22^nd Sunday in O.T. (B); 8-29-2021

Dt 4:1-2,6-8.  Ps 15 Jas 1:17-18,21b-22,27.  Mk 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

Deacon Jim McFadden

            Several decades ago, I had a dear colleague, a consecrated religious sister who had a huge sign that went from one end of her classroom to the other.  As one entered the classroom, you were greeted with the question: ‘If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?’  That question really got underneath my skin because it raises the notion of what makes an authentic Christian.

            In today’s gospel taken from Mark, Jesus addresses this important topic, which behooves us to pay attention: namely, our obedience to the Word of God, against any kind of worldly/secular contamination or legalistic formalism.  The narrative opens with a dispute between Jesus and several Pharisees and scribes who are accusing the disciples of Jesus of failing to observe the ritual precepts according to the tradition.  By going after his followers, they are really seeking to undermine the reliability and authority of Jesus as Teacher because they say: “But this teacher allows his disciples to evade the prescriptions of tradition” (v. 5).   Jesus responds emphatically by saying, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts’” (vs. 6-7). 

            ‘Hypocrite’ may be the strongest word that Jesus uses towards his adversaries; and, he used the term with reference to the religious establishment, the teachers of religion, doctors of the law. ‘Hypocrite’ says to them, which should give us who are religiously observant, pause.

            Indeed, what Jesus wants to do is to  rouse the scribes and Pharisees from the error they have succumbed into.  And, what is this error?  It is the propensity of distorting God’s will, neglecting his commandments, in order to observe human traditions; in other words, we want to give a religious justification for our worldly ambitions.  Jesus’ reaction is severe because he really wants to get their and our attention because something very basic is at stake here: it concerns the truth of our relationship between mankind and God and the authenticity of our religious life.  Do they go together?  For a hypocrite they do not.  In short, a hypocrite is a liar; he is not authentic; he’s fake.

            Speaking to us in the 21^st century, the Lord Jesus is urging us to avoid the danger of giving more importance to the form rather than substance.  He calls us to recognize that the true core of our experience of faith is love of God, love of neighbor, and being in harmony with Creation.  Genuine religion binds us to all three.  Jesus wants to purify our religious practice of the hypocrisy of legalism and ritualism. 

            Today’s gospel is also buttressed by the voice of the Apostle James in our second reading,  who tells us in no uncertain terms, what true religion is meant to be; he says pure religion is “to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself untainted by the world” (Jas 1:27b).  ‘To care for orphans and widows’ is grounded in Matthew 25:31-46 wherein Jesus proclaims what we do to the least of his brethren, we do to him.  That is why we care for orphans and widows or the anawim, which is a code word for the poor—the least, the vulnerable.  Love of God necessarily entails to practice charity towards our neighbor, beginning with the neediest, frailest, most marginalized people.  They are the people whom God takes care of in a special way, and he expects us to do the same.  Put simply, if we’re going to be in right relationship with God, we must love and serve those who occupy a privileged place in God’s heart.

            “To keep oneself unstained from the world” does not mean we withdraw into a religious enclave isolating ourselves from troubling concerns or closing oneself from reality.  No!  we are an incarnational, Eucharistic people who live out the Good News in our here and now circumstances.  Here, too,  our religious commitment must not be an exterior attitude in which we check off the boxes on our religious ‘to-do-list.’  Instead, we must have a robust, interior life that is substantive and goes to the very core of who we are in relation to the triune God.  For this to obtain, our way of thinking and acting should not be polluted by any worldly, secular mentality of greed, vanity, hedonism, and control.  Sadly, many religious people are baptized pagans in terms of their behavior  in which their core values are the same as their secular counter-parts.  So, one can witness the sad sight of a professed Christian aggressively pursuing the goods of the world and at the same time believing and showing himself or herself as being religiously observant, even going to far as to condemn others .  That person is a hypocrite.

            So, let us take an honest look at our Catholic faith to see how we embrace the Word of God.  Let us have the humility to recognize that we’re always in need of conversion and purification.  Without a purified heart that only comes through surrender to our Father’s will, one cannot truly have clean hands and lips which speak sincere words of the Good News.  If our hearts are hardened, then we will inevitably live a duplicitous, double life.  We’ll say one thing and do another.  Only a purified heart can genuinely speak words of mercy and forgiveness, which is exactly what Jesus, our Teacher, does.  Amen.