Twenty
Second in OT B 2018
In the
Gospel Jesus says: “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is
written: This people honors me with
their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
They worshipped ritually in solemn ways, but this did not translate into
deeds filled with love. Isaiah
accuses the people of being more concerned with ritual defilement than with
ethical defilement.
Yes, we train our
altar servers in all the details of the liturgy. This is most appropriate. But in the big picture of the spiritual life,
we need to form our altar servers to see the essential connection between
participating in the Mass and the team work and sportsmanship and old-fashioned
kindness on the ball field.
And so, yes,
we can spiritually get lost even when we are obeying the law and seemingly
being very religious if our hearts are not filled with the merciful love of
Jesus, and we not have the desire to share the merciful love of Jesus with one
and all. Our discipleship of Jesus is not
about legalism; it is about loving God and neighbor.
In all
truth, all of us probably need to acknowledge a bit of hypocrisy when our egos
get in the way of reaching out to people in need and reaching out to people
whom we find unlovable for whatever reason.
There is sin in the world and sin in our own hearts. We always need to recognize our own
sinfulness and come before our healing, forgiving God.
The North
Star of our spiritual lives is rooted in our faith conviction that there is
nothing hypocritical about God’s love for us.
It is unconditional and unending.
I invite you to hold on to the truth:
There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us. God is love.\
In the first Scripture reading, Moses said to the people: “Now Israel
hear the statues and decrees which I am teaching you to observe; observe them
carefully for you to be a wise and intelligent people.”
The laws of God’s people serve like an invisible fence -- the fence you
put in your yard to keep your dog from wandering into the street or menacing
the jogger out for a bit of exercise or wherever your dog would like to wander
to. This fence serves an excellent
purpose so that the dog can play in the yard without getting hurt. So too, the Ten Commandments are our
invisible fence that helps us to live in right relationship with one another
and with our God. They make all the
sense in the world.
But strict observance of the law doesn’t determine whether God is going
to love us or not. As I said, no matter
what, God cannot stop loving us. But the
commandments are meant to hold us accountable as to how we respond to God’s
great love for us.
In the Gospel, we see the anger of Jesus in confronting the hypocrisy
of the Pharisees. Jesus says: “This
people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Few situations moved Jesus to anger like the
hypocrisy of people who distorted the Law’s intent.
Please note that Jesus is not venting against the Pharisees because of
their fidelity to religious observance and the ritual tradition. This is a good thing. Jesus labels them hypocrites because the
words they spoke from their lips did not come from hearts filled with
compassion. They worshipped ritually in
solemn ways, but this did not translate into deeds filled with love.
This Gospel is not just meant for the Pharisees, but its message is for
each and every one of us. Do we walk our
talk in our prayer life and in our celebration of the sacraments? Sometimes we too need spiritual open-heart
surgery to see if we are touched by the love of Jesus in the faith that we
live. Our prayer needs to touch our
heart and thus motivate us to share the love of Jesus with others.
Yes, may all of us pray for spiritual open-heart surgery. We seek to have our hearts filled with the
merciful love of Jesus. We seek to have
humble, loving hearts.
Jesus is so clear in His teachings.
He tells that He did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but
to fulfill them. Jesus has no problem
with the person who ritually washes his hands and still serves the poor and the
needy. The problem is with us who make
sure to wash our hands but never pay attention to the poor and the needy. Jesus responded to the purity police by
citing the prophet Isaiah. Our prayer
and liturgy must lead to witnessing to the love of Jesus in our lives. In the dismissal rite of the Mass, I will say:
“Go in peace glorifying the Lord by our lives.”
This is not a simple throw-away statement to head to the parking
lot. This is our call to live the
meaning of the Eucharist 24 hours a day.
In Eucharist we receive the love of Jesus; in Eucharist we are missioned
to live and witness to the love of Jesus in the actions of our lives.
Pope Francis’ favorite image for the Church is to see the Church as a
“field hospital,” for all of us are sinners.
Using this image can help us to avoid self-righteous attitudes that see
the Church and the sacraments as rewards for good behavior.
In today’s Scripture, Jesus gave us a new tradition that begins and
ends with love. He asks us to let love
transform our hearts and our souls so that we transform the world.
We just celebrated the funerals of two great Americans – Aretha
Franklin and Senator John McCain. The
eulogies they received were very, very moving.
In our parish, we just celebrated the funeral of a faith-filled
parishioner, Kathy Taddeo. May we be
inspired by those who have gone before us to the Lord. May we also inspire each other to fill this
world and to live a way of life that witnesses to the reality that we are the
recipients of the merciful love of Jesus each and every day.
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