30th Sunday of Ordinary Time - Cycle A

What is the measure of a person?  From a Biblical perspective, it’s how you treat others.  In fact, the Scriptures are quite consistent on this point.  From the Mosaic Law Code in Exodus to the teachings of the prophets, to the parables of Jesus, to the teachings of Paul and the Apostles – we are constantly reminded about how a God-loving people are expected to act toward one another.  Our readings for this coming Sunday provide us the best examples of this most important teaching:

The Word for the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time:
Exodus 22:20-26
Psalm 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51
1 Thessalonians 1:5c-10
Mathew 22:34-40

We open with a reading from the book of Exodus.  When we think of the Exodus, we always remember the Ten Commandments, but we tend to forget that these Ten are just the beginning of the extensive Law code (totaling 613 commandments).  Just as with the preamble to the Constitution for the US, there’s a whole lot more that follows, providing the nuts-and-bolts (the context and applications) of how this new Covenant with God is going to work.  The Ten Commandments can be found at the very beginning of Chapter 20, but the Law Code continues all the way through Chapter 23.  And that’s just in Exodus.  The later books of the Torah continue to add and interpret the Mosaic Law.

Our passage from Exodus for this Sunday is perhaps even more important than the Ten Commandments because it establishes how the law is to be applied, and it does this through a most effective means – by reminding the Israelites that they themselves were the beneficiaries of God’s compassion.  It explains how the Israelites are expected to treat those who are most venerable:  widows, orphans, aliens (foreigners), and the poor.  To use a modern legal term, it gives definition to a “protected class” – a class that the Israelites themselves were once part of and a class deserving of the same compassion that God provided to the Israelites when he heard them “cry out” for deliverance.  Our Psalm is representative of that cry to the Lord, for through our love for him, and his love for us, we can seek his aid, singing, “I love you, Lord, my strength.”

Our second reading, which continues our study of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, also touches on the subject of how to act toward one another.  Paul’s teaching here is simple – just do what we do.  Follow our example.  The Thessalonians were concerned about what was considered proper behavior for the members of the community.  Instead of going into a lot of detail, he tells them simply to become “imitators of us and the Lord.”  Put another way, “we learn by doing.”

Our gospel from Matthew continues not long after last week’s Gospel.  The interrogation of Jesus continues, this time by the Pharisees asking, “Which commandment in the Law is greatest?”  After slamming the Sadducees along with the chief priests and elders in our previous weeks Gospels, the Pharisees and the Scribes (literally, “scholars of the Law”) pose this as a test to Jesus, not only are they testing his knowledge of the Law but depending on how he answered, hoping to trap him into a debate in an effort to discredit his teaching.  Instead, Jesus, the master of getting to the point, gives us the Two Great Commandments (what we also call the The Golden Rule).  The beauty here is how Jesus was able to summarize all of the Law Code into its core elements:  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  These building blocks not only summarize the Law but also allow us to argue the Law (in fine Jewish tradition) from a new perspective – by giving deference to the Spirit of the Law, not just the Letter of the Law.  And reminding us that our “neighbor” includes everyone else other than ourselves, including those in that “protected class” from Exodus.  

Final Thoughts:
The issue of immigration has been a hot button topic for many years now, becoming even more muddled with by entrenched hard-lined positions on all sides.  And yet, many of these people, both on the right and the left of the political spectrum seem to have trouble understanding the church’s position on this issue.  The fact that the church shows such staunch support for immigrants and immigration is not new.  In fact, it is clear biblical teaching, from, quite literally, the beginning to the end of the Bible.  This line that opens our first reading this week says it all:  

Thus says the LORD:  
"You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.”

For those of us who are US citizens, we only need change the name of the country from Egypt to the Americas to better understand why the church teaches and preaches what she does on the issue of immigrants and immigration.  The bottom line is that if we are citizens of this nation, it’s because one of our ancestors, however close or far removed, made that journey to this country.  They were the aliens, and while many families have tales about how difficult that journey and transition was, many more have forgotten those stories.  Forgotten their roots.  Forgotten that they were once aliens in the land.  So when it comes to this issue, we need to remember what Jesus commanded us:  "...to love your neighbor as yourself."