Thursday in the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time, June 9, 2022

Matthew 5, 20-26

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. 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. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him. Otherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge, and the judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”

“I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.”  The Lord Jesus continues his Sermon on the Mount.  In the first Gospel reading taken from this Sermon, the Beatitudes, the Lord laid the foundation for holiness as imitating they ways in which he was poor in spirit, pure of heart, merciful, etc., not as others may be said to be.  The next reading after that, used at yesterday’s Mass, showed how a person, holy through this imitation, was made “salt” for the earth, a “light” in a room, and a “city” on a hill, bring others to the Lord.  In this third Gospel reading, the Lord emphasizes that this holiness or righteousness is of a kind not seen before in the world.  And so he says, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.”  The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was merely on the surface and did not involve a radical reorientation of the heart.  They carried out the commandments — or their interpretation of the commandments — but they did not do this out of love.  The Christian’s righteousness must surpass theirs through acting from the heart, which is conformed to that of Christ.  And because the Lord’s heart gushes forth love for us, our hearts need to gush for love of him and of our neighbors.  This love is enabled by grace: “God is able to make all grace abound in you: that ye always, having all sufficiently in all things [for yourselves], may abound to every good work” (2 Corinthians 9, 8).  

“You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”  The Lord gives an example of the righteousness he calls his followers to.  The scribes and Pharisees might follow the letter of the law in not killing, but what is necessary to please God is the change of heart through grace which prevents a person from being enraged at another to the point of desiring his death.  “Whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin.”  Even calling names is forbidden.  “Whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.”  “Raqa” and “You fool” have approximately the same meaning.  Perhaps the distinction is that one person is talking to another person about a third person, and says that the third person is a raqa, but “You fool” is said directly to someone.  “Gehenna” is a valley outside the Old City of Jerusalem which was popularly identified of as the valley spoken of in 1 Enoch where the damned would suffer punishment.  The identification probably has to do with the fact that human sacrifices were performed there during the reigns of the wicked kings of Judah who ruled after Solomon.

“Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar.”  The Lord speaks of the altar in the Temple in Jerusalem, to which various kinds of offerings such as thanks-offerings or sin-offerings would be made.  The reference assures us that Matthew wrote his Gospel before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.  Making the prescribed sacrifice at the altar was of the greatest importance, and so the Lord is saying that reconciling with one’s brother was even more important than that.  Again, this is about following the Law with one’s heart and not merely following its letter.  The Pharisee would sacrifice first and then make peace.  The Lord says, in essence, making peace with your brother is the condition for offering the sacrifice at the altar.

“Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him.”  This next saying is related to the preceding in that both are about reconciliation, but since it does not fit in with the theme of true righteousness and superficial righteousness, it may be a separate saying of the Lord’s that Matthew set in this place.  The meaning of the saying assumes that one person has harmed another in some way and that the one who caused the harm ought to realize that he will be found guilty and punished, so the proper course is to swallow one’s pride and ask for terms from the one he has harmed and to accept what is offered because a judge will be more severe than the plaintiff.  This is the humble confession of sins with the firm purpose to sin no more and to make amends.  “Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”  The defendant, once convicted, would be given a fine so heavy that he would need to sell all his property to pay it off, and even so he might not have enough.  But if he can pay it he can be released from the prison so he has hope.  We can understand this as the Lord teaching about purgatory, a concept already current among the Jews, as we find in their writings in the years before the birth of Jesus.

We pray Almighty God to make us truly sincere in our acts of piety, done for the love of God and neighbor, and not for show or out of habit.