Breaking the Law

In this Sunday's reading from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus heals a woman who has been crippled and bent over by an evil spirit for 18 years. The leader of the synagogue gets quite indignant with Jesus, because he heals the woman on the Sabbath, when the Torah (also known as the Pentateuch--literally, five books) specifies quite clearly that no work is to be done. This provides yet another opportunity for Jesus to call out the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, who favor a legalistic reading of the Torah, rather than taking a common-sense or pastoral approach, as Jesus does. This story is meant to help us reflect on what it means to apply the rules of our faith to real life.

It is important to remember that the Torah that Jesus, the Pharisees, and ordinary Jewish people followed was not a legal code. We often translate that word, "Torah," as "Law," such as when we recite "the Summary of the Law" in the Book of Common Prayer, in which Jesus says that loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves are the greatest commandments, on which hang all the Law and the Prophets. Yet the word, "Torah," is more accurately translated as "teaching," "instruction," or "guidance." The longstanding practice of translating the word, "Torah," as "Law" in English is actually a translation of the Greek word, nomos, which was chosen when Jews first translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek. This translation, which we know as the Septuagint, rendered "Torah" as "Law," and so have we.

Fortunately, we know better now; and incidentally, so did the learned Jews of Jesus's day. The Torah was not just the Five Books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), "the Written Torah," but also the tradition of scholarly rabbinic interpretation of those five books that has been passed down through the generations and is now enshrined in the writings of the Talmud and Midrash, "the Oral Torah." Both the Written Torah and Oral Torah represent an attempt to apply holy wisdom to real-life situations. Jesus reminds the religious elite of his day that the Torah doesn't offer us a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach to every situation. Real wisdom requires a person to apply the Torah's instruction and guidance creatively to each new situation, not just to offer a pat answer that will fly in the face of common sense and common decency.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

Bearing Fruit

In this week's reading from the Letter to the Colossians, the author says, "just as [the gospel] is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God." The gospel, as the author understands it, is the story of Jesus's redemption of humanity and his promise of a better future for all of us. Once we've heard this Good News, it begins to work on us and shape us into a new creation. But what does this new creation, this fruitfulness, look like?

Some would have us believe that God rewards dutiful Christians with financial prosperity and good fortune; but this week's readings suggest something very different. The story of the Good Samaritan, which will be our Gospel reading on Sunday, illustrates that true fruitfulness comes from an inner spiritual richness, because that richness fosters life in everything and everyone it touches, not just ourselves. The fact that a Samaritan, considered an outcast among the Jews of Jesus's day, offered such abundant mercy and generosity to a stranger affirms that it's the love within us that matters, rather than wealth, social status, or power. After all, a priest and a Levite both passed the wounded traveler by without so much as a glance; but the Samaritan is moved by compassion. He binds up the travelers wounds, conveys him to an inn, takes care of him, and instructs the innkeeper to spare no expense in looking after the injured man until he returns.

This story of the Good Samaritan is Jesus's answer to a lawyer's question, "who is my neighbor," after Jesus reminds him that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The Church teaches that it is each Christian's duty to attend to both "spiritual works of mercy" and "corporal works of mercy." Corporal works of mercy attend to people's physical needs: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, and bury the dead. The idea in Colossians is that we do good works, not because we feel guilty or pressured by others, but because we feel an overwhelming gratitude for God's care and nurturing of us. And maybe, like the robbed traveler, we too were saved unexpectedly by a stranger in our own moment of crisis. Similarly, the message in our Gospel reading is that we do works of mercy out of a sense of shared humanity and love for each other as neighbors. Love generates love. Our own experience of fruitfulness makes us eager to see others fruitful, too.

Even though we have entered a more leisurely season at St. Helena's, we will still need to be planting seeds this summer, so that the parish can bear new fruit. We already have a rich soil and a healthy climate to allow these seeds to flourish. So, we'll build on our spiritual richness, by learning to invite, to greet, to orient, and to incorporate newcomers better. We'll draw on our own experience of God's abundance so that others can be fruitful, too.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+