If you would be a superstar athlete, an accomplished musician, or a poet, or a writer, or if you would be a renowned scientist, or at the top of your profession, or a business tycoon, you would have to live a pretty disciplined life. You would have to observe a rigorous set of rules and not allow yourself to wallow in your own lazy and easy self-indulgences. Being the best of the best in any field requires that you sacrifice many things, set aside many pleasures, and focus on what you value over and above a whole lot of other things.
Those of us who fail to follow the rules and who give ourselves license to do whatever makes us feel good, end up being held as slaves to our own lower passions. Our urges, feelings and drives can hold us in unyielding bondage and slavery: a slavery to our own selfish selves. In biblical language, that slavery is called hell. We end up living in hellish self-condemnation, damning ourselves for what we could have done but didn’t, what we could have had, but now have not.
Above all else the ancient Israelites cherished and revered the law of God, the Torah. They realized that those who with humility and perseverance hold themselves to the laws and regulations handed down to them from the Torah, will be given the strength and power to pass through life free of this world’s seductions, distractions, and diversions and so find their way to God.
The tyrannical Pharaoh of Egypt who held the Hebrews in bondage is but an image of an even more merciless tyrant, namely our own Imperial Self. Following Moses, the Hebrews were eventually able to find the freedom to belong to God and to belong to Him totally and without any external restrictions imposed upon them by the principalities and powers of this world. What was true for them way back then is true for us today. Each one of us must come out of Egypt every day.
Over the years, religious Jews rejoiced in the Law of God and by their observance of God’s Law witnessed to the saving God who cares for them and loves them so much that He gave them the Law. The problem is that, as with so many things, we easily slip into a mere external observance of the laws, rules and regulations that can guide us, liberate us, and that can free us to accomplish good and great things.
What happens to an athlete who fails to keep his or her training discipline? Or a musician or actor who fails to rehearse? What happens to an artist or author who throws off the discipline of his or her craft? Greatness eludes them.
Laws are too often seen from the wrong perspective. They are seen as restricting us rather than liberating us. Yes, they restrict and control our urges, drives and feelings. They keep us from doing what we feel like doing when we feel like doing it. But that’s not their chief purpose. The chief purpose of law is to free us to be focused, to keep us centred on what we can do in order to live wholesome and healthy lives, not just for ourselves but for the sake of caring for and building up others. To quote Lord Acton, the famous politician and writer: “Freedom is not the power of doing what we like, but the power of being able to do what we ought.”
Good laws enshrine values. Good laws, rules and regulations keep us in the game. That should be obvious when you watch a football match or any other sporting event. Laws keep us disciplined, they enable us to work together as a team, they free us from the worst in ourselves and they allow us to bring out the best in ourselves – they allow us to be winners.
Most importantly, laws and rules should shape our inner selves, they should shape our hearts. Mere external observance of them leads to terrible consequences. Simple compliance with laws, rules and regulations quickly leads to defiant compliance, and once defiance enters into us then we are only a step away from breaking away from our discipline and becoming slaves to our own selves.
One of the chief problems Our Lord faced was that many of the people around him, and particularly the religious leaders, were not truly religious. They were merely externally complying with their religious rules and laws; they were hypocrites, frauds and phoneys, preaching one thing and doing another. They saw only the external letter of the law and lost the vision of its inner spirit. And not only that, they were imposing their phoniness into the people whom God sent them to serve.
So it is we find Our Lord admonishing the religious leaders around him: Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honours me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.
After dealing harshly with the religious leaders, Our Lord turned to the ordinary people who were following him. The words he spoke to them are words he speaks to us here and now. They are words we need to hear, living as we do in a culture that has become horribly self-indulgent, self-gratifying, and self-justifying, a culture that blames everyone else for what’s wrong.
Our Lord summoned the crowd and said to them: Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile. From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile a person.
Many people these days are fond of saying that Jesus accepted everyone and tolerated everything they did. Well, as we’ve just heard, that is simply not true. ‘Anything Goes’ may be the catchphrase of our decadent society, but it is not so with the God who made us. We’re not free to do what we like. God’s laws are His gifts to us. They protect us from our selfish selves, they give us freedom, and they lead us to what we dream we want to be, and what Jesus Christ died for us to have. God’s laws enshrine values, they shape our hearts, they overrule our tyrannical urges, and they lead us into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
May God’s love, peace, and freedom be ours in order that we may find happiness both in this life and in the next.
Dum Tacet Clamat 