22ND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
There is much to think about these days regarding the situation in Afghanistan and other places in the world. We pray in a special way for all those who lost their lives on Thursday in Afghanistan as a result of the 2 bombings as we pray for all those who are in trouble wherever they are. We also pray for those who are going back to school or college and their teachers, hopefully school life will bring a bit of normality to the lives of our young people despite COVID19 still being around.
In this Sundays Gospel Jesus is accused of flouting sacred tradition. Religious officials from Jerusalem and local Pharisees want to know why Jesus permits his disciples to disregard the unwritten tradition of the elders. The problem is that the disciples do not wash their hands before they eat. I always remember my mother telling us children to wash our hands before we had I our dinner but it wasn’t about religion it was just about dirty hands!! The complaint is not that the disciples ignore good hygiene, but that they ignore the tradition of ceremonial washing. In doing this they are numbered among the unclean.
Let us be clear, Jesus does not dismiss the Law but he condemns its misuse. And the Pharisees were certainly guilty of misusing the Law by placing heavy burdens on the shoulders of the people. The ritual hand washing before eating has its origins in the common sense practice of washing one’s hands before eating a meal, something any sensible person would do. But by the time of Jesus this custom had become incorporated into the Law, it had become much more elaborate and was accompanied by prayers as a way of consecrating the whole day and all one’s actions to God. This is fine and good, but it should not become a burden or become a reason for accepting some people and rejecting others, depending on whether they observed these prescriptions or not. Jesus cuts through all of this and turns it around and accuses the Pharisees of honouring God with lip-service while their hearts are far from him. Jesus sees the true purpose of the Pharisees, he knows that they are there to build a case against him and that their fine words about these Jewish customs are just a pretext and he gives them pretty short shrift. Jesus points out that nothing that goes into a man can make him unclean, it is what comes out of him that makes him unclean.
Jesus goes to the very core of the matter and tells us that it is not whether we fail to perform this or that pious act that makes us evil but the desires of our heart. It is our heart that we have to look at; we have to examine the seat of our wishes and desires to see whether we conform to God’s laws or not. The law of God forbids all those things that set people against each other: theft, murder, greed, etc. The positive command of God’s law is “to serve God in each other,” to walk blamelessly, do justice, to walk humbly with our God. The big question for us this weekend is whether we are prepared to do this hopefully we will be prepared to serve God through each other as we walk humbly with our God.
Fullerton T 