The ancient Israelites lived according to the Torah, also known as the Mosaic Law, the law that they received from God through Moses during their long journey in the desert. The Mosaic Law encompassed every aspect of life, from fundamentals to dietary codes and smaller matters too. For the ancient Israelites, there was no distinction between a secular and a religious sphere. Everything was viewed through the lens of their faith. Thus, the Mosaic Law governed not only one's individual relationship with God but the whole organization of society.
By observing the Mosaic Law, the Israelites truly lived as God's own chosen people. But they were chosen not for their own glory but to be a light to the other nations. A major part of their calling was to show to the rest of the world how to live in right relationship with God. The observance of the Mosaic Law deliberately set them apart from other cultures, so that they would not blend in with the surrounding tribes but would be the shining light that would call them to repentance.
Observing the Mosaic Law fully meant standing out from others. I am reminded of a time over ten years ago when I would attend the annual LA Religious Education Congress, held at the Anaheim Convention Center, right across the street from Disneyland. The congress drew about 30,000 church people each year, among them many nuns. I always liked seeing groups of nuns in their full habits walking past Disneyland and all the tourists heading to the park. The nuns clearly had an identity of being set apart. They had no intention of conforming to the world around them. Instead, their very presence was a sign to the world of a higher reality. Such was the calling of the Israelites as well.
The Mosaic Law also had a deeply practical aspect. The laws that to us might appear strange or needlessly restrictive turn out to be protective of people's health when examined in light of the geographical and socio-economic situation of the ancient Israelites. For example, the prohibition on eating various animals protected the Israelites from consuming foods that were especially prone to cause diseases in the pre-industrial desert environment of the Israelite community.
In addition to the other reasons, the Israelites also received the Mosaic Law so that we may understand the importance of law for human life. Our contemporary culture tends to bristle at limitations to our freedom, autonomy, and self-determination. True, some human laws, rules, or regulations are unjust or unnecessary and should be changed or done away with. But human beings need laws to govern our lives - authentic laws that are rooted in God's law, God's vision for humanity.
Authentic laws are not a burden or an arbitrary limitation on our freedom. Authentic laws guide us away from those things that would cause us harm and they guide us toward that which gives us life. God's law, and the human laws rooted in his law, help us to live into God's plan for us, which is eternal life, filled with infinite joy.
When Jesus, who is God Incarnate, came among us, he critiqued how many of the Israelites were observing the Mosaic Law. They were focused on an exacting observance of precepts, while losing sight of the deeper purpose of the law to guide us into true life. For example, they upheld the prohibition against working on the Sabbath so rigorously that they grew furious when Jesus healed on the Sabbath. Jesus challenged their hypocrisy and showed them what the true observance of the law entailed.
Jesus also reformulated the Mosaic Law. As God Incarnate, the lawgiver himself, he was the only one who had the authority to do so. Jesus upheld the moral and ethical core of the Mosaic Law, but he set aside some of the other precepts, like the dietary codes, which no longer bind us. Instead, Jesus took the law to a new level, so that by following his teachings and commands, we may be able to experience fully the infinite love of God in our lives. Our law today consists of the teachings and commands of Jesus as interpreted by the Catholic Church, which was established by Christ and whose leaders were entrusted with the task of guiding the lives of all the faithful.
Looking at the Gospel reading for this Sunday, in challenging the hypocrisy of some of his contemporaries, Jesus uses a technique called leveling, when a speaker makes a list where the different components are not of equal significance, thereby jolting his audience out of the complacency of their thinking. Jesus says: "From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile" (Mark 7:21-23). Are all these sins of the same gravity? Is deceit as bad as blasphemy or murder? Are evil thoughts as bad as theft? We might debate about the relative gravity of each category of sin, but I think we would all agree that some sins are worse than others. Yet Jesus lists them all together as if they were equally bad. Why does he do so?
Historically, the Church has had various ways of categorizing sins. One is to consider mortal and venial sins. Mortal sins are acts that destroy our relationship with God completely, causing us to cut ourselves off from God's love fully. Venial sins do not destroy our relationship with God completely, but they hurt the relationship to a lesser or greater extent. To use the analogy of marriage, we might say that there are acts that a spouse can do that will cause immediate separation; whereas there are also many things that one spouse can do that will not destroy the marriage, but will start to damage it, sometimes just a little, but sometimes more significantly.
We might be tempted to ignore the smaller things, which do not destroy our relationship with God completely but only damage it. However, those smaller sins soon become a slippery slope. In a marriage, a small lie or act of unkindness creates a sense of disrespect for the other. After that, it is easier to engage in a more serious act of unkindness, or a more serious lie, or some other hurtful action. Our heart will harden more and more, and before we know it, a wedge has been created between us and the other.
In time, actions that were unthinkable before seem fine to our disordered conscience, and soon we might engage in something truly terrible. That is why we must flee from even the smallest sins. We should regard all sin as having the potential to destroy our relationship with God, cutting us off from God's infinite love for us. We must dread all sin, no matter how trivial it may seem and embrace fully God's law in our lives, so that through his law, we may be guided into the eternal life of blessedness he has prepared for those who love him.
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The readings for the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B are:
Dt 4:1-2, 6-8
Ps 15:2-3, 3-4, 4-5
Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27
Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
The full text can be found at the USCCB website.
Photo Credit: Mikveh, a place for ritual cleaning baths, at the remains of a first century synagogue in Magdala, the birth place of St. Mary Magdalen (c) 2016 by Zoltan Abraham.