TWENTY SECOND SUNDAY 30^th August 2009

Deuteronomy 4:1-8 Ps: 15 James 1:17-27 Mark 7: 1-23

1. After five Sundays on the 6^th chapter of John‘s Gospel and Eucharistic themes, The Gospel switches to something completely different. However for those of you who go for daily Mass, it carries on in the same strain as Matthew 23. It deals with the keeping of laws and traditions. It deals with the proper spirit of keeping God‘s commands. It repudiates a big show, a performance, and “keeping up with appearances.”

2. Moses has been know as the law-giver. But after some time, everyone is tired of being told, “do this and avoid that.”� Our first reading is of a more persuasive style rather than “God will get you, if you break the law .” Moses tells them to keep the law first because it will bring peace and an orderly way of proceeding. But more importantly it will be a source of edification and example to other people. The people of Israel had just entered a new land. They were re-establishing their own identity. They were trying to make a good fir impression. In this context, “being seen as a wise and discerning people” was a very powerful motive.

In certain ethnic groups, “saving face” is very important. A certain 12^th grader was constantly getting into trouble, he was being suspended, he did not do his homework. When this was brought to the notice of the principal, he simply picked up the phone and called the father. The message he gave was brief, “your son is bringing shame to your family name.”� The next day, a chastened and well disciplined boy with his school uniform well pressed appeared in the class. There was no trouble any more. Where the stick and the carrot did not work, the family honour was all the difference.

First a word about the second reading: For the next five weeks the second reading will be from the Letter of James. Traditionally this letter has been accepted as the work James the brother of the Lord, though the author simply calls himself “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”

3. Our second reading from the letter of James takes us a step further. We are called to be “doers of the word, not merely hearers.”� Giving a good first impression is only the first step. We cannot be mere cardboard cut outs, holly wood facades (as in the movie: Blazing Saddles.) There must be substance as well. We are three-dimensional persons. Hence we have to back up the good image with substantial action. We are the fruits of God‘s word of truth. There are many examples that could be given. St. James gives us one in the small portion we read today. He tells us to take care of widows and orphans. They had no voice or say in providing materially for themselves, in the direction their lives could take, or in having an active say in the society. They were totally dependent either on the mercy or harshness of the Society in which they lived.

4. The Gospel picks up on this harshness of leadership in Society. The keeping of the law advocated in the first reading “showed wisdom and discernment.” The Scribes and the Pharisees also insisted on the keeping of the law. But this was not the Law of God, but laws arising from human tradition. These leaders had succeeded in not only making the laws, but turning the laws into an end in themselves. It did not lead people to God. It did not show wisdom or discernment.

Jesus confronted the Scribes and Pharisees because they had lost their sense of balance. They confused their own human traditions with the commandments of God. Jesus did not condemn

• Their cleanliness in the washing of their hands
• Their hygiene in the washing of brass pots and cups.

Jesus condemned the Scribes and Pharisees

• because they neglected weightier matters like justice and mercy
• because it was not for the greater glory of God, but their own honour.
• Because they were bothered with something secondary and trivial
• Because as Shakespeare would say, it was full of sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing. Macbeth. Act V. Scene V.

5. The bottom line of course for us is not to make or pass judgment on people in the past. Rather it is an invitation to take an inventory of our own lives and practices and code of behaviour.

There is a saying, “does a tree make a noise when it falls, if there is no one to hear it fall?”� For us, “do we continue with our moral behaviour even if there is no one around to witness our actions?”� Some of us will be good and behave in an orderly and dignified manner just because it is right and just to do so. Then there are some of us: we steal, we tell lies, we run red lights, we help ourselves to office supplies because we can get away with it. Our code of conduct challenges us to have a high standard simply because it is befitting of men and women created in God‘s image and likeness. Unfortunately there are too few in our midst that will keep this high standard. Hopefully they will act like yeast in our midst and cause us to rise to the greater heights that befits our God-given nature and dignity.