22ORDB

22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time B

Readings: Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8  James 1:17-18,21-22,27                Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

“The one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord” (Ps 15).  In an age tempted to ignore the basic ethical teachings of our Biblical faith, the readings for this Sunday remind us that the central message of the Jewish covenant and Jesus’ ethical teaching is doing the will of God as expressed in the commandments of the Torah. 

Moses’ sermon in Deuteronomy is addressed to the Israelites who are about to enter the promised-land.  He reminds them that observance of the Lord’s wise and just commandments will determine if they will live and take possession of the land.  If they carefully observe God’s law without adding or subtracting from it, Moses assures the Israelites that other nations will observe: “This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.”

The Epistle is taken from the Letter of James which we will be reading for the next several weeks.  James is a work of moral exhortation, calling Christians living in a decadent Roman Empire to live by the ways of God and reject the ways of the world. In this week’s reading, James reminds his readers that the Father “wills to bring us to birth with a word spoken in truth so that we may be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.”  The proper response to that word is to humbly welcome it and let it take root within so that one acts upon it.  To simply listen and not act is to deceive one self.  True religion, undefiled by the ways of the world, is a life of action in caring for the needy in our midst. “Looking after orphans and widows in their distress and keeping one self unspotted by the world make for pure worship without stain before our God and Father.”

In the Gospel, the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus’ traditional enemies in Mark, challenge him by questioning why his disciples do not observe the tradition of the ancestors, but instead take food without purifying their hands.  Mark carefully explains to his Gentile audience the Jewish purification rituals originally meant for the priestly class (cf. Leviticus 15), but now applied by the Pharisees to all Jews. Jesus’ reaction is swift and to the point.  He accuses the Pharisees and scribes of being hypocrites like those mentioned in the prophet Isaiah’s prophecy. “This people pays me lip service but their heart is far from me. Empty is the reverence they do me because they teach as dogmas mere human precepts” (Isa 29:13)  In place of an external ritualism which emphasizes merely human laws concerning washings and unclean foods, Jesus proclaims that the only evils which defile a person are those coming from the deep recesses of the human heart (the seat of will and thought in Hebrew psychology).  The list includes actions forbidden by the Ten Commandments. “Hear me, all of you, and try to understand.  Nothing that enters a man from outside can make him impure; that which comes out of him, and only that, constitutes impurity.  Let everyone heed what he hears!  Wicked designs come from the deep recesses of the heart:

acts of fornication, theft, murder, adulterous conduct, greed, maliciousness, deceit, sensuality, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, an obtuse spirit.  All these evils come from within and render a man impure.”

At a time when we are reminded daily of dishonesty and corruption at all levels of government and society, today’s readings challenge us to renew our commitment to living simple lives of honesty and justice based on the just decrees of the Lord.