Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Leviticus 19:1–2, 17–18
Psalm 103:1–2, 3–4, 8, 10, 12–13
1 Corinthians 3:16–23
Matthew 5:38–48
“Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.” This is how Moses speaks to the people of Israel in the name of God and summarizes the invitation to draw close to God. He continues: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.”
Be holy and love. The people of God in every age belong to God, and because He is the Lord, we are called to put His love into practice by love of neighbor.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus continues to demand a “greater justice” from those who follow Him. “… Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.”
When we make distinctions between ourselves and those who are neighbors or enemies, we are not to make any distinction in regard to how we treat them. Belonging to God, Who loves us, we are to love all.
It is made clear that this way of life is motivated by the intimacy of our relationship with God. “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Here is where Matthew’s vision for the kingdom is made clear. It is a question of aiming toward a goal that is beyond us by our own efforts.
The Greek word that Matthew uses here is teleios, translated as perfect. The root of this word is telos, meaning aim, goal, consummation, end, that is, something like bullseye. Matthew wants us to follow Jesus’ invitation to allow the law to reside in us as we reach toward God’s kingdom, trusting in God to supply us with the fulfillment that He wills for us.
Luke, in contrast, uses the expression “be merciful” (oiktirmon), putting his own emphasis on compassion and mercy as the highest aim for being like God. The Responsorial Psalm echoes this theme: “The Lord is kind and merciful.”
Paul reminds the Corinthians that God’s Spirit dwells within us: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? … The temple of God, which you are, is holy.”
This vision of the people of God as the temple opens a connection between our earthly life and the promise of eternity. What is begun in time is destined to continue in eternity in a manner that is known to God alone.
As we look to the Father, responding to His love, we discover who we are. The law that has been written for us is written into our hearts by the Spirit, Who allows us to share in the very life of Christ as we continue our earthly journey.
This week, all of a sudden it seems, Lent breaks in upon the vision of the kingdom that has been given to us through the Sermon on the Mount. Ash Wednesday will set us on our own desert journey toward fulfillment of the Paschal Mystery. We will seek to practice the three disciplines of the Lenten season – prayer, fasting and almsgiving – so that we can arrive at Easter ready to celebrate the Resurrection.
The few weeks of Ordinary Time that have carried us since the close of the Christmas season have called us to “look up,” to broaden our vision of who we are and what we are capable of becoming. Matthew’s vision of the kingdom beckons us forward.
As God’s people, called to be holy, to love and to aim for perfection in the image of the merciful God, we are ready to cooperate with grace and to allow God to take up residence among us. We are His temple. We are the living sign of His presence in the world and in human history.
Our aim is to allow Him to perfect the kingdom among us. Striving for holiness of life, acknowledging that whatever we may accomplish is to God’s glory, not our own, let us begin the joyful season of Lent and persevere to Easter.