Thursday, XII Ordinary Time
(Matthew 7)
In a movie depicting life in the Bronx during the 1960s a man of experience advises a teenage boy how to determine if his date would be a worthy girl friend. He says that the boy should open the car door for the girl to let her in. Then if she doesn’t reach over to unlock the door on the driver’s side, she is self-centered and should be dropped therewith. The advice is not unlike the test that Jesus provides in the gospel for those worthy of heaven.
Jesus warns about praying a lot -- saying “Lord, Lord” -- but doing nothing to indicate fidelity. He is critical also of striving to accomplish remarkable feats but lacking humility and innocence. On judgment day Jesus says that he will be looking for those who have each day practiced his standards of perfection. It’s a tall order, of course, but Jesus will send us the Holy Spirit so that we might fill it.
This gospel passage ends the Sermon on the Mount, the so-called blueprint of the Christian life. It has introduced a new kind of morality – one not based exclusively on outward acts or only on inner prayer. No, for Jesus thought, word, and deed all have to be beyond reproach. In outlining the new morality Jesus has shown himself to be a greater lawgiver than Moses. The latter only brought God’s law on tablets from the mountaintop. Jesus, on the other hand, shows himself to be the actual lawgiver -- the one who speaks as God with his own authority.
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