Fr Billy Swan
Dear friends. Some of you might remember a song by the band ‘the Clash’ in the late seventies called ‘I fought the law and the law won’. It is a song that captures something of our love/hate relationship with laws. On one hand we want to be free to live without laws, rules and regulations but on the other hand, we know we can’t do without them because otherwise the result is chaos. In the song ‘I fought the law’, a young man is telling his story – in his youthful energy he fought the law but in the end the law won.
This issue of the law and laws is the central theme of our readings today. And even within them, there is evidence of this clash between obeying the law and disobeying the law. In the first reading, Moses urges the people to obey the law and to live by it. Doing so, he promises, will bring prosperity, wisdom and prudence. We note here that this teaching from Moses comes before he gives the people the Ten Commandments. These are the laws from God that are not given to burden his people but precisely the opposite – to set them free, to protect the common good and prevent them returning to forms of slavery like they endured in Egypt.
Then on the other hand, we see Jesus in the Gospel clashing with the Pharisees who prided themselves on keeping the law. So, what then do we make of this tension between on one hand obeying the law of God and on the other avoiding the legalism and fussiness of the Pharisees?
There are two extremes for us to avoid. One extreme is to try and live without any regard for God, morality, Church, commandments and any restrictions to my freedom and choices. But the price to pay for this is precisely the freedom we crave. One young man who threw himself into this drifting and indulgent lifestyle was Bob Dylan. He later wrote a song about how this felt and named it ‘Tangled up in Blue’. He became blue, depressed and tangled up in himself like a great net he couldn’t escape from. Another song that captures the emptiness of a lawless life is by the Beatles who also embraced a free lifestyle of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Then they wrote this song called ‘Help. Help. I need somebody, not just anybody…Won’t you please, please help me’. The upbeat tempo of the song masks a cry for help. This is precisely why God gave us the commandments and the wisdom of the Gospel that continue in the teachings of the Church. Yes, there is a commitment to live by them but God has given them to us for our freedom, for our own good and the good of others. Therefore, loving God’s law is not for its own sake but for the sake of him who loves us and wants us to thrive. In the words of the second reading, submitting to the word that has been planted in us will not enslave us but set us free.
The other extreme is the danger of legalism and obeying the law without love and without heart. The Pharisees obeyed the law to perfection but their hearts were far from God. On the outside all appeared in order with them but they had neglected the arena of the heart where God’s law must rule and make its presence felt by bringing order, harmony and most of all love to our own lives and the lives of those we meet.
Friends, there is an intense campaign underway to empty society of morality, Church, God and his laws. This project was tried in the sixties and failed. In the words of Bob Dylan we became tangled up in blue. Let’s not go down the same road again. But neither let us stay with a legalism that declares myself good and righteous if I tick a box or fulfil a requirement. It is our hearts that God wants close to him so he can attune them to his ways, to his will and to his own loving heart. Here is God’s law that isn’t a burden but a guarantee of our freedom and joy.
Commenti