Two things are very striking, first, Jesus speaks with a new authority which is all his own; second, he sets new standards that are different from the old law and in particular he teaches that thoughts and desires are as important as words and deeds, and it is not enough not to say or do a bad thing, and you are only a good person when you do not even think or desire to do a bad thing. Even if we have lived a morally good life as far as people can see, we have all experienced inside ourselves the attraction of the wrong thing and the desire to do it. vv.21-22:Jesus forbids the kind of anger which takes deep root in a man’s heart; he forbids us to despise another person by regarding him and referring to him as a brainless fool (reca): he forbids us too to spoil another person’s name by calling him a moral fool (moros), that is in the Bible the man who acts as if there is no God for whom he ought to show respect vv.27-28:we have Jesus’s new standard in the matter of sexual morality; it is not only the man who actually commits a sexual sin who is condemned but also the man who deliberately tries to stir up in himself the desire for sexual sin. In vv.33-37, Jesus stresses the importance of respect for the truth. People take oaths to assure others that what they say is true and that what they promise they will fulfil. Jesus says that people should be so honest that if they say a thing they mean what they say and if they promise a thing they will do what they promise and if people were like this the taking of oaths would not be necessary at all. If we have to make people take oaths to guarantee what they say and what they promise (some people even then do not tell the truth and do not keep their promises) that only shows that we live in an evil world in which a man’s word cannot be trusted.
Part of the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament. It deals with good moral conduct and the true religious outlook on life. It was written in the Hebrew language about the year 180 B.C. The author a man called Joshua ben Eleazar ben Sirach. His grandson lived in Egypt and his fellow-Jews who lived in Egypt no longer knew their native Hebrew. So he translated his grandfather’s book from Hebrew into Greek so that the Jews in Egypt could benefit from its practical wisdom and be helped to live according to the Law of Moses. Sirach has no doubt about man’s free will to obey God’s law or to disobey. We are free to choose between fire which destroys and water which gives life, between sin and virtue, between a life of disobedience to God and a life in his service. Each one of us is free to sin, but God cannot agree that we should sin, and the one who sins has only himself to blame, and because he is free to do right, God too will blame him for doing wrong. Sirach gives a gentle warning too against trying to deceive ourselves into thinking that something is right because we like to do it, because God knows and sees what is truly in our heart. It would seem that Sirach is writing to contradict a traditional Old Testament attitude that God seems to be responsible even for man’s sins, as we get in Exodus 4:21 to 11:10 in which it is repeated over and over again that the Lord God hardened Pharoah’s heart or in Isaiah 6:1-10 when God says “Say to this people, listen and listen but do not understand, look and look, but do not see. And in Genesis 27 there is no condemnation of Rebecca’s deception of the blind Isaac to rob Esau of the blessing of the first-born twin and have it given to Jacob instead. God is master of all and everything that happens, even men’s sins, are attributed to God. And there are many people today who cannot accept that Judas was free to betray Jesus to his enemies or not: the verse in Sirach which comes just before today’s reading is a very striking sentence: “God made man in the beginning and then left him free to make his own decisions.”(15,14) Joshua (or Jesus) ben Sirach was a faithful Jew of Jerusalem. He had the inclination and the time to reflect on the Law and the many problems of human life. His wisdom is inspired by the Law of Moses and the older wisdom books like Proverbs and is also based on people’s experience of everyday life. God did not create evil. He hates it, He has no use for it v.12). He helps us to keep clear of it v.13). Sin comes from man, not from God, and it is not necessary since man has the power to choose what is good (14-15). Man is responsible whether he does evil or good (16-17) God can have no dealings with sin except to punish it (18-20). There is a struggle between God’s will and man’s freedom. St. James says in 1: 13-15, “Never, when you have been tempted say ‘God sent the temptation,’ God cannot be tempted and he does not tempt anybody. Everyone who is tempted is seduced and attracted by his own wrong desire. Then the desire conceives and gives birth to sin and when sin if fully grown it too has a child and the child is death. “We cannot blame anyone but ourselves for the wrong things that we do, so let us not try to make excuses for ourselves, but accept full responsibility for what we do.
In today’s reading Paul says he has a special form of wisdom to offer to people who are spiritually minded and who have already made some progress in the practice of the Christian faith. Paul recognises that some are beginners in the Christian life and others are more advanced. There are different kinds of instruction for the two different kinds of Christians. The Kerygma is the plain announcement of the facts of the life, death, resurrection and second coming of Jesus. The Didache is the explanation of what these facts must mean for our life. It is unfortunate that so many of our Christians do not advance in their knowledge and understanding of their faith. Worldly mindedness had prevented pagans, like the Romans, from coming to a knowledge of God through his work in creation and had prevented the Jews from recognising Jesus as the Messiah promised them in the Scriptures, but considered him as a blasphemer claiming to be God. But Jesus was in fact the Lord of Glory, a Jewish title for the true God. Through Christ himself and especially through the Holy Spirit, whom he sent first on Pentecost Day, God’s wisdom was revealed. The wisdom is this: that God’s plan is to make us all his sons and daughters in Christ, his Son, and to glorify us in a way that it is impossible for us to imagine. In our own day so many people are so materially and worldly minded that it is hard for them to be open to this plan of God for us, because they have no taste for the things of the spirit. It is only a person who has given his heart to God who can make this progress, because this progress is the gift of God, not the result of our own efforts. But we must make our own effort to understand our faith better and the more effort we make the more God will tell us about himself and there is no limit to that because we can never understand God fully. Only the person whose heart is really set on God will make that effort and if our hearts are not set on God or are set on other things we will not be interested in making more and more progress in the knowledge and love of God.
Kefa W. MHM – 1984
What you’ll find here is my personal wrestling with and reflection on Scripture. I don’t claim to have all the answers, only a sincere desire to seek truth. Some of the references used are drawn from past study and experience, and the author may no longer be able to recall all their exact sources. This reflection is not intended to establish doctrine, theology, or official teaching. Feel free to leave your comments or personal reflections below as we continue to grow deeper together in the Word of God. I’ll see you next Sunday.
