Matthew 5:20-22a, 27-28, 33-34a, 37; Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Imagine that we’re the bunch of slaves God has rescued from Egypt. After 430 years of slavery, we’re free! From our great-grandparents down to our apos, we knew no other life except the life of a slave. The Egyptians cursed and swore at us with their gods’ names and forced us to worship them. They treated our parents like dirt. What little we had, they coveted and stole. They killed our friends and family for the slightest errors, raped our women, blamed and framed us for their crimes. And we never saw a day of rest.

But now, thanks to the Ten Commandments of the God of Moses, bawal na lahat ‘yan! We “shalt not” be forced to worship false gods anymore and be cursed in God’s name. Our parents “shalt not” be dishonored anymore. We won’t have to fear being killed, stolen from, framed. What little we have will be safe from coveting. And at last! We get to put our feet up and enjoy a day of rest! God will never allow the atrocities in Egypt to happen to us again.

That, my dear sisters and brothers, was the original intention God had for his Ten Commandments. But after the Exodus, something went terribly wrong. Rabbis piled more and more and more rules to the original Ten. They now started counting footsteps during the Sabbath; fussed over how to wash cups and dishes; listed words to not say, animals to not eat, the kind of people to avoid, etc, etc. But while the hierarchs kept busy imposing external obedience to the rules, the widows starved, the poor couldn’t afford all the religious rituals, the sick were shut out and shamed. What happened? The rabbis turned the Law into the new slave master. God’s original freeing intention vanished. What took over was compliance, mere external compliance with the many rules (I guess like many Filipinos comply with the many requirements of feng shui without really believing in Daoism). No wonder Jesus sounded like he was intensifying the commandments on killing, adultery, and false oaths. These were three commandments hierarchs were guilty of violating. Sure, they were impeccable in externally complying with them. But their hearts, their true core, were vindictive, lustful, and matapobre. Eh di para na ring slave driver sila sa Egypt noong araw.

When Jesus said, “I have come not to abolish the Law but to fulfill every letter,” he wasn’t going beast-mode Pharisee. Jesus was putting back God’s original intention: that the Law was made for people, not the other way around. To free and relieve people’s suffering, not enslave them anew. So, Jesus “fulfilling the law” was like a farmer slashing away at the tangle of weeds and thorns the hierarchs had sown along the way to God. Or like a commando demolishing all the checkpoints and guard houses barricading the way to God.

One time, I walked up to Fr. Joe Quilongquilong to ask once and for all: “Manoy, paano ba talaga mag-insenso ng altar sa misa?” Because the scholastics were arguing over things likehow many swings clockwise daw, how many counterclockwise, how high or low to swing (na para bang ‘pag nagkamali ka sa pagpapausok, baka hindi bumaba ang Holy Spirit para mag-transubstantiate)! Fr. Joe said, “Actually, dong, the sacramentary simply says, ‘the priest incenses the gifts. ‘Yun lang.” Oh, sisters and brothers, I can spend half a day just telling you the many, many additional rules piled on liturgy these past years: like rules on liturgical music, a list of words “not allowed” daw in Mass songs, dress code in church, gestures during the Our Father, when to kneel, when to get up, etc, etc in saecula saeculorum. Many people actually scruple about these minutiae, you know. As if God’s grace is solely determined by what we say, what we do, sing, gesture in worship. As if mere liturgical compliance makes the Sacrament. Sa patung-patong na regla-reglamento, para ngang natabunan na ng liturgy ang sacrament. Worse, parang natabunan na rin ang mukha ni Hesus!

Sisters and brothers, when we’re the bosses in our own circles, it’s tantalizing to impose more and more rules on people. And we often do this in the comforts of our “Temples:” up the boardroom, the suite, or up the curia, the cathedral. We often discount the burden we add especially to the already heavily laden, the powerless and penniless “downstairs.” In religion, when hierarchs pile rule upon rule for the community to obey, regardless of people’s real conditions down the altar, they make God look like the unreasonable, punishing dictator, and religion, his whip. But Jesus precisely took pains in showing and saying that God’s Law was made for people, because God is a freer and unburdener. Jesus took pains to declutter and demilitarize Judaism because it was a religion he loved! And Jesus paid dearly for it with his life.

I bumped into Nanay Daisy again last Friday. She pushes this heavy kariton of plastic-ware and karton around Katipunan. At 71 years old, she cares for her stroke-felled husband, and their special-child apo. As sole breadwinner, she earns at most 200 pesos after a whole day’s pushing, limping, & scavenging. With tsinelas paper thin, she wears a sock over her left foot. Namamanhid na raw. “Matagal po akong MBG, Pader. Pero nitong taon, pinatigil po ako, kasi hindi raw po kami kasal sa simbahan. Sayang.” “Ba’t gusto n’yo pong mag-MBG, ‘Nay?” “Pader, ‘yun po ang tunay na paglilingkod sa Diyos!” Nanay Daisy doesn’t realize that serving her family matters to God so, so much more than being an MBG ever does, ever can, ever will. Hindi niya napapansin na malinaw na malinaw ang paningin niya sa mukha ni Hesus. Hahay.

‘Di bale. When we all celebrate the Eucharist in heaven, Jesus will be the one and only priest. There, Nanay Daisy and every God-beloved poor like her will discover that they had been at the altar with Jesus all along. Hierarchs will realize that Nanay and thousands like her had always been true servants of Jesus, despite the rules they might’ve “violated.” When her Exodus is over, Nanay Daisy will laugh, or cry, or both. Because she will finally learn that so many of the hierarchs’ checkpoints and guard houses on earth had nothing to do with the wide-open path she was pushing her kariton along all this time: the path Jesus cleared away, the path straight to the heart of God.

*photo by Len Estiva