In Sunday’s gospel Jesus contrasts the law of his ancestors, the ten commandments, with his teachings. He opens his teachings on each commandment, saying, “You have heard…” and then immediately counters, “But I say to you.”
Jesus challenges his hearers not only to keep the commandments but to deal with the daily actions that have killing effects, the false promises that betray trust, the desires that misdirect our lives. Jesus wants his followers to build communities that show forth the power Jesus reveals as God’s own—love and reconciliation.
Jesus invites us to reach into our inner conscious lives where we can transform any anger and abusiveness that lives inside. He calls us to reflect on our attitudes and measure our actions by his standard of love and compassion. He wants us to participate in the work of transforming our lives.
The commandments reach back 12 centuries before Jesus. The gospels reach back 20 centuries to Jesus. By doing the work of conscience and wrestling with what his teachings mean today, we can bring Jesus’ teachings into our own time.
Jesus doesn’t address friending and unfriending on Facebook or how texting wounds without face-to-face contact. Jesus brings up taking debtors to court and swearing false oaths but nothing about sorting truth from lies in a global world that feeds on sensation and spin 24/7.
- Which teachings work in your heart to make you a more loving person?
- What new rules has your family created for living in our wide, wired world?
You shall not kill” is the first commandment to which Jesus attaches his new law. Anger and insult can kill, he explains. To reconcile demands getting beyond stand offs—my way or no way. Reconciling involves seeing another person’s point of view or accepting that another intended no harm.
Reconciling can reveal one’s own mean streak in a relationship that requires working through. To reconcile can revive and recreate a relationship, giving it new life. A hard and sour heart makes us incapable of meeting God in worship.
Anger can be a harmful habit. To break a habit one needs tools for small daily reconciliations. When some newly-married couples met with Pope Francis, they asked his blessing and advice. “What do I know?” the pope said laughingly but then offered three daily habits that can help make a marriage work: “I’m sorry,” “Thank you,” and “May I, please?”
Anger can seem dangerous and unmanageable but it is also user-friendly, alerting us that we have choices to make. We feel anger when our expectations aren’t met, when someone puts us down, ignores our opinions, talks while we are talking, takes credit for an idea, boasts, hurts us or someone we love. Anger arises when we witness or experience an injustice or abuse of a person, or abuse of the natural world. Anger can impel us into action.
We don’t have choices about feeling angry, but we do have choices about how we act on our feelings. We can consciously reflect on our emotional responses. Maybe we work at expressing anger directly to the person who didn’t meet our expectations, so anger from the workplace doesn’t get dumped on the kids or spouse or anger at home go to work.
- What helps you deal with anger?
- What is attractive about not holding grudges?
- How do you contribute to making your family and workplace a reconciling community?
You shall not commit adultery,” Jesus says, quoting the 6th commandment, and adds that looking lustfully at another person’s spouse is the same. Desires can both inspire us and sidetrack us. Desire for justice can put us to work to change policies and help people in need. On the other hand an expensive spa day or a shiny new car can entice us.
God comes among us in Jesus. He teaches us that we can find the holy in the human. Our relationships with one another are places of revelation; we meet God in them.
Teilhard de Chardin stresses how inseparable mind, body, and spirit are when he observes that the human mind is the primary sex organ. We choose when and with whom to engage in sexual intercourse. Our sexuality involves our whole selves. Jesus’ exhortation to be single-hearted and honest with ourselves is a trademark of his teaching. What is in our hearts counts. Who is in our hearts counts.
Christian community depends upon our capacity for friendship and fidelity, for tenderness and support, for delight and ecstasy. We cannot be spiritual without being sexual. We have our whole bodies and whole selves with which to express our love.
- Where does your heart lead you?
- What relationships between sexuality and spirituality do you see?