Last Sunday’s readings focused on the unity of the moral life, the common thread connecting the readings. Because some clergy might have been inclined to focus on the “heart,” on the intention of the moral agent, let’s take a step back and see all the readings in one big picture.

In the First Reading, from Deuteronomy, Moses enjoins the Israelites to “observe” the Lord’s Commands, without addition or subtraction, i.e., without tampering with them. James in the Second Reading insists that the moral life involves not just “hearing” but “doing” and defines pure religion as “care for orphans and widows in their affliction and “keep[ing] oneself unstained by the world.” In the Gospel, Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees because His disciples do not engage in ritual washings before meals. It affords Jesus the chance to teach that “the things that come out from within are what defile.”

A certain simplistic, indeed sloppy, presentation of the readings might try to pit the First Reading against the Gospel, as if Jesus were purely interested in the motives behind what one does. That is deceptive and dishonest. Again, let’s step back.

Catholic moral theology speaks of acts that have moral value as composed of three elements: the end of the act (finis operis), the end of the actor (finis operantis), and circumstances. For an act to be good, all three elements have to be good. (It’s kind of like a shirt: for a shirt to be clean, the sleeves, the shirt front, and the collar all have to be clean. You can’t say the shirt is “clean” if there’s a ketchup stain staring at you.)

The end of the act is what an act “says” or does, independently of the intention of the agent. Having sex with somebody to whom I am not married says something, regardless of my intention. The end of the actor, of intention, is why I did what I did: “I love her.” “I was drunk.” “I felt like it.” The circumstances often affect the gravity of the act: Having sex with somebody to whom I am not married acquires additional gravity if I or she happen to be married to somebody else.

Moses in the First Reading clearly focuses on the Commandments: These are the laws and statutes God has given. But let’s not be superficial in our reading of the text. It can’t be summed up just in “Moses said follow the Law!”

The giving of the Law (Torah), most perfectly expressed in the Ten Commandments, is not an isolated event: “Hey, Moses, can you come up here? I’ve got some stone tablets for you!” The Law is part of a bigger picture called the Exodus event, which has three components: (i) God leads the Hebrews, whom He has freely chosen, out of Egyptian slavery; (ii) He makes a covenant with them—“You will be my People, I will be Your God”—the terms of which are the Commandments; (iii) a people need a place to live, so God leads them to the Promised Land, an added benefit of the covenant.

So, it’s not God simply dropping the Commandments on Israel out of His sheer willpower or caprice. The Commandments are what it takes to be in relationship to God, because a God who is Truth cannot be one who allows lies, a God who is Faithful cannot be one who permits adultery, a God who is Life cannot avert His Justice from murder.

Moses makes these very points in the reading: “For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord GOD is to us?” We forget that the distinguishing feature of Judaism and Christianity is that God’s relationship to human beings is based on morality. The Greek or Roman or Babylonian gods were not better than men, just bigger. They ruled by strength, not moral authority. And, pace those who might object that “our relationship to God is based on love, not morality,” well, love has certain moral contours. Love is life-giving, not life-taking. It is faithful. It respects rights. It is truthful. It recognizes who is who, including who I am in relationship to God. These are moral qualities. Love is not an empty Hallmark card, full of “vibes” and “joy” but devoid of content.

When Jesus speaks about the “heart,” He is not counterposing it to the Commandments. The same Jesus who speaks about the heart also makes clear He has not come to abolish the Law (Mt 5:17) and that those who try to chip away at it are the “least” in the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 5:18-19). The Gospel does not contradict the First Reading, but complements it. It demands not just that we do the right thing but that we do it for the right reason. Empty ritualism devoid of my moral commitment is also dishonest. The solution is not to pit Commandment against motive but to recognize the unity of the moral life that joins Commandment and motive.

What Jesus is criticizing is also a chipping away at God’s Commandments by failing to recognize the moral values they protect. An example (not in the Gospel): support of parents. The idea that a grown child should care for, even support, his parents is a corollary of the Fourth Commandment. But Jewish tradition had concluded that, if one fenced off part of one’s money for Temple purposes, that earmark took precedence over the Commandment. This is what Jesus is talking about when it came to “mere human traditions.”

So, far from setting the letter and spirit of the Law in opposition to each other, Sunday’s readings emphasize the unity and coherence of the moral life. That point needs to be made because some in contemporary Christianity want to put them at loggerheads, often in order to excuse following the Commandments in the name of some secret-sauce “motive,” often blamed on but with little relation to real charity.

A thought about the Second Reading: James urges care for the widow and orphan — the quintessential examples of concern for the poor and vulnerable — but adds to remain “unstained by the world.” That latter element seems to get short shrift. The world, the flesh, and the devil remain the primary stains on the Christian life. Christianity is not just some social activist moralism. It also involves our own moral integrity, which can be threatened by power (the world), sex (the flesh), and disobedience (the devil). Again, the moral life is one and not reducible simply to activism.

One more observation about the First Reading. As Moses presents it, the Law is not something simply binding on individual Jews. It is the Law of this People. It is the glory of Israel. It is evidence before the world that “This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.” (In the Old Testament, “wisdom” is not about book-learning but about knowing how to live with others — and the first Other we should know how to live with is God). It is proof of their “justice.”

A certain religious/secular schizophrenia makes some believers think this is perfectly normal for Israel but does not apply today. Granted, the application of all of God’s Law to all of humanity is a complex affair, but there is one thread we should not lose from this text: The social order is not insulated from the Law of God. “Separation of Church and State” cannot mean there is some earthly “Promised Land” at least temporarily immune from God’s Law. This is at least what the Church means when she says natural law binds all and that societies which make “laws” contrary to the natural law simply are engaged in organized violence. The eclipse of natural law in Western thought (consider how Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy branded Clarence Thomas “extremist”– practically in the same radical camp with Aristotle! — for invoking natural law) has had a corruptive influence on that thought, unmooring it from even the most basic moral norms. This is not the orthodox Jewish or Catholic vision of society, though it underlies the Protestant Reformation and the Lockean marginalization of the sacred over the secular. (For an excellent essay that touches on this problem, see here). “God v. Caesar” does not and cannot mean Caesar has “things” that are his alone that were not first God’s. The devil’s temptation from Eden onward is that part of Paradise, part of the “Promised Land,” can be fenced off by the tenants from the Landlord (but see Mt 21:33-44 for what happens to such an attempt).

[A link to the readings is here.]