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Christ the Fulfillment

  • gospelthoughts
  • Aug 22, 2016
  • 6 min read

Tuesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time C-2

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Ps 86 (85):1-3 Turn your ear, O Lord, and answer me; save the servant who trusts in you, my God. Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I cry to you all the day long.

Collect O God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3.14-17; Psalm 95; Matthew 23:23-26

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self‑indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. (Matthew 23:23‑26)

Christ the Fulfillment Sometimes the impression is given by certain Christians that the Old Testament was simply annulled and replaced by the Law of Christ. The impression can be given (without it meaning to be given) that the “God of the Old Testament” was a mistake, and that the real revelation of God and his character was that given in the New Testament. The God of the Old Testament was, for instance, a God of wrath whereas the God of the New Testament was a God of love. But no – Christ was very clear that he had not come to destroy the Law of Moses but to fulfil it. He was the new and definitive Moses bringing man not just the Law, but grace and truth. He certainly did not quash Moses. So much was this so that it became a major point of controversy within the infant Church whether Gentile converts were required to observe various practical points of Jewish observance such as the eating of “unclean” foods and circumcision. The issue became one of getting to the heart of the Christian faith, distinguishing essentials from what was marginal and dispensable, and truly fulfilling the Law of God as God intended. We have something of a case in point in our Gospel passage today (Matthew 23: 23-26), in which our Lord assails the teachers of the law and the Pharisees for their blindness in missing the wood for the trees. You give a tenth of your spices — mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness. Was our Lord condemning giving “a tenth of their spices”? No – for in the next sentence he tells them that they should not neglect to give a tenth of their spices: You should have practised the latter, without neglecting the former. The Old Testament had laid down the obligation to tithe: "Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. But you ask, 'How do we rob you?' 'In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it'" (Malachi 3:8-10). The prophet Malachi accused the people of robbing God for not giving tithes and offerings. The whole tithe should be brought to the storehouse that there may be food in his house. So it was the revealed will of God that his people tithe.

Just to pause on this point briefly, the Catholic Church lays down as a precept of the Church that the faithful are obliged to support adequately their pastors and the work of the Church. I have also read that Billy Graham, in a sermon entitled "Partners with God," said the following. "One of the greatest sins in America today is the fact that we are robbing God of that which rightfully belongs to Him. When we don't tithe, we shirk a just debt. Actually we are not giving when we give God one-tenth, for it belongs to Him already. This is a debt we owe. Not until we have given a tenth do we actually begin making an offering to the Lord!" So our Lord, in our Gospel today, was explicitly reaffirming the Old Testament obligation to tithe – but he did not want the “important matters of the law” to be missed through culpable and sinful blindness. This is the point to be observed and taken to heart. One must understand what above all God had revealed of himself and of how we ought live in his sight. The revealed details of religious living enabled the living out of the truly important things. In this sense, tithing (for instance) enabled the fulfilment of the “important matters of the law — justice, mercy and faithfulness.” Tithing was a divinely-ordained means of living those features of revealed religion that were based on the very nature of God as he had revealed himself: “justice, mercy and faithfulness”. God was just, merciful and faithful, and his chosen people were to live in justice, mercy and faithfulness. Their hearts were to be like the heart of God: just, merciful and faithful. The practical details set forth in the Torah and developed by the prophets were meant to nourish these fundamental virtues of a lived religion. They were never meant to replace them or obscure them in such a way that the focus gradually became the practitioner of religion rather than God. Some or even many of the teachers of the law and of the Pharisees had thus become blind (to God and his will). What they focused on was themselves and their tithing. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self‑indulgence. The “cup and dish” is the teacher of the law and the Pharisee – outside it is clean, inside it is filthy. Our Lord was clear: First clean the inside of the cup and dish. Then all will be well.

The revealed religion of Moses intended a worship by the heart and a moral life pleasing to a holy God. Our Lord’s words clarify in the plainest manner the nobility of Mosaic religion and that he himself came to fulfil it in a wondrous manner. This is the will of God, St Paul writes, your sanctification. If there is one thing which is truly notable about the revealed religion of the Old Testament it is this: Apart from its doctrine of but one holy God, there is sin. Sin is real and it exists in man. It is a terrible offence against God, ever to be atoned for and from which man had to be liberated. Christ reaffirmed all of this, revealing far more and accomplishing the extraordinary work of atoning for the sin of the world. He redeemed the human race from sin, rose to a new life which he thenceforth offered to man through his body the Church. Let us marvel at the all-powerful mercy of God!

(E. J. Tyler)

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Second reflection: (2 Thessalonians 2:1-3.14-17)

Scripture Alone The bedrock reality on which we as Christians base our lives is the call of God addressed to each of us. If we live according to that call to live in Christ we shall share in the glory of Christ. As St Paul says in 2 Corinthians 2: 1-3, "Through the Good News that we brought God called you so that you should share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ." But St Paul gives a directive that we should note well. The classical Protestant position is that we receive the Gospel and the Revelation it contains by "Scripture alone". So widespread is this idea in Christian society that even many Catholics feel it necessary to find the whole support for any Christian doctrine in Scripture alone. It is an assumption that has spread in people's minds. But St Paul, in the sentence that follows on the one just quoted, says to his readers (the Thessalonians) to "stand firm, then, brothers, and keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." So they were being instructed by the inspired author himself to be faithful to what they had been told by means of two channels: yes, by his (inspired) letter, but also what he had taught them by word of mouth. They were to "keep the traditions that we taught you, whether by word of mouth or by letter." The Church, as acting in and represented by Paul, Silvanus and Timothy, handed on the Gospel, not only by Scripture but by "word of mouth" too.

The Gospel comes to us in both Scripture and the Church's Tradition. Let us then renew our appreciation of the priceless means whereby the Gospel which takes us to glory comes to us: the Scriptures and the teaching Church, both being creations of the Holy Spirit.

(E. J. Tyler)

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