Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Osmond Anike

Readings:

First Reading: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8 – Observe these laws and customs, that you may have life.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 14(15):2-5 – The just will live in the presence of the Lord.

Second Reading: James 1:17-18, 21-22, 27 – Accept and submit to the word.

Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 – You put aside the commandment of God, to cling to human traditions.

In our spiritual journey, and ultimately our journey towards God, two major distractions block our progress: the people (disciples), and the traditions of our elders. If one is able to overcome these two hurdles, the coast would be very clear for the person. But alas, crossing these hurdles is not an easy task. To do that, one needs two tools – the power of concentration, and, the ability to critically examine. These two tools are what the Pharisees demonstrated to have grossly lacked. For this reason, Jesus, who was physically near to them, ultimately eluded them.

In the gospel reading of today, the Pharisees exhibited this miserable lack in their encounter with Jesus: First, they came all the way from Jerusalem to see Jesus. Their intention was to have a closer encounter with this man, Jesus, and possibly tap from the wealth of his wisdom. But they ended up being distracted by the people – the disciples. Instead of observing Jesus (the very thing they came all the way from Jerusalem to do), they ended up observing his disciples. They couldn’t just concentrate on Jesus because they lacked that power of concentration.

In our efforts today to become better Christians, who do we observe: Jesus or his disciples (the Christians)? It is not enough to have gathered around Jesus, like we have done today. The question is, do you concentrate on him or are you distracted by the disciples? Many of us attend masses not to encounter Jesus but to find fault with Christians: to see who is clean and who is not; who washed his hands and who did not, etc. In other words, we are so intense in finding fault with people that we totally fail to concentrate on Jesus who is the very reason for our coming to church. Some are so focused on the people that, at the end of every mass they are able to describe where every participant was seated, what cloths they were wearing, and the type of makeup they were putting. And they do this in such a detailed way that one wonders whether such people had any time at all to commune with God. If we must be sincere to ourselves, we must put this question to ourselves at the end of every mass and every prayer session we attend: In the one hour allocated to this session, how many minutes of it did I really spend concentrating on God? You will be horrified to notice that you may be spending less than a minute of that one hour concentrating on God. The rest of the 59 minutes would have been spent focusing on people and getting distracted by them.

The other obstacle on our progress in spirituality is the so-called “traditions of our elders”. In the Old Testament, there are so many laws and customs that were originally designed to regulate the social and economic lives of the Jewish community. However, over the time, these laws and customs were taken as the measures of one’s holiness. The tradition of washing of hands that was originally designed for hygienic purposes found its way into religious practices and became associated with holiness. In being thus associated with holiness, it actually became an obstacle to spirituality. In order to overcome this obstacle, what one needs is the ability to examine. Jewish tradition says that one gets unclean be eating without ritual washing. However, Jesus’ critical examination revealed that “nothing that goes into a man from outside can make him unclean”. It is rather something that comes out of a man from within that can make him unclean. From within come evil intentions such as theft, murder, fornication, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, pride, etc. The so-called “traditions of our elders” also include traditional practices that run contrary to the gospel, as well as things we have grown accustomed to, and which we tend to equate with the essence of Christianity – things like the volume of our voices while we pray, our bodily movements and gesticulations, pastoral organisation of a place designed purely for practical purposes, etc. While one may find uplifting from some of these customary ways of doing things, it does not mean that others who don’t adhere to them are sinners. In fact, if one apples the tool of critical examination, one will realise that it is not how loud one shouts or how energetic one’s gesticulations are that makes one holy or not. It is rather how one puts into practice those simple commandments of God.

Many of us are still stuck in the legalistic ways of the Old Testament. But it is precisely to fight such legalism that Jesus devoted much of his energy. He spent all his life correcting the misunderstanding and the misinterpretation of the Old Testament. The over-emphases on laws, for instance, made it practically a crime to do good on a Sabbath day; and Jesus would have none of it. He equally refused to subscribe to the idea that shouting the name of God day and night translates to spirituality: “It is not those who shout, Lord, Lord, that will enter the kingdom of God; but rather those who do the will of my father in Heaven”. Pure religion is not a matter of laws and more laws; it is rather praxis-oriented. St. James was clear about this in the second reading. Speaking about the word of God, he says that we have to accept and submit to it. But he added: “You must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves”. And as if to reinterpret in the light of Jesus’ mission, what Moses said in the first reading to the people of Israel, he concluded by defining what religion actually entails: “Pure, unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world”.

People don’t grow in spirituality because they are stuck with the so-called “traditions of the elders”. And as Jesus expressed it, “You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions”. A lot of barometers with which we judge people are purely based, not on the essence of Christianity but on our accustomed ways of doing things. We think that those who do not, for instance, pray the way we do, are not spiritual. Remember, Abraham practiced hospitality, and God was with him. David fought wars, and God was with him. John the Baptist practiced austerity, and God was with him. Jesus ate and drank, and God was with him. When you follow your own accustomed ways of doing thing, God might still be with you. But don’t delude yourself into thinking that God will desert anybody who does not follow your favourite ways of doing things. James has defined for us what pure religion is.