But it’s legal…

Friday March 5

Readings: Ez 18:21-28; Mt 5:20-26

Today’s readings focus on following “the law” – God’s law, that is.  And we hear Jesus say, “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven?”

What was he critiquing?

The scribes and Pharisees were two religious groups who were really good at following the religious rules.  And they were upset that Jesus did not follow these rules and developed a following of people who did not either.  The “rules” that the scribes and Pharisees upheld were part of a system that excluded and oppressed certain peoples.  So one could “follow the law” and yet discriminate, oppress and exclude.

Was that what God wanted?

Jesus knew that human rules protected certain groups and excluded others.

I am thinking of a meme I saw on Facebook that said, “Aparteid was legal.  The Holocaust was legal. Slavery was legal. Colonialism was legal.  Legality is a matter of power, not justice.”

Just about anything can be used as a way to subvert God’s desires for the world – including religion.  Jesus knew this and counseled his disciples (and I am paraphrasing here) to think more about power and to notice how it operated in the world. And if we want to learn more about how power operates, we generally only need to ask those who do not have it, are victimized by it or excluded by it. They can usually tell us exactly how it works. And so Jesus reminds us to think more deeply about “laws” and our relationship to them.

We don’t need to look too far to find examples of “laws” (or practices)- spoken or unspoken – that serve power instead of justice.  Some of those are in our families.  Some in our workplaces.  Some in our schools.  Some in government. Pick any “ism” and you’ll have plenty of examples as well.

Maybe for today we identify one law/practice that we notice that supports injustice and lean into it a little bit – offering some resistance.