3rd Sunday of Lent 3 March 2024 Commandments
Nothing is too much trouble for one we love. A desire to please is paramount.
We would do anything for some figure we admire or venerate such as Mother Teresa, or many others.
We should see God in that light, but it does not always happen.
Think of obedience to God as ‘nothing is too much trouble’, and we will see things more clearly.
Some will take a defiant attitude as questioning what right God has to intervene? He made the whole universe and keeps it in being.
They say we should be able to run the world ourselves without divine interference.
A quick look at the news will remind us of what happens when
we leave it to people to run things!
Instead we can regard God's laws as a way of discovering more about God Himself. If we humble ourselves before Him we will learn why it is a good idea to obey Him, and seek Him out as much as possible.
God helps us to love Him as he sets us free from sin, and we come to value what he values and to deplore sin.
Our antipathy to rules is a throwback to original sin, where Adam and Eve try to blame others for their sin, and so it has been ever since. (Gen 3,12-13).
Sometimes the light of realization would break through. The Israelites would go as far as saying that they loved the laws of God (Ps 119, 97) because those laws showed how much God cared for them. Other gods did not do that. (See also Ps 18).
God's laws, we might say, are an acquired taste; they become more appealing as we see their inner wisdom and how everything leads back to God, who is the source of all that is good.
I am the Lord your God, and therefore come the following commands, the Ten Commandments.
These commands flow out of the nature of God, telling us what He is like, what He regards as important.
God wants us to know Him, so He comes in ways that we can digest, such as the sacraments, sacred places, and giving us commandments so we can live with wisdom and harmony.
The ten commandments begin with our response to God. If we love Him all else follows naturally. Any sort of false god means we do not love the real God.
The Commandments are brief in title there are many levels within each one. All the clauses and sub-clauses direct us back to I Am the Lord Every obedience is giving honour to God; every sin an insult to His majesty.
Keep the laws and we will mature in understanding, and the whole society will be better for that.
An initial sacrifice may be required to keep the laws, but great glory will result if we go God's way.
Does a loving God punish? Yes, when He sees it as necessary to call His people back to the right path. Thus today’s episode in the Temple when Jesus takes a whip to the moneychangers. Somebody was doing wrong and worse still, it was in the Lord’s house.
The house of the Lord - firstly the Temple, now churches - require special reverence, such as keeping silence, dressing appropriately, generally keeping a reverential demeanour.
God will not punish us,
however, if we make our own way to Him, to honour Him as He is, in His
laws, His word, in whatever way He chooses to reach us.
We take the right path voluntarily, trusting ourselves to His ongoing providence to lead us safely home. Allow yourself to be a stray sheep and let Him collect you (Lk 15,4-7).
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