In today’s readings we hear what sounds like a lot of opposites – fire/ water, death/life, the way of the world/the wisdom of God, to abolish/to complete, yes/no. With all these opposites, we might be tempted to think that the ideas of love & the law, which Jesus speaks about in the Gospel, are also in opposition to each other. But Jesus shows that this is not the case – the law and love very much need each other!

We can perhaps understand the confusion of the disciples & the crowd. As we have heard in recent weeks, Jesus has just proclaimed the new vision of the Beatitudes, challenging his listeners to be ‘salt and light’ to others through their radical living of these ‘new commandments’. But does this mean the ‘old commandments’ of the Jewish Law, so key to Jewish identity and everyday life, are now redundant? Absolutely not, as Jesus makes it clear: “I have come not to abolish the law but to complete it.”

But he tells them they must go beyond the traditional interpretation of the law & see it from God’s point of view. To show this, he takes 3 of the 10 commandments: You shall not kill (no 5); You shall not commit adultery (no 6) & You shall not break your oath (no 8) & shows the true depth of each commandment. For example ‘You must not kill’ – of course we must not kill another human being, but, Jesus explains, that in itself is not enough. We must not hate, bear resentment, act in anger towards another person. We must not insult, abuse or humiliate others. And this extends to how we come before God - we cannot truly praise/worship God when our hearts are full of anger towards another person. We can’t be praying to God one minute and then plotting revenge against someone the next! Jesus explains, we only really fulfil the law when we do so with all our heart, mind, body & soul.

This Wednesday we begin our Lenten journey when we receive the ashes on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday. This is an invitation from God to us all to come back to him with all our hearts. That means, yes, being faithful to God’s commandments but, most importantly, it means following and living like Jesus deeper and deeper every day. Law and Love, head and heart

With blessings & prayers from Fr Richard, Fr Ephrem & all the parish team
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