The New Law of Jesus
by Fr. David M. Knight
Thursday, September 12, 2024
Twenty-Third Week of the Year
The Most Holy Name of Mary
Lectionary 440
1 Cor 8:1b-7, 11-13/Lk 6:27-38
To understand 1Corinthians 8:1-13 we have to include verses 8-10, which the liturgical reading omits. The more informed Christians knew that there was nothing wrong with eating meat sold in the market, even though it came from animals sacrificed to idols. They knew idols were nothing, and sacrifices to them counted for nothing. But some ate just to show how emancipated and enlightened they were, especially compared to some new converts who had not completely shaken off the devotion they once had to the false gods the idols represented. When these “weak ones” ate sacrificed meat, they were still expressing some residual faith in the gods to whom it had been sacrificed. This was a weakness in faith that could make the act of eating a sin for them. But they were led into doing this by seeing the more enlightened Christians eating, for whom it meant nothing and so was no sin at all. Paul’s response is: “If food causes another to sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother or sister to sin.”
One Baptist minister explained that this is why Baptists don’t drink: “It is not forbidden in the Bible, but drinking does so much harm to the ‘weak’ that we refrain just to counteract it.” Admirable. Some Catholics freely do the same.
This would not apply, however, to those who refrain from giving or receiving Communion lest it “shock” those who know less Church law and theology. The Bread of Life is too vital for that.
Luke 6:27-38: The New Law of Jesus is to act like God. It is to do nothing to others that we would not do to Jesus himself. To “do to others as you would have them do to you” assumes we recognize ourselves as being the divine body of Christ, and treat others as his body also, even when they sin. We show ourselves as our Father’s children, “sons and daughters of the Most High,” when we love our brothers and sisters as he does, even when they are being bad.
This is a “morality of mystery”: a standard of behavior inexplicable and unacceptable to those who do not understand the mystery of the new identity we have through grace, the “favor” of sharing in the divine life of God. Our task, as “stewards of God’s mysteries” and of “the manifold grace of God” is to live in a way that shows we are aware of the “mystery of his will,” his “plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ.” We see others now as we will see them when
all of us come to... maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. (See 1Corinthians 4:1; Peter 4:7-11; Ephesians 1:8-10; 4:13.)
We try to bring all to see all like this now; to forgive as they are forgiven in a preview of the “banquet of the Lamb.”
Initiative: Be responsible. Act according to what you know by faith.
Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry
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