Friday in the First Week of Lent, March 11, 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. 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 word “pharisee” is derived from the Aramaic word for “separated”.  The sect of the Pharisees arose in the century or two before the Birth of Christ as a reaction to the mixing of Greek with Jewish culture and the slackening of strict obedience to the Law taking place at that time.  The Pharisees “separated” themselves from these trends and taught an interpretation of the Law which, among other things, bound the common people to ritual purity laws required for worship only in the Temple.  By their tying this ritual purity to righteousness, they made righteousness very difficult for ordinary people to attain.  Here, the Lord Jesus seems to raise the bar to righteousness still higher.  He does, in terms of the moral law, but this the people could carry out.  The Lord subsequently showed the purity practices of the Pharisees to be absurd and which were very onerous to carry out as not demanded by the Law in fact.

In commanding his followers to surpass or exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees, the Lord meant for them to go beyond the moral Law which the Pharisees taught: indeed, they were to fulfill it.  The Lord uses the fifth commandment, “You shall not kill”, as an example of what he means: “Whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”  The Lord thus shows that the commandment from the Jewish Law, “You shall not kill”, is a sign for the fuller teaching regarding anger.  Likewise, the Lord will show that “You shall not commit adultery” is a sign for the fuller teaching regarding lust.  When we compare what the Pharisees insisted on — their practices of ritual purity — and what the Lord commands here, we see that the Pharisaical washings in water accomplished nothing while fulfilling the commandments as Christ taught made a man truly righteous.  

“But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.”  Since we all get angry from time to time, this seems an impossible commandment to keep.  The Fathers, such as St. Augustine, argue that the Lord means we should not act in anger but that anger can motivate us to correct an offender or to pursue justice.  It may help if we understand “anger”, which can be rational, as “rage”, which is not.  Outbursts of anger or rage are not becoming in a Christian, much less the acts of vengeance to which these lead.  “Whoever says to his brother, Raqa, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna.”  Raqa is an Aramaic epithet that is equivalent to the English “stupid”.  We cannot call people names.  “Gehenna” was a valley near Jerusalem where human sacrifices were conducted during the years before the Babylonians came and destroyed the city.  It was considered, naturally enough, a cursed place by those who loved God.

“If you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”  The Lord teaches that of the two actions, offering the prescribed sacrifice at the prescribed time and reconciling with one’s brother, the latter takes precedence.  This commandment also surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees in that the reconciliation means a purer sacrifice than that offered at the exact prescribed time and after very many washings.  This verse is very interesting in a historical sense because it shows Jesus speaking of an “altar” without speaking of the Temple.  This could be interpreted as Jesus speaking of the time when his disciples will offer his Sacrifice in other places.  In practical terms for us, we should not go to receive Holy Communion in a state of sin.

“Settle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court.”  We who are members of an exceedingly litigious society nod as we read these words.  The Lord says that we should act urgently, “quickly”, here, because any sentence handed down by the court will be harder than any agreement we can come to with our adversary.  “The judge will hand you over to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison.”  The Lord presupposes that “you” are the guilty one who will be handed over.  As he speaks of “paying the last penny”, the case seems to be a matter of debt.  We settle with our adversary — our conscience — by going to the Sacrament of Penance where we remorsefully confess our sins and promise to not sin again.  “You will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”  “You” may not be able to raise the required sum, as in the case of the man in the parable who owed ten thousand talents (Matthew 18, 24-34).  But that there does seem the possibility of someone who owes a lesser amount of paying off his debt supports the doctrine of Purgatory.

Throughout this reading, the Lord Jesus exhorts us to live not just a virtuous life, for Aristotle, the Stoics, and others taught how to do that, but a holy life, one which would lead us not just into harmony with our fellow humans but into the Kingdom of Heaven, there to bask in God’s love forever.