The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

If only you would heed the voice of the LORD, your God

A scholar of the law stood up to test Jesus. He asked him, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?"

What was Jesus’ answer? “What is written in the law.”

Not the answer we’d expect! How do you inherit eternal life? You must take a long journey across many lands and fight off many enemies until you find a crescent valley hidden in a desert, inside of which is an ancient castle, and then you have to avoid deadly circular saws and collapsing floors and cross a great canyon to find a secret room guarded by a knight, and finally then you must choose wisely among many other cups that will kill you to pick the one true holy grail that gives eternal life.

It sounds like a pretty awesome movie. Which it is.

But that’s not what Jesus tell us to do. How do you inherit eternal life? The most important question of all time? And the answer is: what is written in the law.

The scholar doesn’t even ask, written where? He knows that when it comes to the Law there is only one answer: the Law given by God to Israel.

We live in an age that thinks little of the law (except perhaps for our own advantage; but oftentimes, the law is seen as arbitrary authority, dispensed when inconvenient, even an imposition on my freedom).

But Scripture says something very different.

“How I love your law, Lord! Teach me your statutes. I will ponder your precepts and consider your paths. Open my eyes to see clearly the wonders of your law. Lead me in the path of your commandments, for that is my delight.”

The Law, we learn from Scripture, is not an arbitrary imposition, but the guidance of God’s wisdom. It is not a restriction on our freedom; rather, it makes us free by directing us toward what truly fulfills us.

What is the Law? It is not primarily a set of rules: but as Moses repeats again and again in his final words to the people of Israel, recorded in Deuteronomy, it is the difference between life and death, a blessing or a curse.

The Law is God’s ordering of the universe. It is his invitation to follow and cooperate in God’s direction and plan. That direction, that plan, that order is not arbitrary: the good, beautiful God does not do anything arbitrarily.

God does everything, makes everything, guides everything, according to his beautiful Wisdom. That order is a reflection of God’s own very life. So the Law is not just a set of rules, but the refulgence, the shining out of the image of the invisible God, the manifestation of his Word.

The Law is not primarily a set of precepts: rather, it is the first incarnate manifestation of the Word, of God’s Wisdom, God who speaks to us as his children, not his slaves, inviting us to trust his plan and share in it.

What is the principle of the Law? The Son knows that everything he has is a gift from the Father. He receives that gift in gratitude and trust, offering everything to the Father in return as an oblation of love. Not my will, but yours be done.

The Son, made incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary, who was crucified and died for us, who rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the Father, who will return to complete his victory and subject all things to the Father so that he might be all in all—this Jesus is the beginning of the new creation, the firstborn of the dead, through whom all things are reconciled. Not the peace the world gives, a shallow, illusory peace, but the true peace of the Holy Spirit, the tranquility of all things sharing in that beautiful, perfect Law, the life of the incarnate Son.

What is the perfect summary of the Law given by God to Israel? The scholar of the Law answers wisely: to love the Lord God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.

But Jesus doesn’t just affirm how that answer is correct: he is the incarnate principle and perfect fulfillment of it. He carries it out. And not just in himself. He is that answer’s principle and fulfillment through with and in us.

That brings us to why we are here. Christ the Son, the Firstborn of the New Creation, the Head and Bridegroom, the Word and Image of the Father, he has sent me as your pastor to join you in this great work you have been given by him, his mission entrusted to you.

What is that mission? Sometimes we call the whole thing evangelization: but that’s only the beginning. Yes, the Kingdom of God is at hand, Christ is Risen and Ascended to the Father, He is returning.

Yes, if you believe in Him and follow him and keep his commandments and eat his Body and drink his Blood you will have eternal life.

But what is eternal life? It is not just more of this life, plagued by injustice and suffering and loss. It is an achievement, an accomplishment—something new, renewed, redeemed. It is our sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ, filling up what is not yet complete in that victory, Christ the New Adam and New Israel brought to full stature, the subjection and recapitulation of all things in Him.

But because that’s pretty esoteric and mystical, Jesus gives us a parable to understand better what that means.

The Good Samaritan gives his life for the life of a stranger. He gives everything he has to save him. He does so because he knows how he has been loved, and so also knows how he must respond in kind: not to hold onto love but to give it, to share it, as God has given and shared it with him.

To restore what is lost, to heal what is broken, to redeem what is spent.

Our sharing in that mission happens by our sharing in the love of Christ: not just by sympathy or understanding, but by action.

First by our sharing in the Eucharist, together celebrating and offering that sacrifice of Christ to the Father, renewed on the altar at every Mass, that sacrifice we receive as our sustenance, a foretaste of the final victory; and then our living out that Eucharist by offering our lives for our brothers and sisters here, those with whom we now share that bond of Christ, and those to whom we must bring Christ so that they may become one with us in him.

Christ is the pastor. I am only his vicar. He is the principle, through whom and for whom we are here as his Church. This is his church, because we are his. We give as he has given to us; we do what he is asking us to do.

This command, this mission that he enjoins on us is not too mysterious and remote. It is not up in the sky or across the sea. No, it is something very near to us, already in our mouths and in our hearts in this Holy Eucharist; we have only to carry it out.