7th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A
LEVITICUS 19:1-2, 17-18
The Lord said to Moses:
Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them:
Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.
You shall not hate your brother in your heart.
You shall reason with your neighbor, lest you bear sin because of him.
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people,
but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
I am the Lord.
“The Lord said to Moses.” A very important part of the Pentateuch (The Law) consists of the laws of Israel, of all kinds: hygienic, cultic, civil, penal… all of them gathered under the same qualification of gravity: all are important because all are God’s command, and therefore they are the part of the Covenant that the people must fulfill so that God may maintain His protection.
The Book of Leviticus is practically dedicated to the laws, and parts of it may be very ancient. The fragment we read today is part of the so-called “Holiness Code” because it bases the obligation to fulfill the Laws on “because I am Holy,” a motivation that applies to any precept, from “you shall love your neighbor” to “you shall not yoke together an ox and a donkey.”
In any case, the differentiation made between “the near ones,” relatives, Israelites, is striking. They are not laws applicable to foreigners… Probably their final redaction was done after the exile.
1 CORINTHIANS 3:16-23
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.
Let no one deceive himself. If any one of you thinks that he is wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”
So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours: Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present, the future.
All are yours; and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.
Several teachings of little connection are developed.
The first phrase gathers the same doctrine expounded in Leviticus: the holiness of the human being by his relationship with God. Jesus will have gone (had gone) further: the temple of stones is not the holy place: the holy place is the children, the heart of the human being.
The second connects with the teachings we have read on previous Sundays: the wisdom of Jesus has nothing to do with the wisdom of the world, nor does anyone have the right to boast of it, for they are a gift of the Spirit.
The last paragraph shows Paul’s mentality: everything, even the apostles or the prophets, are gifts of God for the community, the recipient of grace.
Although it is not its direct meaning, we appreciate, here as in all the NT, that the community is the protagonist of everything, and all the “positions” (which are not) are understood only for it, as a charisma of service.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.