Homily for 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time
As the confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders deepened, it became apparent that Jesus had a different understanding of religious practice to that of his contemporaries. The Jewish leaders had great reverence for the Law. For them it was the way to honour God. Obedience to the Law was the absolute test of fidelity; hence the insistence on the Sabbath rest. For Jesus, the process of perfecting the Law was to have it consider human needs; the Law had to take into consideration human needs. Meeting these needs deeper way of fulfilling the Law.
Every Jew worth his salt knew that the Law was summed up in the two Commandments - firstly, Love the Lord Your God and, secondly, Love your neighbour. What Christ did was to link the two; to show that they were intrinsically connected. So much so that St. John writing on this subject later on stated that either one could not exist without the other -"[1 John 4:20] Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen".
In fact, three elements come into play in the teachings of Jesus on love: The love of God, the love of neighbour and the love of self. He makes the point explicitly: "You must love your neighbour as yourself." Traditional Catholic teaching has been ambiguous on 'self-love'. It often confused self-love with selfishness or egotism. Instead, humility was advocated, a humility that often bordered on self-hatred and self-loathing. But if we hate the self, we will necessarily hate the world. Apparently, the most destructive characters walking this earth operate out of a deep well of self-hatred. This is but the negative opposite of the positive teachings of Jesus. It is interesting that, over the last 40 years, the teachings of Jesus have found universal support among psychologists: "Unless we love ourselves first, we will find it impossible to love anyone else, including God himself." We would be more comfortable today with a concept such as 'self-esteem' rather than self-love. Unless we start from the solid basis of self-worth, the worth of other people and the worth of the world will escape us. And the other side of the coin is this: anything that undermines the self-esteem and the self-worth of another human being is sinful and wrong.
Religious people sometimes create an opposition between God and man. But this is surely false. Prayer is sometimes viewed as a flight from the world and from sinful, contaminating humanity. But Jesus told us that the road to God is through love of neighbour. There is no other way. But the Pharisee in all of us dies all too slowly.