Wednesday of the Third Week in Lent
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Today’s reading from the Book of Exodus records the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. “Honour thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest be long lived upon the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house: neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his.” The people saw the voices, the flames, the sound of the trumpet and the mount smoking. They were terrified and stood afar off asking that God did not speak to them lest they die. “And Moses said to the people: Fear not, for God is come to prove you, and that the dread of him might be in you, and you should not sin. And the people stood afar off. But Moses went into the dark cloud where God was.” God told Moses to speak to the children of Israel instructing them to renounce idolatry and make their sacrifices to him only.
The Israelites had been rescued from slavery in Egypt. They had been led into the wilderness by Moses to Mount Sinai where he received the Law which would govern their lives. This provided the blueprint for a democratic theocracy in which all, high and low, rich and poor, would have equal access to dignity and hope. God had make himself known to them through his actions in history, but he remained a mystery that the people were afraid to come near. Later theology, since at least the time of St. Basil in the fourth century, would say that God was unknowable in his essence, but made made himself known through his energies. This should not be misinterpreted to mean that a part of God is knowable and another part unknowable, but rather that the God who revealed himself in time and history still remained utterly transcendent and above the comprehension of finite human beings. We can apprehend God through his revelation of himself, but we can never fully comprehend God.
St. Matthew’s Gospel records an occasion when the scribes and Pharisees came to Jesus from Jerusalem. They asked him why his disciples transgressed against the tradition of the fathers by not washing their hands when they ate bread. Jesus responded by saying that they substituted their own tradition for the commandments of God. The Law of Moses had commanded them to honour their father and their mother. “But you say: Whosoever shall say to father or mother: The gift, whatsoever proceedeth from me, shall profit thee: and he shall not honour his father or his mother: and you have made void the commandment of God for your tradition.” The prophet Isaiah had referred to the people honouring God with their lips when their hearts were far from him. They were worshipping him in vain and were teaching the doctrines and commandments of men. Jesus told the multitudes: “Not that which goeth into a mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of a mouth, this defileth a man.” When the disciples told him that the Pharisees were scandalised by this teaching he told them that they (the Pharisees) were blind leaders of the blind. St. Peter asked him to explain this parable. Jesus replied: “The things that proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart, and those things defile a man: for from the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are things that defile a man. But to eat with unwashed hands doth not defile a man.”
Who were the scribes and Pharisees and why did they object to Jesus’ teaching? The scribes were the learned teachers of the Jewish Law. Since this had originally been delivered to a people wandering in the wilderness it was necessary for later generations to be instructed into how to apply it to their lives in circumstances that were often more complex than those previously envisaged. The Pharisees were a popular party of self appointed guardians of the ancestral traditions. They are usually thought to have originated at the time of the Maccabean revolt against the attempt by the Seleucid emperor Antiochus Epiphanes to suppress Judaism. The Hasmonean dynasty that ruled over the new independent kingdom soon became as worldly and compromised as the pagan rulers it replaced, but the Pharisees remained faithful to their traditions. They sought to apply the Law to every aspect of their lives. Purification was not simply for the priests in the temple, but also should be undertaken before every meal. They were understandably concerned that Jesus’ disciples did not appear to conform to their traditions and travelled from Jerusalem to Galilee to investigate.
Jesus responded that the age of the new covenant looked forward to by Jeremiah, in which sins would be forgiven and the law written on the hearts of men, was now dawning. The Kingdom of God, when his will would finally be done on earth as it is in heaven, was now breaking into history in his person and ministry. He had not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfil them by bringing them to completion. He proclaimed himself to be the full, final and definitive revelation of God’s will, a higher righteousness than that of the scribes. They were primarily concerned with outward actions. They did not entirely neglect inner motivations. After all, the law against covetousness was one of the Ten Commandments. But they tended in practice to place more emphasis on the minutiae of religious etiquette rather than the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness. They honoured God with their lips but their hearts were far from him. They did not realise that it was not eating with unwashed hands that defiled a man, but rather the wickedness of the human heart, evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies and blasphemies. They saw themselves as the pillars of the law when they were in fact the most blind.
The Law of Moses had been written on tablets of stone. It provided the people with the right ethical advice to follow, but it could not transform the human heart, which remained, as Jeremiah put, deceitful above all things. But the coming of the Kingdom of God in Jesus’ person and ministry inaugurated a new era in the relations between God and man. Morality could now draw on fresh springs. The Mosaic dispensation was no longer adequate, for the time of the new covenant in which sins were forgiven and the law written on the hearts of men was dawning.
Let us pray for grace that today in our own time and place we will not harden our hearts to the truth that alone sets us free.
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