TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY "B"

TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR

(Cycle “B”:  Mk 7, 1-8, 14-15, 21-23)

A few years ago, a certain priest, Fr. D’Silva, was kidnapped by some armed extremists in Guwahati. Their demand for ransom was totally ignored by the bishop, Thomas Menamparampil. In the meantime, Fr. D’Silva got friendly with the kidnappers by his winning ways, who finally released him, and they parted friends. I am reminded of a funny story about a bishop who was kidnapped in South America by Catholic guerrillas. The bishop also tried the friendship game. He offered them his cigarettes. The kidnappers turned up their noses and refused to accept. “No, thank you, bishop, we don’t smoke during Lent.”

Like those Catholic kidnappers, we Catholics may lose sight of the forest because of the trees. We give strict attention to the minutiae and turn our backs on the essentials. Unhappily for us, we are living in an age which downplays sins. A generation ago, Pope Pius XII said, “The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.” Pope John Paul II has stated, “Secularism preaches there is no God and therefore no sin. Psychology advises us to resist our feelings of guilt. Sociology instructs us to lay all blame on society and think of ourselves as victims. Cultural anthropology foists all blame on the environment.” This attitude has become not only politically correct but also morally correct.

Today’s Gospel shows our Lord telling us to face ourselves squarely. Forget the hand washing before or after meals. Ritual hand wash is whitewash, says Jesus. Come to the point and admit that there are specific sins: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride and folly. It is not enough to exclude adultery as long as the underlying lustful mentality remains intact. Nor must murder only be done away with, but much more the contempt and cruelty that finds expression equally in words of hatred and derision. God requires not the performance or avoidance of certain actions, but rather the development of certain kinds of persons. Not correct actions primarily bur good persons. This attitude involves more than simply refraining from the prohibited actions. It involves the transformation of character, a realignment of values, the complete redirection of moral values. This is a deeper ethics of life, an ethics of virtues, not of rules. There may be many rules, but only disposition, one basic orientation.

 Clearly the Teacher looked upon sin not only as a social evil but also a personal one. He puts it down as a personal evil. On Christ’s terms, the sinner has but two options  -  either to be forgiven or to be punished.

My dear friends, let us take a stand on this issue and not be afraid of being labelled outdated or fundamentalist.  Let us be honest and true to ourselves. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius advises his son, “This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”  “Honesty is the first chapter in the Book of Wisdom”, wrote Thomas Jefferson. This has been true for all people everywhere, in every period of the world. The fight to honour truth within and without has never been an easy one. Facing ourselves is another way of saying making an examination of conscience. Let me share with your an examination of conscience worked up by our non-Christian leader Mahatma Gandhi. It is his list of seven deadly sins. They are wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, commerce without morality, science without humility, worship without sacrifice, knowledge without character, and politics without principle. Which one of these are we guilty of ?  How can we make a difference ?

The first thing you can do is to get into the practice of being true to yourself and others at all times. When we disconnect from our feelings to avoid a scene or to appear “cool”, we silence the voice within. We silence truth. After a while we can no longer hear this voice. We need to reconnect to our own inner promptings.

Think about the qualities you like in human nature  -  the things you honour: tenderness, strength, humour, prudence, love or hard work. Then on the opposite side, think of those defects that most offend you  -  that drive you crazy: anger, laziness, deception, cowardice, brutality, or jealousy. In total truth claim them both, the virtues and vices.  Recognise that you have them in some measure, even if they are hidden from people. With honesty and free will you can claim those aspects of yourself you choose to live out in the world. This is a serious and life-changing project, and a far cry from merely washing your hands before and after meals.

 

PRAYER: by George Appleton (1902 – 1993) adapted

O God, you desire truth in the inmost heart; forgive me my sins against truth – the untruth within me, the half-lies, the evasions, the exaggerations, the lying silences, the self-deceits, the masks I wear before the world. Let me stand shorn before you, and see myself as I really am. Then grant me truth in my inward being, and keep me in truth always.

 

 

We hear in today’s Gospel that Jesus is having quite a day of labor. The Pharisees and their scribes who know both the original laws of Moses and those added to by the “elders” or rabbis during the centuries, question Jesus about His disciples’ not observing exactly the traditions. The Pharisees have the evidence of the non-conformity of the disciples and so there is a tension and a teaching moment.

The outside actions are important for personal and communal well being. What Jesus is laboring for us to understand is that the outward is to be a reflection and display of the inner relationship with the Holy God. Then these actions will be holy themselves, because of that interior relationship. External actions by themselves are nothing but external actions. We are inside-out human beings and Jesus states things very clearly. What makes a person unclean is not from outside, such as not washing one’s hands or face, but the uncleanness is inside already and as long as that is not tended to, unclean actions will display the inner disorder. Jesus describes quite a list of human tendencies toward evil and disorder. Most of us have experienced the attraction we have to such evils. Take your pick, you do not have to look up in a dictionary the definitions of these basic human tendencies. Jesus is saying that they lie within us and washing cups and hands will not remove the reality of our human fragmentation. The “elders” have piled up so many externals that the observance of them had become what religion was. The external became disconnected with the interior relationship which is the basis of holiness.

Showing-off is different from showing-out. External religious actions do help our interior relationship with the transcendent God. Jesus labors to bring order into the human experience of being human. Israel was to take possession of its new land. Jesus work of salvation is to assist us to take possession of ourselves as His new land. Jesus has described the disordering forces which are part of our personal and communal lands. Greed, theft, murder, and various forms of envy are parts of the human land. We are not abandoned to these forces, but accompanied by God’s grace through the saving laboring of Jesus.

Here at our university it is a cause of delight to notice the changes, externally, of some of our male students when they have “fallen in love” with a female student. Their externals are quite cleaner in clothing and language, more gentle of gestures and more smiley of countenance. Their former externals were not always so gracious which were expressions of less relationality. Jesus courts us and heals us from sad, lost, violent, and ungrateful interiors. He extends to us the desire of God to relate, love, and bring us into the new land of holiness. This holiness does express itself in outward activities, just as our love-struck sophomores express themselves as having been in love. Jesus’ Labor Day is every moment and our laboring days reflect His permanent loving relationships of salvation. He subdues our personal interior enemies and brings us from the inside to the out of showing Him out.

“O Lord, how great is the depth of the kindness which you have shown to those who love you.” Ps. 31,20