Scripture Texts: Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; Matthew 5:38-48
by Frank J. Hernando
Meditation for Filipino community at Zion Methodist Church
Seoul, Korea
23 February 2014
Reflection Points
1. The immediate past week was predominated with news that were emotionally stirring like the reunion of separated Korean families in the DPRK’s Keumgangsan Resort, where tears flowed out when separated family members have the chance to see each other face to face and expressed their love and hopes for each other. There was the frustrating news that Kim Yuna got second place instead of first place in the figure skating event at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Many Koreans expressed their disgust on the unfair judging of the competition. Also there was the political conflict in the city of Kiev in Ukraine where many protesters were killed by the state security forces. These news characterize the world in which we live and in a sense we find ourselves connected to these events. If you are not then perhaps you have been immersed into your personal concerns or trying to figure out how to resolve difficulties you’ve been facing during the week or lingering psychological disturbances that bother you.
2. Holy (banal, Tag., balaan, Vis-Hil.) or holiness (kabanalan, Tag., pagkabalaan, Vis-Hil.) has been a character of God, the unseen One who is sovereign (makapangyarihan, Tag.), meaning able to do what God wants to do and behaviourally contrasted to the mundane or human, and sometimes the profane. As a maturing person in my teenage years, I understood holiness as a psychological state of mind that prevents me from doing something that will displease God or those who have the authority over me like my parents. I might be right with my initial religious perception of holiness, the Levitical instructions in our text today as I understand them present a different view of holiness. The collection of Levitical instructions reminds the Hebrew people that God’s holiness is actually protecting the rights of their neighbors. While we think of these instructions as religious duty, these are almost the same with the Asian and Filipino social customs and traditions of community life. The list of instructions are practical ways in living out holiness.
1. Leaving a portion of the harvest of the field to those who may need food--concern and compassion for poor and hungry. (Lev. 19: 9-10)
2. Promote empathy and solidarity with your neighbors (not stealing, no deception, not lying; 19:11)
3. Be responsible for your actions (19:12).
4. Deal honestly and protect the rights and welfare of workers (19:13)
5. Be accountable to your neighbor, love them as you would to yourself (19:16-18)
These instructions point to the holiness of God which is beyond the religious piety that most of us think are better than practical justice operationalized in social relations and strengthens community solidarity rather than thinking and acting as if some are better of that others or are more spiritually gifted than others (holier than thou). James K. Mead says that “God's holiness requires us to live justly and truthfully in relation to others. Strengthening this theological motivation is the phrase, "love your neighbor as yourself." At the deepest level, loving others flows from the recognition that they are "like us," that they bear the image of God with us.”
3. Jesus did not desist in teaching the religious instructions from Leviticus and Deuteronomy in the Old Testament, but he interpreted them in the light of his own social context. Jesus was not just another rabbi of his time who just follow the instructions to the letter or literal interpretation, rather he affirms these instructions as prerequisite both in religious and social relations and means toward acceptance and solidarity within the community of the Jews. The historical circumstances in which Jesus lived and did his ministry presented to him the religious malaise (sakit sa gawaing relihyoso) in which the Jewish authorities have concentrated in teaching rigid religious laws that alienated those at the bottom of the social structure. Jesus taught the levitical laws in the perspective of the reign of God as contrasted to the reign of self-righteousness, greed and violence. The points in Jesus’ instructions are:
1. Mat. 5: 38-39, Inflicting violence should be stopped, or put in control because violence is rooted in humanity’s instinctive response to survive and defence of life. The task of a disciple is to overcome the culture of violence and emphasize empathy, compassion and deeper relationships with neighbors and challenge people to leave the kingdom of violence, self-righteousness and greed and move into the kingdom of love and compassion.
2. Mat. 5: 40-42, Be generous and magnanimous with those in need. In the reign of greed and violence people think and behave in a manner that devalue human life and demean those that belong to the lower classes of society. Jesus instructs the disciples that those who want to live in the reign of God must actualize generosity and open mindedness.
3. Mat. 5: 43-47, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The enemy mentioned here are considered those who live within the boundary of the reign of greed, violence and self-righteousness. When they unleash their violence, the disciples can be harmed and or prosecuted in the courts and even crucified or killed. Loving one’s enemies means living in the reign of love, compassion, solidarity and peace and making it possible for your enemies to leave behind the reign of greed, violence and self-righteousness so they as well life in the new reality.
4. Finally, I would to share with you the thoughts of Richard Rohr on the last verses of Matthew chapter 5 that stressed the practical aspect of Jesus’ teachings:
If you greet only your brother, what’s so great about that? The ultimately alienating process is that if we stay inside our religious/ethnic group, wars and racism continue. That’s just staying inside a kind of magnified self-love. The key is always to love the stranger at the gate. Love the one outside of your comfort zone, the outsider, the other. Until you can enter into the outsider and the other, Jesus says, you really have not loved at all. What’s his motivation for doing this? The all-inclusiveness of God.
What Jesus suggests is a kind of imitatio Deo, an imitation of God. If that’s who God is and that’s the way God loves, then that’s how we want to love. God rubs off on people who hang around God. If God “sets no bounds,” then we have to stop keeping score and weighing worthiness.
The final imperative is … most demanding commandment is going to ask a great deal of us — boundlessness and magnanimity.
Let the reign of agapaeic or unconditional love, compassion, generosity and open mindedness that comes from our Lord Jesus Christ grow and bear fruit in our lives. Amen.
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