Actions may speak louder than words, but the actions themselves are not necessarily the deepest source.  Heart-felt attitudes govern our words and actions many if not most of the time.  Every now and then we may catch ourselves, but for the most part we speak and act in conformance with what we have accepted in our minds and hearts as true.  And that which we consider to be true becomes the measuring stick with which we judge others and our own actions (whether we realize it or not) to be righteous or not.

Jesus seems to be challenging this type of righteousness in the opening lines of today’s Gospel (MT 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”

On the surface, these words seem to confirm the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees and their interpretations of the moral laws of conduct to which everyone in the Jewish world should conform.  But then, Jesus begins to break it down for them…

“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.”

Well if that doesn’t give one reason to pause, I don’t know what will.  Jesus seems to be saying that if you think that the righteousness of conduct prescribed by the traditional moral laws interpreted by the scribes and Pharisees will guarantee entry into the kingdom, THINK AGAIN!  Jesus is going in very deep here.  Essentially, he is saying that as immoral as killing indeed is, name-calling is equally evil.  The term raqa is equivalent to calling someone an imbecile and was considered an abusive term.  I am certain that we can identify names that we use that accomplish the same abusive expression in our present-day world.    In identifying anger as something that would warrant judgment, I wonder if Jesus is indicating the destructive source from whence the anger comes, rather than decrying it as something in itself that is evil.  This Gospel is as much if not more about attitudes of the heart than about moral conduct in our external actions.

It seems to be a question as to how far we will venture into the deep.  Will we stay in the shallow end of the pool where our feet can still touch bottom, or will we move out into deeper water where the buoyancy at first causes us to lose our footing as we bob up and down, and then, if we can trust in it, the water itself supports us as we move in rhythm with it?  Do we allow our actions toward each other to determine our position, without considering the deeper patterns of attitude that are indeed the source?  This isn’t a matter of scruples, but it is a matter of the heart.  Jesus seems to be asking us to carry this argument of righteousness as actions that come from a blindness of heart to its logical conclusion.  Judgments based upon prescribed codes of morality that do not involve the heart WILL, as the Gospel says “throw us in prison, until every penny is paid back!”

Do we really believe that killing another person is confined to the act of ending or attempting to end that person’s life physically?  Are there no other ways that we try to kill each other in our daily lives?  Contrary to the popular adage, abusive words can hurt as much if not more than sticks and stones.

Perhaps the question itself has to do with the comfort that we enjoy from structures of conduct that bolster attitudes, which we either deny exist or fail to see.  Jesus’ notion of righteousness always leads back to the Father’s Heart of Mercy.  Approaching it from the wall of stubbornness present in the well-cataloged code of acceptable and unacceptable moral behavior, in the Gospel today, Jesus seems to want to throw us into the deep water of the Heart, where attitudes either will drown us or bear us up on Its tide.

Shallow actions of morality absent of mercy will drown us in endless attempts to justify everything by a righteousness founded upon judgment.  But when the mercy of God’s own Heart is received in our own hearts, then righteousness and morality have a new name that can heal and transform – Compassion!  And this compassion cannot exist without the consideration of, indeed, the absolute necessity of engagement with others. There is no morality outside of compassionate relationship.  And this seems ‘unfair’ to us, as Ezekiel tells us in the first reading (EZ 18: 21-28):

“You say, “The LORD’s way is not fair!”
Hear now, house of Israel: Is it my way that is unfair, or rather, are not your ways unfair?”

Of course it seems unfair to us, because we are trying to set up a moral code of conduct that focuses on the meritocracy and accumulation of good deeds and the exact measurement of everything that falls outside of that.   This morality cannot relate because it is only self-referential.  This is somewhat of an effrontery to God’s way which measures only with mercy and only within the context of relationship.

Could this be what Jesus is trying to say?

“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.

 The gift to be given requires the reconciliation of those who are hurt – EVERYONE.  The gift of Compassion is found within the willingness to be reconciled with each other.  This is an acknowledgement of the necessary relationship that we have with one another – shared hurt and shared mercy.  It is this RELATING heart of compassion that has the ability to transform the patterns and attitudes of our minds and actions.

Here then we see that righteousness and morality necessarily involve an affair of the heart that marks the doorway into the Kingdom of God.

Yes, we can all enter, if we use the heart to do so.

Peace
Thomas

                                          (Originally published March 10, 2017)