10th June. Wednesday of Week 10

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1st Reading: 2 Corinthians 3:4-11

The new covenant of grace is based not on some written law but on the Spirit.

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Now if the ministry of death, chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, much more does the ministry of justification abound in glory! Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory; for if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!

Gospel: Matthew 5:13-16

You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under-foot.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

bible

Conservative in changing times

If the reading from St. Paul reflects serious tensions, today’s Gospel seeks to harmonize and reconcile. As a wise man wrote, “There is a time for everything…. A time to tear, and a time to sow…. A time for war, and a time for peace.” How well that idea of “a time to plant and a time to uproot” fits with our Lord’s words today. In order to fulfil the Law and the Prophets he must uproot whatever is old and obsolete, to help us embrace the new. We are not to follow a dead code of law that has lost its meaing but a new living law of the Spirit. Paul calls us, like the Corinthians, to make a clear decision to move ahead.

But Matthew notes that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets. We need to discern which things are old yet not obsolete – such as the ten commandments. Ecclesiastes’ sense of prudent timing applies to many aspects of Church life, where some want to conserve traditions of the past which others consider overdue for renewal or outright discarding. Our Church must take on board some values – mainly democratic and participative – of our modern society, in order to share Christ’s mind with our contemporaries, while avoiding bad, short-term and emotionally-driven decisions. But Jesus and Paul tell us that it is the Spirit who gives life, so we must not be rigidly bound by rules which made sense to our Church in the past but which no longer offer hope for the future. With this outlook we can have mature discussion about the way forward in presenting the Gospel in ways required by the time in which we live. We must rely on prayer, dialogue and the guidance of the Holy Spirit who has called us to share in the responsibility of helping to build the Kingdom of God.

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Not a total abolitionist

In the gospel, Jesus the Jew is respectful of his own Jewish tradition, “don’t imagine that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets.” However, he also declares that he has come to complete the Law and the Prophets, to bring their true intention to fulfilment. Jesus valued the good in his religious tradition, but was also open to the ways that God was working to enrich that tradition. We too are called to value the good in our own religious tradition, to critique the shadow side to that tradition and to be open and receptive to the ways that the Lord is constantly renewing and enriching that tradition. God is like the potter who takes what is there and reshapes it so that it serves his purposes more fully. God is always ahead of us in that sense; our task is to keep up with what God is trying to do. [Martin Hogan]

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