The Last Sunday After The Epiphany (2017)

Exodus 24: 12–18; Psalm 2; II Peter 1: 16–21; Matthew 17: 1–9 

The is the written version of a homily given by Fr. Gene Tucker at St. John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, February 26, 2017.

“UNWRAPPING THE LORD’S IDENTITY”

(Homily texts: Exodus 24: 12–18, II Peter 1: 16–21 & Matthew 17: 1–9)

Some years ago, I gave a present to one of my daughters on her birthday. But it was a present with a twist: Instead of getting the present and wrapping it in a normal way, I wrapped the present in several lays of wrapping paper and boxes. So, when the appointed day came, and the present was given, I got to watch with some degree of glee as my daughter opened the first layer, only to come upon another layer, and so forth. And along the way, as each layer was encountered, there was a note of encouragement to continue pressing on through the various layers of wrapping paper and boxes until the actual gift itself was discovered.

(OK, I will admit it was a bit of a mischievous thing to do to my daughter. I do think, given the history of our relating to one another since that time, that she’s forgiven her father for this bit of devious behavior.)

The multi-layered example I’ve just described seems to fit the pattern of self-revelation that God is undertaking in the person and the work of Jesus Christ: Layer after layer of discovery awaits the original twelve disciples and those who gathered around Jesus to hear His teaching and to witness His miracles. That self-disclosure, self-revelation, reached a climax on the event which is known as the Transfiguration, when the glory of God that Jesus the Christ possessed before all time, a glory that He shares with God the Father, was seen by Peter, James and John on the mountaintop.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Let’s back up and retrace the revealing acts of God as we see them in Jesus Christ, tracing them from the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, and concluding with the Transfiguration itself and to the Easter event which it foreshadows.

Here, it seems to me, are the significant events as God reveals Himself in the person and work of Jesus Christ:

The Lord’s baptism: The first time we hear the Father’s voice declaring, “You are my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”[1] is at Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan.

The call of the disciples:  There must have been something that was very compelling in the Lord’s call to the likes of Peter, Andrew, James, John and the others. We get the impression that when the Lord said, “Follow me,” that these men simply got up, bade farewell to their families, and followed the Lord.[2] The same can be said of the tax collector Matthew, who seems to have simply left his tax-collecting booth and followed Jesus.[3]

Teaching and healing:  Matthew (and the other Gospel writers) tells us that Jesus went throughout the region of Galilee, teaching and healing people. As a result of these things, Jesus’ popularity began to grow, and His reputation spread. But there is a dimension to His healing that it would be easy for us, as contemporary Christian believers, to miss: In Jesus’ day, the ability to heal also carried with it an implication that the healer was able to conquer sin, for disease and illness were often regarded as being the direct result of some grievous sin. Likewise, the Lord’s teaching was “with authority”, we are told, a teaching that was not like that of the scribes.[4]

Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah:  Now, we move into a sequence of events that immediately preceded the Transfiguration event itself: As Jesus was making His way with His disciples to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16: 13) The disciples offer various answers from among the responses they have heard. Then, Jesus narrows the question, saying, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16: 15 Peter responds by saying that Jesus is the “Christ, the son of the living God.” (Matthew 16: 16)

At this point, it would be easy for us to pack into Peter’s confession the understandings that the Church, which – as a result of prolonged reflection and deliberation – had come to believe about the meaning of Jesus as Messiah or Christ.[5] The Church has come to the understanding that Jesus is the “only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father…” as the Nicene Creed states the reality of Jesus’ nature as being one with God the Father, God’s anointed, God’s Messiah, God’s Christ. But the Nicene Creed dates from the fourth century (it was originally formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, and was revised into the version we use today at the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD).

It’s likely that Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, meant something quite different from our post-Nicene understandings. Perhaps, for Peter, the Messiah was to be a glorious figure, a liberator of God’s people from the oppressive yoke of Roman occupation, a figure of the sort of King David, who, a thousand years before, had led God’s people into the most glorious segment of their history.

We can’t be certain, but perhaps for Peter, as it was for many Jews in that day and time, the Messiah had nothing to do with being divine. The Messiah in that age long ago was simply an extraordinary human being.

But now the tables begin to turn.

Jesus’ death and resurrection: Notice how Jesus begins to piggy back on Peter’s confession by telling the disciples what was to happen to Him once He reached Jerusalem: We read Peter’s confession in Matthew 16: 13–20. But then, Matthew tells that “from that time”, Jesus began to teach the disciples that He would die in Jerusalem, but that He would be raised from the dead. (See Matthew 16: 21.) It’s likely that Peter missed the second part of Jesus’ statement, the part that talked about being raised from the dead on the third day. (It’s my guess that Peter was simply so shocked by Jesus’ prediction that he was unable to hear the other, good part of Jesus’ statement.)

The significance of Jesus’ resurrection is this: God alone has the power of life. God alone has the power to create life and to recreate it. So, the disciples should have figured out that – if Jesus was to be raised from the dead on the third day – then it would be an act of God that would carry out this event.

Seen in this way, then, Jesus’ resurrection would fit the pattern of Jesus’ healings, for God’s hand is seen in Jesus’ miraculous healings….Jesus’ healing are – in their most basic sense – the power over life and over death.

But the disciples couldn’t see the chain of events that was to unfold in the time that lay ahead in Jerusalem during Holy Week. We shouldn’t be too hard on them, for these events, as spectacular as they are, were unprecedented occurrences in the course of human experience. (Hindsight, it is said, is usually 20/20.)

The Transfiguration:[6] Now we come to the event we consider today: Jesus’ marvelous transfiguration on a mountaintop,[7] an event that is connected to the Lord’s teaching about His coming death and resurrection, for Matthew tells us that it was “six days later” that the Lord took the three disciples, Peter, James and John up the mountain.

It is as if God is taking this inner circle of the disciples to the next step in disclosing to them the glory that Jesus Christ possessed from before time and in eternity. For that marvelous light of God[8] was reflected in the Lord’s face, and His clothing became white as light.

Here, we encounter the words that were first heard at Jesus’ baptism, as the Father declares, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased…listen to him.” (Matthew 17: 5b)

The implications of this event are many: 

For one thing, God’s purposes from the days of old are connected to the ministry and work of Jesus, as Moses (the giver of the Law) and Elijah (who was to be the forerunner of the coming of the Messiah)[9] appear with Jesus.

For another, The Father now identifies with the Son. Here again, we should be careful not to weigh down this reality with the understandings that the Church would come to much later on with regard to the relationship between the Father and the Son, as we’ve outlined earlier.

For yet another, God’s unmistakable light shines powerfully, in much the same way as it did when Moses went up onto the mountain to meet with God, and to receive the Law. (See Exodus 24: 12–18.) So, too, does God clothe Himself in a cloud in the Exodus event and on the mount of Transfiguration.

Though they most likely did not know it at the time, these three disciples were being given a foretaste of the awesome power of God that would result in the raising of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday morning. That invincible power of God over life, over death, over any and all adversaries and enemies, would confirm that God is at work in the person of Jesus Christ.

Looking back after a period of many years, St. Peter’s words are recorded for us to benefit from as he recalls the event that took place at Jesus’ transfiguration. Peter tells us that he (and the others) were “eyewitnesses”[10] of the glory that was revealed.

What does this event mean for us who live, now, so many years after the Lord’s transfiguration? Perhaps simply this: Just as God’s power, made known in the transformation of the Lord’s appearance, is the power to grant and re-grant life to all who come to God in faith, so, too, will this same power sustain us throughout this earthly life and into the life of the world which is to come. As St. Paul so eloquently states in Romans 8: 39b that nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Our last and greatest enemy, death, has been defeated, and so have all the other, lesser enemies, for we are Christ’s in baptism and in faith, and all who are in Christ are God’s, as well. We are called, therefore, to go out and proclaim that we, too, are eyewitnesses of God’s power to create, sustain and protect.

Thanks be to God! 

AMEN.

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[1]   Matthew 3: 17b

[2]   Matthew 4: 18 – 22 contains the account of these first four disciples’ response to the Lord’s invitation. It’s noteworthy that Matthew uses the word “immediately” (verses 20 and 22) to characterize their response to Jesus.

[3]   See Matthew 9: 9.

[4]   See Matthew 7: 29.

[5]   The two titles, Messiah and Christ, mean the same thing. Messiah comes to us from the Hebrew, while Christ comes to us from the Greek. Both mean “anointed one”.

[6]   The Transfiguration is an event we consider in our cycle of readings for the Church Year twice: It is always a part of our worship on the Last Sunday After the Epiphany, but it is also observed on its own feast, on August 6^th every year.

[7]   The traditional site of this event is Mount Tabor, which is located in the Galilee region, and which is just to the north side of the Jezreel Valley and to the southwest of the Sea of Galilee. But some scholars think the site may have been Mount Hermon, which is located further north, nearer to Caesarea Philippi, in modern-day Lebanon.

[8]   The Hebrew word which is reserved for describing God’s light is shekinah.

[9]   Many Jews in Jesus’ day connected the prophet Malachi’s prediction (found in Malachi 4: 5) of the return of Elijah to the coming of the Messiah.

[10]   Being an eyewitness to the Lord’s ministry and to His death and resurrection were essential qualifications for a person to be an Apostle.

Epiphany 7, Year A (2017)

Leviticus 19: 1–2, 9–18; Psalm 119: 33–40; I Corinthians 3: 10–11, 16–23; Matthew 5: 38–48

This is the written version of the homily offered by Fr. Gene Tucker at St. John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, February 19, 2017.

“THE PRINCIPLES ALWAYS REMAIN”

(Homily texts: Leviticus 19: 1–2, 9-18 & Matthew 5: 38–48)

This morning’s Gospel text puts before us two more of Jesus’ teachings which begin with the formula “You have heard it said…but I say to you….”. We heard the first four of these teachings last week, and conclude this section of the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount with these last two.

Since today’s text concludes what we heard last week, let’s review a little what we said in connection with the first four sayings:

The scribes and the Pharisees seem to be the intended target for these sayings, for in the verses immediately preceding the beginning of these six teachings, the Lord tells the audience that had gathered around Him to hear the Sermon on the Mount that, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5: 20)

Inner and outer holiness seem to be at the core of Jesus’ teachings that we hear in these six sayings. For the scribes and the Pharisees, this truth lies at the heart of what these two groups missed about being faithful to God’s commands. The scribes and the Pharisees were good at doing the outward and visible stuff of keeping the Law of Moses, but they didn’t allow the rituals and the practices the Law required to seep into their hearts and minds, in order that they could reflect outward some visible proof that there’d been an inner change in their attitudes. No wonder that the Lord called the scribes and the Pharisees “white-washed graves, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23: 27b)

Now, as we look at these sayings, our first reaction might be: They are impossible to keep. The standard that Jesus sets before us is perfection, plain and simple.

Yes, perfection is what the Lord has in mind. In fact, He makes that very clear as He concludes this set of teaching by admonishing His first hearers and His contemporary hearers: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5: 48)

I don’t know about you, but as I stare at the lofty height of the standard the Lord has set before us, I simply want to give up, right at the outset, and tell God that I just can’t do it. I want to say, “I can’t measure up to your perfect standard.”

Now, it seems to me, here’s the problem:  You and I don’t live in a perfect world. We live in an everyday world, full of challenges, full of decisions to make (all of which require us to try to bring together the perfection that God requires with the realities of living life…sometimes, that’s a huge challenge).

Consider the apparent clash between the perfection Jesus outlines and the realities of life:

As much as I would want to turn the other check to one who is assaulting me, (verse 39 of this morning’s reading), I know that if I do, I might get beaten up, so perhaps it’s better for me to resist. As much as I would like to allow someone to sue me and take away what I own, I know that – unless my adversary’s cause is right – I’d better “lawyer up” and defend myself.

And what would we make of the Lord’s command to “give to anyone who begs from you”? Just this past week, my older grandson and I had a discussion about that very issue as we drove around the city where he lives. Unfortunately, the street corners – nearly all of them – have at least one person holding a sign which says “Homeless”. So my seven-year-old grandson (who’s a very bright and inquisitive person) asked about that. I said a brief prayer for God’s wisdom to be contained in my response. Then I said something about people who are homeless, adding some of the reasons why they might be in that condition. The next thing I said was that we all needed to be concerned about these people, and we need to try to help them. But then I said, if we give them money, which is what they want in many cases, the money can be used to buy things that aren’t good for them. So, I concluded, that’s why we have places where people can go who don’t have a place to live, so that they can have a place to sleep and food to eat.  That, I said, was the better way to care for them than just giving them money. Finally, I added that we have to help keep the places open that help people without a home so they can continue to help them.

This brief conversation with my grandson highlights both sides of the situation we find ourselves in: The principle the Lord lays down for us is one of compassion for those in need, which guides our response to a thoughtful and appropriate way of helping others.

At this point, it’s probably good if we articulate the core principle that seems to lie at the foundation of Jesus’ teachings we hear in these six sayings:

The principles of the kingdom of heaven remain and are enduring.

The principles of Jesus’ teachings are to inform our response to the temporal conditions that life puts before us. Going back to the issue of homelessness, our response cannot be “Oh, those poor souls, those unfortunate people who’ve made a mess of their lives…they need to get back on their own two feet and be successful, get a job, and live a productive life.”

Such a response would be very much in keeping with the approach the scribes and the Pharisees took, for they believed that, if a person was poor, or sickly, or in some awful condition, their condition was directly due to some major sin that had caused God to turn His back on them. The response to such people was to shun and avoid them at all costs. So it is that they accused Jesus, time and again, of hanging around with the notorious sinners: the tax collectors, the prostitutes and others. To the Pharisees’ way of thinking, if Jesus is keeping such company, then He, too, must be a sinner.

The attitudes and the behaviors of the scribes and the Pharisees lead us to the conclusion that they’d either forgotten or had ignored some of the requirements of the Mosaic Law. Consider some of those we hear this morning from our reading from Leviticus: Here in the Law is a concern for the plight of the poor, for Moses tells the people that God requires them not to glean their fields to the very edges of the fields, for the gleanings are to be there for the poor and the alien (yes, even the alien!) who is in their midst to gather. The same was to be true of the vineyards, as well. (Leviticus 19: 9, 10)

God’s people are required to keep their eyes on God, first of all, and on other human beings, second of all. This bifurcated vision never goes away. We cannot live in a world that’s all-about-us. (I cannot resist saying that the self-centered attitudes of many in our society today presents us with one of the major challenges of our time.) We are to be connected to God, and connected to others. That God-connection informs who we are and whose we are. Our God-connection requires us to believe and to act in such a way that we reflect God’s perfection in meeting the day-to-day challenges that life brings our way. In so doing, we will do our part to bring the kingdom of heaven into being, until that day when the kingdom comes in all its fullness and in all its perfection. As we work toward that goal, working under God’s guidance and inspiration, we recognize that full perfection hasn’t come yet, but by taking the small steps that God requires, we are assisting God in implementing the perfection that belongs to God alone.

This truth remains for all time: The principles of the kingdom of heaven remain and are enduring.      

Epiphany 6, Year A (2017)

Deuteronomy 30: 15 – 20; Psalm 119: 1 – 8; I Corinthians 3: 1 – 9; Matthew 5: 21 – 37

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, offered at St. John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, February 12, 2017.

“FROM THE OUTSIDE IN, AND THE INSIDE OUT”

(Homily text: Matthew 5: 21–37)

“You have heard it said that….but I say to you….”

In today’s Gospel text, Jesus delivers, in rapid succession, a series of admonitions, each of which begins with the formula “You have heard it said that…but I say to you….”

Each of these, which come so fast that we barely have time to think about the last statement before the Lord gives us another one to ponder, has to do with our outer actions and the corresponding inner disposition.[1]

As the Lord addresses the relationship – and the importance – of our inner disposition as it relates to our outward actions, it might be that He is continuing His focus on the actions and the inner dispositions of the scribes and the Pharisees, the ones who, in last week’s Gospel text, where the ones whose standard of righteousness everyone had to exceed in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Just what is the relationship between those things that are outside of us, and which inform and shape those things that are inside of us, our minds and our hearts, to our corresponding actions?

Essentially, it seems to me, the Lord is telling us that what we think and what we believe will disclose the true nature of our inner self. After all, it is impossible to look directly into a person’s heart and mind to see what is to be found therein. We have to rely on our observations of those things we can see.

An illustration from sports will help us to see this relationship:  Choose a sport, just about any sport. To be proficient at the skills and abilities that the particular sport requires will require practice and discipline. These things are outward actions that shape not only the athlete’s physical capabilities, but the athlete’s skills in being able to respond to the challenges of the sport. The shaping that practice brings comes slowly for most, and it is the depth that repeated times of practice brings that produces the best result.

But, lest we get too far down the road with our analysis of the relationship between the outward and the inward, let’s return to the matter of the behaviors and the attitudes of the scribes and the Pharisees:

Adherence to the Law of Moses: Above all else, these two groups were steadfastly (may we say “religiously”) devoted to keeping the minutest requirements of the Law. The Law’s focus is on outward actions. For example, the Law required certain offerings to be made at specific times. It required attendance at the major festivals and fasts of the calendar. It prescribed how one was to interact with one’s neighbors (the prohibitions on murder and on adultery are but two examples that Jesus cites this morning).

Outward actions shape the inner person: The outward actions the Law prescribed where meant to shape the inner person. The design of the Law was such that repeated practice gradually shaped the inner person’s thoughts, attitudes and beliefs over time. (Here again, the sports analogy applies.)

Missing the boat on the Law’s intent: Now we come to the central problem of the scribes and the Pharisees: They place great importance on the outward observance of the Law’s demands. For example, think of the times that Jesus got into trouble because He and His disciples were breaking the Sabbath in some way or another. But the inner disposition of the scribes and the Pharisees is one of spiritual bankruptcy. Jesus will say of these groups that they are like “white-washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23: 27, 28) The disconnect between the inner and the outer person is most clearly seen, perhaps, in the plot to murder Jesus: The chief priests refused to go into Pilate’s presence because it would have made them ritually unclean and unable to observe the Passover, even as they are plotting to get rid of Him.

So, the point that the Lord intends for us should be clear:  We are to mirror in our inner attitudes, thoughts and beliefs what our outward and observable actions indicate, and vice versa. The two are inseparably linked, and God - who sees the inner recesses of the heart and mind – seeks to form us into faithful disciples, disciples who reflect the righteousness of Jesus Christ, whose inner and outer self were integrated so that the one perfectly mirrored the other.

May the Holy Spirit enable, form, shape and guide us into the image of Christ in our inner thoughts and in our outward actions.

AMEN.

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[1]   Our Gospel text for this morning includes only the first four of Jesus’ statements which begin with “You have heard it said…but I say to you….”. The Lord’s teaching continues with two more such sayings, through verse 48.

Epiphany 5, Year A (2017)

Isaiah 58: 1–12; Psalm 112; I Corinthians 2: 1–16; Matthew 5: 13–20

This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, that was given at St. John’s in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, February 5, 2017.

“TRUE AND EXCEEDING RIGHTEOUSNESS”

(Homily texts: Isaiah 58: 1–12 & Matthew 5: 13–20)

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus’ words, which are drawn from His Sermon on the Mount, seem to create a high barrier to entry into the kingdom.

I don’t know about you, but – at first glance – I know that there’s no way I could measure up to the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees. Perhaps you might think that you’re in the same boat.

But to understand whether or not the standard set by the scribes and the Pharisees is such a high standard, we might examine the sort of righteousness these two important groups established during the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry. And, while we’re at it, we ought to remind ourselves just who these two groups were.

We begin by looking at these two groups’ identities:

The scribes were educated lay people. They could read and write, and so - since they were one of the few members of society 2,000 years ago who had those abilities - they served a legal function in administering the affairs of the people. In addition, they knew the texts and the requirements of the Law of Moses.

The Pharisees were also a lay group. They were concerned with preserving Jewish identity in the face of the Roman occupation. Much of their work was devoted to encouraging (and demanding) faithful adherence to the minutest aspects of the Law. Unlike the Sadducees (who were priests), the Pharisees accepted the authority of the writings of the Old Testament prophets.

It’s fair to say that both groups were among Jesus’ chief adversaries, ones who were often the targets of Jesus’ sharpest rebukes.

Now, let’s turn to some of the major concerns of these groups. In particular, let’s look at three incidents in which the Pharisees raised objections to something Jesus had done:

• Eating with defiled hands: In Mark 7: 4, we read about the encounter between the Pharisees and Jesus’ disciples. They ask the disciples why they eat without washing their hands beforehand. Mark goes on to chronicle some of the Pharisees’ elaborate rituals for washing pots and other utensils and the washing of food.).
• Picking grain on the Sabbath: The Pharisees object to Jesus and His disciples for plucking and eating heads of grain on the Sabbath. (See Mark 2: 23, 24.)
• Healing on the Sabbath: In the Fourth Gospel, John provides a detailed account of a man who had been born blind. Jesus heals the man on the Sabbath, incurring the wrath of the Pharisees. (John 9: 1–41) The Pharisees maintain that Jesus could not be from God, because He “does not observe the Sabbath.”

From these three incidents, we could rightly come to the conclusion that the Pharisees and their allies were focusing their attention on nit-picky things, on the minutest details of the Law. But another and more serious aspect of their beliefs and their actions arises in connection with the healing of the man born blind: It is the attitude that someone who was ill was in such a condition as a direct result of some serious sin. Moreover, the Pharisees (along with many others in that society) also believed that a person who was rich was especially blessed by God for their righteousness, while a poor person was outside of God’s blessing due to some serious spiritual condition.

It is difficult for us to identify with the focal points of the Pharisees, for we aren’t concerned with issues such as keeping the Sabbath, plucking grain on the Sabbath, or doing good (like healing) on the Sabbath. But imagine if we focused on some of the very minor points of keeping our worship traditions, things like: 1. Does a person genuflect (a deep bow on one knee) by going down on the right knee or the left knee (I actually had a person who was known to me ask me if I had knee problems, because I genuflected by dropping my left knee), or 2. Does a person do a proper solemn bow (a deep bow at the waist), differentiating a solemn bow from a simple bow (a bow from the neck)?

From these two examples, we can see that it’s possible for those who are members of a church that maintains a liturgical tradition to focus in on the minutest details of our worship practices. If we do that, then we are doing the same sorts of things the Pharisees did.

So what’s the problem with the Pharisees’ righteousness? It was pretty strict stuff, wasn’t it?

The problem is that the Pharisees and their allies tried to keep the rules, but forgot that the rules are of lesser importance than the people the rules are supposed to benefit. Jesus’ summary of the relationship is found in Mark 2: 27: “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath.”

In their zeal to keep the Law, the Pharisees forgot to love. They forgot the admonitions of the prophets like Isaiah, whose words we read this morning: “Is this not the fast that I choose: To loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked, to cover them, and not hide yourself from your own kin?”

If we examine closely the list Isaiah provides us, we see that the tasks he enumerates are all everyday, common actions that demonstrate that we are connected one to another. Indeed, much of the focus of the Law of Moses has to do with the ways in which people relate to one another, and in the ways in which we care for and uphold one another. The Law was seen as a walk of life,[1] one that involved not only faithful observance of the rituals the Law required, but also in the care given to the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger.

If we remember our obligation to care for those in need, then indeed, our righteousness will exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Seen from this perspective, the task is easy. Our focus must be on the righteousness that keeps God’s love for us as the motivating force which prompts us to share that love with others, and particularly with those whose lot in life is difficult.

AMEN.

       

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[1]  The Hebrew word for this walk was halakah, coming from the verb halach, which means “to walk”.