The first reading for Mass today is about the ten commandments. We all know what these are. Most of us have known about the ten commandments ever since we were little children. We may have to stop for a moment and think before we list them, but we know them. And, that’s the way that most people think of the ten commandments. A list, like they were written on the tablets of stone.
However, rather than skim over these scripture passages in the first reading for Mass, it might not hurt to look at the ten commandments in the actual context they were written. God is basically telling his people what kind of behavior that He will not tolerate. He drew a clear line, and warned those that cross this line that they will suffer the consequences for doing so. Words that most of us do not want to hear:
“For I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me down to the third and fourth generation … For the Lord will not leave unpunished the one who takes his name in vain …”
We cringe at the thought of punishment. Some Catholics block this out of their mind so much that they can not accept that God would inflict punishment on His people, because He is supposed to be a loving and forgiving God. It is also surprising how many Catholics deny the existence of hell too. They think that a loving God couldn’t possibly send people to an eternal place of punishment. In a way they are right. God doesn’t. People send themselves there by rejecting God, when they reject His commandments. They crossed the line and never went back.
It’s funny how that line can get more and more blurred in our own lives though. We push the envelope of what is right, or what is wrong. Or else we begin to tolerate unacceptable behavior in others a little at a time. We give in, a little at a time, because it is too hard to resist. It’s too hard to do the right thing. So, we take the easy way out and don’t deal with it.
If we don’t deal with sin though, if we keep brushing the dirt under the rug so to speak, it just grows larger. A major example of this was the holocaust. It began as a small violation of conscience and grew into the greatest evil the world has ever known. You may not have known that Adolph Hitler was a Catholic. He was baptized a Catholic as a baby and received the sacrament of confirmation when he was 15 years old.
However, Hitler drifted away from attending Mass and receiving the sacraments later as an adult. This was the first violation of the ten commandments that Hitler committed. He stopped going to Mass. The devil gained a foothold on him, when he violated the fourth commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, by not going to Mass. Do you see why the Catholic church teaches that it is a mortal sin to miss Mass? It not only violates the ten commandments, but it gives the devil a foothold in our lives that can easily take root and grow to the point that we can lose our salvation.
The great evil that Hitler committed was eventually stopped though, by people who had the courage to stand up to him, stating by their actions that what he was doing was wrong. They stopped the evil that had grown out of proportion in Hitler’s life, and fought against him and his followers for the common good of mankind.
That’s what Jesus did in today’s gospel too. He stood up to the people who were defacing a very holy place, His Father’s house. He didn’t tolerate it for one minute. This outrageous disrespect had slowly taken root and grown to the point that it had taken over the entire temple. The merchants had flat crossed the line and no one else seemed to mind. Everyone may have decided to just tolerate this grave disrespect of God’s house, but Jesus didn’t. He stood up to the whole lot of them, and forcibly drove them out of the temple, for the common good of God’s people.
Neither God the Father, nor His son Jesus Christ tolerates sin.
Is there anything that you are tolerating in your life right now that is morally wrong? Is there anything that you are kind of blurring the line, on what is right and what is wrong, in either yourself or others? Is there anything in your community, or even your country, that you are tolerating along with everyone else because it is easier to accept it than do something about it?
Today’s readings for Mass can be summed up in this quote:
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)
