“I just couldn’t help myself.” “Well, I really didn’t mean it.” “Yes, but there were extenuating circumstances.” “It’s not my fault; the devil made me do it.” Have you ever heard those phrases before? Maybe you have said them.

Well, take those sentences and compare them to the first words of today’s first reading: “If you choose, you can keep the commandments.” The psalm continues: “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord.” And Paul reminds us: “We speak a wisdom to those who are mature, not a wisdom of this age.”
Jesus himself says: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

Written for Jews, Matthew is showing that Jesus, in referring to the law of Moses, fulfills what Moses taught. Jesus does not destroy the teaching of Moses and the prophets any more than adulthood destroys childhood. One completes and complements the other.

The immature and mature analogy may strike home to some of us. The immature seeks only to do the minimum. What do I have to do to pass? What hoops do I have to jump through? How can I avoid a particular tough course and still graduate? How do I make myself look busy so that I can impress the boss?

The mature person avoids those questions, dismisses the easy way, sees the job and its tasks as a pathway to help him mature and grow and achieve greatness.

When Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel, he insists that his followers must observe the law, the prescriptions of the law, all 600-plus prescriptions. However, the law only points the way to something greater. He gives several examples.

Let’s look a little closer at just one of the sins. What does Jesus say about anger? Much of our culture infested itself with disagreement, argument and anger? Turn on cable television, and it’s a veritable shout-fest of accusations and attacks. Turning on the computer doesn’t provide anything better. Especially now, when we have powerful weapons literally at our fingertips – through chat rooms and social media and blogs – the world is constantly screaming at itself. Very often, so many work to make matters worse. We can say whatever we want about someone or some situation, and oftentimes, we can hurt others and still maintain anonymity. Expressing anger in these fora not only hurts ourselves and others, it also forces us to maintain our immaturity.

But Jesus tells us: what we are doing is not only uncharitable, not only sinful, but it is, in fact, a kind of murder. When we harbor hate, and fuel anger, we kill. We kill charity. We kill community. We kill love. We kill the Gospel. And Christ’s message, then and now, seeks to give Gospel life. To make it come alive, in ourselves, and in others.

So, our theme is really two-fold. First, we must go beyond the minimum requirements of religious practice. Secondly, we have the power to choose to do the right and correct the wrong. In our current era, freedom of choice has come to mean to do whatever I want. However, freedom of choice really means that no one is forcing us to do what is right. We have to choose what is good, right and holy.

With Jesus at our side, let’s make sure that we are always at his side!