As lunch ended one September day, my sixth-grade students lined up to return to our classroom. Mr. Hart, our principal, stopped me in the hall. Thinking that we would only talk a couple of minutes, I sent the class back up to our room. Actually, the conversation lasted about fifteen minutes. As we finished, I dreaded going back upstairs. I expected there would be chaos and who-knows-what that would require correction.
But there was no great noise on the stairwell as I climbed to the second floor. Then…did I hear singing? I did! When I opened the door, the students were sitting cross-legged on top of their desks—singing. I was amazed! I was thrilled! I went in, they finished the song, and we went to work as usual.
Moses and the Israelites
Moses was not so fortunate when he came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments the second time. He had gone up to the top of Mt. Sinai to meet with God. He came down with the Ten Commandments and spoke them to the people. But God had more to tell him—more rules for living God’s way. These rules take up chapters 21 through 31 of Exodus. It took a long time for God to tell Moses all of that, and the people grew restless. They said to Aaron: “Make us a god to be our leader; as for the man Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.”
And so Aaron, seeing the will of the people, had them take off their golden jewelry (which could have helped them get safe passage back to Canaan) to make a golden calf. He made them a god they could trust, a god who did not keep them waiting or tell them to do things they found difficult.
The people had heard the words of the first commandment:
“I, the LORD, am your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.
You shall not have other gods besides me.
You shall not carve idols for yourselves
in the shape of anything in the sky above
or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth;
you shall not bow down before them or worship them.
The people had seen the Red Sea parted. They had witnessed all the plagues of Egypt. They had seen the power of God and said to Moses, “You speak to us and we shall listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we shall die.” (Ex 20:19) How could they turn from God so quickly?
Patience, People
The answer lies in human nature’s inherent desire to have its own way, to see “a” good or god and think it is “the” Good or God, to think it knows more than it knows. That is, the answer lies in inherent human sinfulness.
When God tried a new way, in Jesus, he used a different approach: Jesus came—totally human like us—yet also totally God. We were given God-in-the-flesh to be our leader. Perhaps that is why Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed or yeast in dough.” Not only is Jesus our leader and like us, he sows the seeds of God’s way in our hearts and lets them work, like yeast in dough, to change us—to make us grow to learn to live God’s way, like a seed sown in a field.
Slowly. Day by day. Not a law that was written separate from us on stone, but law that was written through Jesus’ Sacred Heart into our hearts, a law we can learn step by step.
The Fundamental Option
You might see the term “Fundamental Option” in discussions of moral teaching and wonder what it means. In paragraphs 65 through 70 of his encyclical, The Splendor of Truth (Veritatis Splendor), St. Pope John Paul II explains fundamental option–what it is and what it is not.
Fundamental Option is a core, life-changing decision to follow God’s way—or not. In the story of the people of Israel it is “I am the Lord, your God. You shall have no other gods before me.” In the Gospel it is Peter saying, “You are the Christ.” And Jesus then saying, “Follow me.”
By making this core, life-changing decision, all other decisions in life are moved in a God direction. Perhaps a more accurate description of this radical choice would be “foundational option.” Human freedom chooses God. Then, from that foundation, God-now-chosen grows like mustard seed or yeast in dough to take over one’s life. Choosing God is then choosing to do things God’s way—the rest of the Ten Commandments as fully developed for us in the Sermon on the Mount and the moral teachings of the Church in Part 3 of the catechism.
Fundamental Option does not mean just having a general intention with one’s life to love and serve God in the way we think is good. By definition, a Fundamental Option means submission to the One chosen—to God. If we keep our standards of right and wrong, good and evil, we may be claiming to follow God, but, really, we remain following ourselves.
We, like the Israelites, “make us a god” and dance before it. We make us a god that won’t bother us with rules and expectations that ask of us what we don’t want to do. We make us a god that is present on demand to serve our wishes. That is a god less than human–no god at all.
Fundamental Option is a beginning decision, but it is then followed by day-to-day decisions that match what God prescribes for us. St. Pope John Paul distinguishes between positive and negative prescriptions. Negative prescriptions give us the outside parameters—“You shall,” “You shall not.” The choices we make in the areas of the Ten Commandments must match their negative prohibitions. We cannot steal. We cannot kill. We cannot commit adultery. By choosing God, we have chosen God’s parameters.
As St. Pope John Paul II says, “Once the moral species of an action prohibited by a universal rule is concretely recognized, the only morally good act is that of obeying the moral law and of refraining from the action which it forbids. (Veritatis Splendor, paragraph 67)
Positive prescriptions enable the mustard seeds and yeast within us to form us to be like Jesus. They grow us to love like God loves. We serve others, even at a cost to ourselves. We forgive. We seek justice. We practice mercy. We stay both engaged and solid in faith, when we encounter those who follow “The Way” differently or not at all. Sometimes it is messy, but the positive prescriptions form measuring sticks. They help us go beyond the commandments to discipleship, to following Jesus in both Spirit and Truth.
We, too, can choose to do something we know is right and avoid what we know is wrong. We can sit on the tops of our moral desks and sing when the teacher is out of the room. Having chosen to belong to God, we can follow Him–because we know what to do.
Prayer:
Thank You, Lord, for giving us the human freedom to choose. Thank You for making us Sons and Daughters, not slaves. Thank You for giving us moral rules—that are for our own good. Thank You for giving us conscience to prick and church to teach. Thank You for giving us Yourself, to show us a human example of how to do it all. Thank You for confession and forgiveness for when we miss the mark and need Your mercy as we muster up the courage to keep on keepin’ on following You.
