Time for a Reality Check?As our Lenten proceeds, our liturgy poses the question “How are we are doing on this journey to the Easter mysteries? What’s really going on in our relationships with God and with others?” The Book of Exodus relates the journey of the Israelites from slavery to freedom, from the desert to the promise land. A central event of that journey was the giving of the Ten Commandments. Though we often look at those as laws, prescriptions, or rules, they are, if nothing else, a reality check on the Covenant – a reality check on our relationship with God. The very identity of the chosen people, and indeed our own baptismal identity, flows from the Covenant that God established with them and us. In The Place You Are Standing is Holy: A Jewish Theology of Human Relationships, Rabbi Gershon Winkler uses the Covenant to describe the creation story:God created the universe by a process dubbed tzimtzum,which in Hebrew means a sort of stepping back to allow for there to be an other, an else, as in something else or someone else…a space in which to be as humanly divine as possible, and as divine as humanly possible.This tzimtzum describes the covenant relationship God has with all of creation, including humanity: a divine dance, if you will, in which God steps back and allows us to be who we are, and yet is always present.
The Ten Commandments ask “How are we doing in that relationship with God?” A relationship that is measured by the Shema, the law of love, which reads in part:Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.The Gospel addresses this same issue of Covenant from a liturgical or ritual point of view. The story of the money lenders in the temple relates the problem Jesus repeatedly saw in ritual action that misses the reason for celebrating. For many in Jesus’ day the prescriptions of the ritual practice overshadowed the purpose for the ritual: celebrating the Covenant, which included not only our relationship with God but also relationships with others, especially the poor, the sick, the widow, the orphan, the marginalized. How often did Jesus plead for humble and contrite hearts instead of holocausts and sin offerings. How often did Jesus identify those who are compassionate as being most like his Father? How often did Jesus teach that reconciliation of relationships was the first act of worship? The temple was a place for an encounter with God; it was the place for entering, in Winkler’s image, “the dance of the Covenant.” Jesus was demanding a return of his father’s house as a house of prayer – a place where covenant relationships could be celebrated. Our Eucharistic celebration is a response to the Covenant -- the unconditional love God has poured forth on all of creation and especially on the human family through Christ's death and resurrection. Our celebration gives testimony to God’s love by our loving one another and all people without conditions, without limits. Our challenge at this liturgy is to understand how the covenant operates in our lives: how God is always present even when we are not all we are called to be. How God allows us to be who we are – but is always present. The Gospel asks: “Is your worship more about ritual prescriptions or is it about your relationship with God and with all of God’s creation? We sometimes need a reality check!If we are to live up to the Covenant we must stay in the dance – we must understand what it takes to be as humanly divine as possible and as divine as humanly possible. Just as our brothers and sisters preparing for the Easter sacraments, so too we look at our lives to take stock of the progress we have made in our journey of faith. We challenge ourselves and one another to live the commandments daily in the light to the Shema: love of God and love of neighbor. Especially where we come to worship, we have to ask ourselves if what we do in our liturgical celebration means anything “out there” in the world in which we live, work, and play. Or are we just fulfilling a ritual prescription? Both the law of love and our worship are about the Covenant. If they’re not it’s time for a reality check!