Homily for Ordinary Time – 22nd Sunday Year B 2018
Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8; James 1:17-18,21-22,27; Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
Introduction
We human beings have a love-hate relationship with the Law. When the law serves us, we love it, like when your house is being robbed, you call 911 and the police officers show up and arrest the robber. But when the same police officer pulls us over for speeding or the IRS audits us, we say the law is oppressive.
Providentially, today's readings give us a balanced approach to the law, especially the law of God; they tell us to have a healthy respect for the law but also a proper discernment of when to make exceptions to the law.
Scripture and Theology
In the first reading Moses reminded the people of Israel how fortunate they were by telling them: “What great nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law which I am setting before you today?” For as we know, one mark of a great nation is that it has just laws. And when people break those laws, they are prosecuted in court and if found guilty, they are punished. In a country with rule of law all citizens are subject to the law, even presidents can be impeached, governors arrested, mayors imprisoned, and even Church leaders too punished.
That is why Moses is grateful that God has given his people clear statutes and commandments. By observing them the people will live in and take possession of the Promised Land. In addition, by not adding to the law, or subtracting from it, they will be seen by other nations as a wise and intelligent people.
Actually this our attitude to sports and games. When playing a sport like baseball or playing board games at home, we must have are rules and everybody must follow them, and no one must cheat; otherwise the game will be chaotic. In fact, one could say that we tend to follow the rules of sports and games very religiously.
But in the gospel, we heard about what is often an ugly approach to the law. The law in question there, actually more of a religious custom or tradition, required the Jews to wash their hands and their utensils before eating. And so the Pharisees accused the disciples of Jesus of not obeying this tradition. But Jesus disagreed.
Why did Jesus excuse his disciples for breaking what seems like not just a good law, but good hygiene? During my trip home a few months ago, I had food poisoning; and when we traced the culprit, we found out that it was not my sister-in-law's excellent cooking; it was my carelessness in not washing my hands.
Well, for the Jewish people, this custom of hand-washing was not about hygiene; it was about ritual purification. The Old Testament had already provided laws for ritual purifications with water needed before entering the temple or after one had become spiritually defiled. Now the Pharisees had extrapolated that law and created the custom of hand-washing at home, just like they did at the temple. It was to be a sign of washing away all the spiritual impurities that one encountered as they went about the day’s work, such as hate, infidelity, lies, jealousy, envy and many others. It was meant to be an external symbol of an inner spiritual cleansing.
Jesus chastised the Pharisees for misapplying this custom. They had taken what was originally a well-intentioned tradition, and turned it into a burden for the people. For even though his disciples might have broken the letter of this tradition, they were certainly not breaking its spirit. Hand-washing by itself, without any inner conversion of the heart, does not purify one from the impurities of “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.” These things are found in the heart. Jesus explained that it was hypocritical to pay mere lip service to the letter of the law, without actually doing the good that the law intended to achieve. Isaiah and the prophets had already riled against this hypocrisy in their time, when the people obeyed the law of offering sacrifices, but did not have in their hearts that love for God that the sacrifice represented. That is what the Pharisees were doing when they insisted on the hand-washing, while forgetting the purity that should be behind it.
And so, if Moses in the first reading taught about obedience to the law, Jesus in the gospel taught about obedience to the spirit of the law as well.
Christian Life
Apart from government laws we Christians have God’s law contained in the Ten Commandments of Moses, in the seven commandments of the Church, in Canon Law, in Liturgical Law and in the general teaching of the Church. Do we approach these laws with the attitude that Jesus has taught or in the ways of the Pharisees? Let me offer three possible approaches that depart from the teaching of Jesus.
First, a mechanical observance of the law is interested only in the letter and not the spirit of the law and therefore fails to achieve the good of the law.
A story is told about a religious guru and his cat. When the guru sat down to pray each evening, the cat would get in the way, as cats often do, and distract the worshipers. So he ordered that the cat be tied to a chair during worship.
After the guru died the cat continued to be tied during evening worship. And when the cat died, another cat was bought for the temple so that it could be duly tied during evening worship.
Centuries later, books were written by the guru’s disciples on the religious and liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed.
That is why we, who are law-abiding, must not like the guru's disciples, just obey laws without attempting to know their meaning. We must make the effort to know, not just what God’s law wants us to do, but also why he wants us to do it that way. If we know the spirit of the law we shall fulfill the law even better, for we shall bring about the good God wants. Do we take the trouble, for example, to understand why we do certain things in the Church? Why do we not eat meat on Fridays? Why do we genuflect or bow in the Church? Why do we come to Mass on Sunday?
A second pitfall to avoid is a hypocritical observance of the law. We are hypocrites when in observing the letter of the law we at the same time break the spirit of the law. This can happen, for example, when we go to Mass and therefore fulfill our Sunday obligation, but are unkind to each other right after in the parking lot. Attending Sunday Mass is not just about fulfilling an obligation; it is celebrating the sacrifice of the Lord on the cross and then going out to live it in our daily lives, even in things as small as giving our right of way to another car.
A retired police officer that I know tells the story of when as a young officer back in the seventies, he pulled over a car that was speeding through this small town. But on approaching the car, he realized that in the back seat was the driver's pregnant wife whose water had broken. He was rushing her to the hospital.
What did he do? Did he write the driver a ticket for speeding? No. Instead the police officer went back onto his police car, turned on the sirens and lights, and gave the driver a police escort all the way to the hospital.
A third obstacle to avoid is an observance of the law that does not distinguish between the more important laws and the less important ones, between actual laws and nice customs and traditions, and treats them all the same.
I remember as a young priest in Uganda, going to celebrate Mass in a distant village of my parish, about three hours away. To my horror, I realized that I had forgotten some things for Mass: some of the linen, even the ciborium for the hosts. What was I to do? Quickly I realized that I had was absolutely necessary for Mass, the bread and wine. As for the ciborium, which was less important, I asked the people for a clean plate to use for the hosts. And we had Mass.
It is my hope that I observed the greater law even as I seemingly broke the lesser.
Conclusion
May our observance of the law never be mechanical, or hypocritical or even fail to distinguish between the greater and lesser laws. May our observance of the law always seek to know the good intended by the law and to try our best to attain it. And if we know both the spirit and letter of the law very well, we shall know how to act, even in those rare situations, when we must break one of God's laws, so as to observe another of his laws, the law of loving God and our neighbour as ourselves.
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