22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

As I reflected on our gospel for this Sunday from Mark 7 and considered the Pharisees' observation that Jesus and his disciples ate "a meal with unclean hands" (Mark 7: 5), I was reminded of all the warnings public health officials give us about washing our hands especially during the flu and cold season.   They caution us to scrupulously wash our hands, cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze and thoughtfully remove ourselves from society at large if we think we have a cold or the flu.  I don't claim to be an expert on public health, but these simple precautions make a lot of sense to me.  Washing our hands and practicing basic preventive strategies keep us physically healthy and keep everyone around us physically healthy as well. 

The focus of today's readings is not on clean hands. Rather, the focus is on what makes us clean (pure, holy, virtuous and good) and what makes us unclean (impure, corrupted, immoral and bad) in the eyes of God. Moses gave the children of Israel the law to pull them together as a nation and to provide social order. Over the centuries people became obsessed with the law adding multiple layers of detail and complexity called traditional law that determined what was considered clean and unclean. Traditional law controlled every facet of life.  The Pharisees were the defenders of traditional law and they used the law to protect their elite status and oppress other people.

 Jesus presents a radically different law.  He challenges the Pharisees saying, "You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition" (Mark 7: 8). The law Jesus gives is the law of the New Covenant, a law of the heart. His law is designed to build the Kingdom of God. With one statement Jesus rejected many of the traditional Jewish laws including all the dietary laws, "Hear me, all of you, and understand.  Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile" (Mark 7:14-15).  If we eat without washing our hands we run the risk of catching the flu or a cold.  If we sneeze without covering our mouths we can infect others.  These are not evil or sinful acts - they are thoughtless acts, they don't make us "unclean." However, if we steal, murder, deceive, or blaspheme; if we are greedy, jealous, arrogant, malicious or unfaithful in our relationships, then we are unclean in God's eyes and are in a state of sin. 

In today's second reading St. James describes the new law that Jesus gave us, "All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change" (James 1: 17).   We can't change God's law.  What we can do is "Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in [us] ... to save [our] souls" (James 1:21).

Father, God of the ever-new covenant,
you have tied us to yourself
with leading strings of lasting love;
the words you speak to us
are spirit and life.
Open our hearts to your words,
that they may touch us
in the deepest of ourselves.
May they move us to serve you
not in a slavish way
but as your sons and daughters
who love you and whom you have set free
through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen