EPIPHANY V 2014

• Isaiah 58:1-9a (9b-12) •
• Psalm 112:1-9 (10) •
• 1 Corinthians 2:1-12 (13-16) •
• Matthew 5:13-20

For several weeks, the Sunday readings have been forging a connection between the Old Testament and the New. In the Gospel for this week, Jesus himself makes the connection. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill”. But then he adds a seemingly impossible demand –“unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”.

     How are we to understand this? The passage from Isaiah suggests one solution.  It ridicules ‘bowing down the head like a bulrush’ and ‘lying in sackcloth and ashes’, and instead praises ‘sharing your bread with the hungry’, and ‘bringing the homeless poor into your house’. ‘Is not this the fast that I choose’ God declares ‘to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?’

     This ‘ethical version of ‘righteousness’ is likely to prove far more attractive to the modern mind than either the ritual observances of the Jews, or the austere devotional practices of the Desert Fathers or the Celtic hermits. And yet, we know in our hearts that most of us are as unlikely to make the kind of sacrifices that this high ethical ideal requires, as we are to build shrines among desert rocks, or stand in icy water to say our prayers. The greatest possible effort will no more enable us to exceed this alternative standard of righteousness than it will the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. The Gospel passage, in short, still reads like a council of despair.

Yet this very fact can serve to point us in a different direction. In his letter to the Corinthians, St Paul openly acknowledges his ‘weakness and fear’. It is in fact a first essential step to putting his faith in Jesus Christ, and so believing that Christ’s perfection can overcome his imperfection. It is sometimes suggested that this is just using Jesus to get us off the hook. The Gospel passage, however, still assigns us a vital role in the economy of salvation – not to be perfect, but to be ‘the salt of the earth’ and ‘the light of the world’. The reality is that our lives as Christians will never be models of rectitude. But they can still ‘give light to all in the house’ by reflecting what St Paul calls ‘the mind of Christ’. By making us honest, accepting our frailty enables us to give the glory where it truly belongs -- to our Father in heaven.

  

Pictures 'Moses delivering the Tablets of the Law to the Elders -- Marc Chagall, and ‘Now you are the light of the world and salt of the earth’, abstract by  Lalo Gutierrez