Have you been following the campaign to be the next mayor of Chicago? While there are many issues facing our fair city during the candidate forums the overriding concern has been public safety. What can the mayor do to lower the shooting, carjacking, murders, crime that are all too prevalent? Why can’t people just obey the law! The issue is complicated by the fact that “law and order” can be a dog whistle for racism, that there is a disconnect between the police who are charged with keeping us safe and the community, that things like providing employment and improving poverty are known to lower the crime rate yet are rarely discussed. What makes the issue particularly intractable is that we as a nation wrap ourselves in the mantle of freedom. Aren’t we the land of the free? “My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of Liberty…” Any attempt to deal with gun violence, for example, runs into an argument about infringing on ones’ freedom. It’s no wonder that issues of law and freedom are so complicated.
Of course, we are not here to talk mayoral politics but to talk about the Bible. But I find that there are parallels between our current political environment and Scriptures that help us understand what both mean. In both arenas there is a tension that exists between Law and freedom. Jesus in the gospel says that he has not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Yet the epistles of St. Paul react against any kind of emphasis on the law. “It was for freedom that Christ has set us free,” said the apostle (Galatians 5:1). In the Sermon on the Mount we read that we should obey “these commandments” if we want to be “greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” At the same time Jesus says in St. John’s gospel “the truth will set you free.” How are law and freedom compatible?
I suspect that most Catholics have as our default position obeying the law. We’ve got the commandments. We’ve got the laws of the Church and if we just toe the line everything will turn out okay. However, the language of freedom which is so important to St. Paul has to become part of our Christian vocabulary as well. Simply following a set of rules does not give us life as Jesus insisted time and again with the Pharisees. What Jesus calls “surpassing righteousness” is love. Love is the bridge between law and freedom. Jesus has a law of love. The problem with law is that it operates in terms of minimums – what’s the least I need to do to stay inside the law. I’ll pay the taxes that I owe but not one penny more. I’ll drive 55 miles an hour but not one mile more. (Hmmm. That might not be such a good example….) The point of love is not to think in terms of less but in terms of more. What’s the more, what’s the most that I can do? For example, with Valentine’s Day coming up many will be giving gifts to your sweetie. Because you love you don’t give the bare minimum (one rose should suffice to make her happy) but the most that you can afford — several dozen if the budget allows. That is the law of love at work – we have the freedom to go beyond the expected and do what will bring more joy.
The law of love is what lies behind this section of the Sermon on the Mount we heard in the gospel today. Jesus contrasts (“you have heard it said” but “I say to you”) how the written law deals in minimums but the law of love asks for more. Okay, great, you’ve haven’t killed that person who gets on your last nerve today. Whew. But according to the law of love that is not enough. We’ve got to move beyond the minimum of avoiding violence and think in terms of what more can we do to promote reconciliation, to bring healing, to find peace. All of those ugly things that we do to one another – anger, cursing out, name calling — need to be eliminated according to the law of love. Jesus challenges us: what more can we do to make our home, our neighborhood, our world more peaceful.
In Jesus’ patriarchal culture women tended to be patronized or diminished. Jesus challenges us that bare minimum of civility must be surpassed. In the law of love we give women their due: more dignity, proper respect, genuine equality Or think of the way we use language. The minimum is not to lie but the law of love requires that we do more by avoiding ways of speaking that manipulate or coerce and present the truth simply and directly. Society says, do what you gotta do. Jesus says do more: more generosity, more forgiveness, more compassion, more love.
