Yes! Or No!

There is a “Peanuts” comic strip in which Little Linus, looking very forlorn, asks Lucy, “Why are you always so anxious to criticize me?” Lucy, looking very self-righteous, replies, “I just think I have a knack for seeing other people’s faults.” Linus becomes indignant. “What about your own faults?” he asks. Lucy replies, “I have a knack for overlooking them.”

Reading the Gospels, we discover that the Pharisees were always extremely anxious to criticize Jesus. The Pharisees were a Jewish sect noted for strict observance of the rites and ceremonies and traditions arising out of the religious law. And Jesus arrived on the scene when law as law was becoming more and more an object of reverence — even worship. In this regard, if we think of Moses as seeking to bring the idolatry of a golden calf to an end, we might think of Jesus as seeking to bring idolatry of the law to an end.

Jesus looked beyond the letter of…