Nothing Gets Abolished

Readings: DT 4:1, 5-9; MT 5:17-19

If you have followed my writings on the blog, you know that I – probably not unlike a lot of Catholics or Christians – grew up with distorted ideas about the Hebrew scriptures.  When I was growing up, they were called the “Old Testament” (and still are by many) and I was taught to view them as the precursor to the main story which was about Jesus.

Knowing what I know now, I really wish the disciples of Jesus would spend a year or two in a synagogue FIRST – doing Torah study, studying the Hebrew scriptures, understanding the Jewish experience – so that we could have a better and more accurate understanding of Jesus.

A good example is today’s readings. Jesus tells his followers that he has not come to abolish the law or the prophets. So unless we understand the law and the prophets, we may not have much of a clue what Jesus is talking about.

In the first reading from Deuteronomy, Moses has just received the 10 Commandments from God and is giving them to the people.  He counsels them to “not to forget the things which your own eyes have seen, nor let them slip from your memory as long as you live.”  It is important for us to remember that Moses is addressing: the generation that witnessed the escape from Egypt and survived in the desert.  They have come through something profound.

Imagine if we, collectively, after having just come through the past few years of COVID, were told to not forget what we have learned in this time and were given a set of instructions that helped us to live in a way that helped us not to forget.  Clearly it’s not the same as what the Israelites endured, but what if we, collectively, wanted to make sure that we did not go through this again. What would you want to remember from this time and what instructions would you give to future generations for them to follow?

I know that I have been biased to read the 10 Commandments as some kind of stuffy legalism, and that Jesus was like the cool uncle who comes along and says, “You don’t need to get hung up on all that stuff….”  But this just shows how I misunderstood things because that doesn’t align with his saying today that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to truly honor them.

One voice who has helped me understand readings like we have today is Ana Levy-Lyons, who is both and observant Jew and a senior minister at First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn.  She says that what we miss about the laws and decrees – that Jesus likely saw – is that, “they are not enforcers of the power structures of society; on the contrary, they are tools for resisting oppression, both external and internal.”  She goes on to say that 

“The Ten Commandments emerged out of a people’s experience of slavery….And as they regrouped in the desert after crossing the Red Sea, they had to create a new society from scratch. How should they organize their new world? What would it take to create a culture free from the kinds of oppression, violence, cruelty, and excess that characterized the world they’d left? How could they ensure that they would never again become slaves themselves, nor enslave others? The Ten Commandments were conceived/ received as an answer to these questions.”

Beyond personal practices, the commandments also guide our collective behavior. This is where their origin in a story of oppression renders them politically radical. In the Scripture text, God speaks the commandments in second person singular – to the community as a whole, as one entity responsible for keeping them. The commandment “do not steal” prohibits individual theft, but it also teaches us to build a society in which theft is not built into our economic structures. The commandment “do not kill” prohibits murder, but it also exhorts us to create systems that do not kill through poverty, racism, and the proliferation of weapons. The commandment to keep a Sabbath day requires us to ensure that our corporations pay a living wage so that everyone can afford to rest one day a week.

Imagine if we decided to build a society that did not steal from people – wages, land, health or hope.  Imagine if we decided to build a society that did not kill or require the diminishment of others for the benefit of a few.  Imagine if we decided to build a society where all were given proper rest and a chance to recharge (including the land itself).  Imagine if we decided to build a society where we honored our ancestors.  Imagine if we decided to build a society where we did not view people as objects or had acquisition as our primary goal. Imagine if – every 50 years – everyone who was in debt was set free from that debt. Imagine.

Jesus was concerned with liberation and he saw in his tradition a blueprint for just that. So, of course, he did not come to abolish it.  Naturally, laws and traditions need updating and reinterpretation based on changing times. That is exactly what Jesus tried to do – embody that tradition differently.  Our call as his followers is to do the same in our world. And we can start today.