Jesus will not bring a new kind of teaching, abolishing the Law, but to fulfil it.
He sees himself as the legitimate interpreter of God’s will as contained in the
Torah. Jesus speaks of the Torah as the promise of God, the promise of love
and salvation, not only of the ‘Law’. It is no dry legalism that he sees there,
but freedom and ‘ahwa’, which means ‘love.’ For the Jewish people love and
commandment are not opposites, but they see the Torah as given in love
and obeyed in love. The fathers of the Talmud saw themselves constantly
called to re-interpret the Torah to obtain its life-giving meaning. Also, the
Hebrew word which the Evangelist translates with ‘fulfil’ would not mean ‘to
dissolve or abolish’, but rather ‘to hold on to’, to ‘make valid’. Jesus tells his
disciples to be more righteous than the teachers of the Law, to be more
radical fulfillers of the Law in loving of their neighbour, to abolish all hostility
between men, to ‘Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight’ (Dt 6.18).Lev
19.18 tells us to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, and it is not an Imperative,
but a Future tense: you will love. This, in the interpretation of the Jewish
listener to Jesus’ teaching, is the core of the teaching on the Mount.
In between the introduction and this
passage about the ‘Fulfilment of the Law’
we find a series of sentences which are
called the ‘beatitudes’ because they are
introduced with the word ‘Blessed’. Jesus
fulfils with these a personal commitment to
encourage, which comes from his firm
belief in God’s promise to His people: ‘Say
to those with fearful hearts: Be strong, do
not fear your God will come’ (Isaiah
35,3)To give hope of power to the weak is important for the programme of
action to bring about the Kingdom of God. They are a happy message, not
meant only for the afterlife, but to say that for God it is not impossible to turn
around situations which look impossible to men. With the word ‘Blessed’ the
Psalms begin, and all of the beatitudes are familiar to those partaking in the
daily liturgy of the synagogue: Like ‘Blessed are those who mourn’ would be
reminiscent of Ps 34,18 ‘The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves
those who are crushed in spirit’, or ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit
the earth’ echoes
Ps 37, 11 ‘the meek will inherit the land’. They will be comforted, satisfied,
become ‘Sons of God’ and actively working for his Kingdom. It is clear that the
tears of the poor have not yet been wiped away. But the true peace between
people will come and violence replaced by love, because all will learn what is
necessary for God’s peace.
It is clear that Shalom, the peace of God, needs to be worked on by human
helpers: ‘Blessed are the peace-makers, for they will be called sons of God’ In
the liturgy of the synagogue one of the synonyms for God is ‘peace-maker’
Disciples are called to work actively to dissolve conflict situations, to patiently
work with love and renunciation of force or what seems to be their rights, to
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