Twenty
Second in OT B 2024
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. 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.
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.
Pope Francis’ favorite
image for the Church is to see the Church as a “field hospital.” In the field hospital of the Church of
St.Joseph’s, we humbly recognize that all of us are sinners. Using this image can help us to avoid
self-righteous attitudes. The
sacraments are not rewards for us who are perfect; rather the sacraments are
spiritual medicine for us who are weak.
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 can transform the world.
In the Gospel, Jesus
responded to the self-righteous purity
police by citing the prophet Isaiah:
This people honors with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” In the second scripture reading, James
proclaims: “Religion that is pure and
undefiled before God is this: to care
for the orphans and widows and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
Isaiah
accuses the people of being more concerned with ritual defilement than with
ethical defilement.
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.
Our discipleship of Jesus is not primarily
about legalism; it is about loving God and neighbor. May we deeply believe that God truly wants to
share his life with us. Sometimes the
Gospel is too good to be true and so we don’t believe. Can we believe God is so loving, that his
love is wonderful and so all-encompassing, that he who is mindful of all of our
failings and the darkest secrets still finds us lovable, still wants to shre
his own life with us.
At all times
and in all situations, we need to speak our convictions but we all must witness
to the love of Jesus in our dialogue with one another.
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.
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.
May God
grant you peace.
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