch said to his daughter Scout, "It's not time to worry yet."
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.