Reflection - Measures

By Steve Hall

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/030522.cfm. 
Isaiah 58:9-14 
Luke 5:27-32 

It would probably be a mistake to assume that the Church gives us this passage from Luke to remind us of the imminent arrival of April 15th. Nevertheless, taxes and tax collection are notable features of today’s gospel reading; and, consequently, the person of Matthew (otherwise known as Levi) presented in the TV series “The Chosen” immediately comes to mind.

Now, I find the Matthew from “The Chosen” to be a fascinating character. Young, intelligent, hardworking, curious, neat, well-dressed and somewhat meek. Yet, his persona is not one that fits my image of the classical-age tax collector. Granted, most of the other disciples in the series find him repulsive even as he clings to his position that “if I didn’t do it someone else would.” But that was only part of the picture. 

In those days taxes were not determined by a fixed percentage of one’s income, but rather by how much the tax collector could squeeze out of you. The Roman state levied taxes on sales, property, imports and a wide variety of other things. The arrangement with the tax collectors was that they would collect the imperial specified amount within a given area and could keep everything collected over that. 

You might consider it along the lines of collecting whatever the territory will bear and you (the tax collector) can get away with. That is why John the Baptist would advise the tax collectors: “Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, ‘Teacher, what shall we do?’ And he said to them, ‘Collect no more than is appointed you.’" (Luke 3:12-13) It seems doubtful that such a job would be given to the meek. In any case it was considered a serious sin against God’s people. Both Jewish people and Jewish authorities numbered the tax collector with the worst of sinners.

So we come to the issue for today: How does God feel about sin? Or to express it in a clearer way: What is the God/sin/me relationship?

The reading from Isaiah assures us that certain actions are repulsive to God. He tells us this in a positive way by emphasizing what will occur if we avoid those ‘sinful’ things. In doing so he also reiterates the long-standing dictums of the Mosaic Law. Even today those directives are useful in telling us where we spiritually stand.

The psalmist takes a different tack.

“For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” 
(Psalm 103:11-12)

Now it is worth noting that this is not the action of a parent who puts the candy on a higher shelf in the cupboard, out of the child’s reach. Rather, it is the action of a love so powerful that it literally separates us from our transgressions. It emphasizes the expanse of God’s forgiveness and the degree to which he sees the essential goodness of his creation.

So often we would spiritually measure our lives by the length of our list of sins. We look at our oppressive actions, our false or ignorant accusations, our malicious speech, our failures to feed the hungry and assist the afflicted — we look at these and so many other things which not only block our vision of God but simultaneously create a barrier between Him and us. The length and breadth of the list become our tool for spiritual measurement. But what happens if we change our perspective? Because of our repentance He has already moved our transgressions as far from us as the east is from the west. Faster than we can erect them is his willingness to remove them. So, what is left if only the shadows of those transgressions remain?

The presence of and the repetitiveness of our sin tells us, not how bad we are but only how distant we are from knowing him and living with him. But focusing on our sin is always a matter of looking at that emptiness between east and west. Focusing on growing closer to our Lord, on the other hand, is always the issue of: ‘What more can I do?’ ‘What more can I be?’

The love we know and attempt to express in this physical existence is but a guideline, a suggestion, an intimation of what is offered to us for the rest of our eternity. It need not exceed our grasp.