As a parent, one of the things that I hated the most was when my kids played lawyer. Do you know what I am talking about? It was when they tried to use the finer points of the law to argue a situation.
Did you touch your sister? Noooooo , I didn’t touch her. What do you mean that you didn’t touch her, I just saw you touch her. Nooooooo, I didn’t touch her my glove touched her.
See what I mean? That would drive me crazy.
This is not limited to my children. No doubt you ran into it as well. “I didn’t touch her”, “I’m not looking at her” , “I’m not breathing on her”. The legal arguments would go on forever.
But, to be honest, it didn’t stop when they grew up … it didn’t stop when we grew up. Whenever I talk about the sacrament of reconciliation with someone, and we would discuss our examination of conscience we would immediately default to our playing lawyer.
The commandment says though shalt not kill, and I can tell you that I have not done any of that lately. And that one about stealing stuff, nope, haven’t done any of that either. At least not lately.
The problem with lawyering is that we miss the point. Great, your hand didn’t touch your sister, that was not the point. Great you did not actually kill anybody but that may not have been the point.
The point was to show respect for your sister. The point was to love the life of your neighbor and do not diminish that life in any way. Killing someone’s spirit, or reputation or self-worth should be considers as offensive as actually taking someone’s life.
In today’s gospel it begins with, “I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.”
This sounds a little bit like lawyering to me. We are not trying to kill you because of what you have done for us but for the things that you said.
One of the things that always amazes me about the Holy Scriptures is its ability to speak in generalities and to the specifics of my heart. In this Gospel if I take out the references to “the Jews” and replace it with references to myself it takes on a totally different meaning. One that I personal and speaks to personally to this week before Holy week.
Think of the times that we have been tempted to pick up rocks to hurl at our faith, our community or Lord. The times when our faith was inconvenient, when it got in the way, the time that it asked just too much.
In those times, what if we heard Jesus saying, “ “I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?” In those instances would we say, its not the good works it’s the inconvenience, it’s the bother, it’s the fact that it just doesn’t fit with where I am right now.
What would really hurt would be for me to hear Him, from the cross, say I’m sorry that these things are too difficult.
“If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
JN 10:31-42
The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
The Jews answered him,
“We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.
You, a man, are making yourself God.”
Jesus answered them,
“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods”‘?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came,
and Scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Then they tried again to arrest him;
but he escaped from their power.
He went back across the Jordan
to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said,
“John performed no sign,
but everything John said about this man was true.”
And many there began to believe in him.
March 31, 2023
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