Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Fr Dominic’s Homily

As you know it’s the year of Mark and now we are back onto the readings of Mark – after 5 weeks of being on John and his Eucharistic teachings.

So today we hear about another encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees. The words Pharisee means the separatists because they segregated themselves from other Jews. They saw themselves as above the rest.

They try and put Jesus down and make him look like a bad Jew for not observing all the minutia of the laws they had made. So Jesus calls them Hypocrites. Or actors. In other words they wore a mask and were not authentic.

Today we try to keep the Sabbath holy. We separate it from other days.

For the Jews back then and even today work cannot be undertaken at all. For example the lighting of fires. So you can’t even drive your car because technically ignition starts a fire.

You can’t cook or write or activate any machine. So for example you are not allowed to operate a lift. And different still foods and dishes have to be segregated.

Back then foods were seen as either clean or unclean foods. But Jesus tells them that nothing we eat can make us unclean. Real defilement comes out from our hearts. This is where evil comes from.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that laws are unimportant. Because laws are important but not as ends in themselves. They protect important central values. But Jesus is condemning human regulations that reduce faith to mere legalism.

Our laws must reflect our love for God. We can see the law in the wrong way these days. Something to hate and run away from. Something to try and break and get away with.

Or else we can often try to hide behind laws. They become a distraction. Notice in life when we reverence something we surround it with laws.

Think of your favourite sport for example and all the laws that surround it. So many rules and regulations. If you love a game you love all the rules and the laws. Whereas if you just made it up as you went along you wouldn’t enjoy it so much.

So God gives us laws to protect the integrity of the spiritual life because it is something good and beautiful. It’s worth protecting

If you are good at sport you don’t need to carry an instruction book around with you all the time. You know the laws and rules and carry them in your heart. In the same way we must have the law of God written in our hearts. Otherwise we are building our houses on shifting sands without firm foundation.

In this world of today anything seems to go. We define our lives and do what we want and decide who we want to be almost as a protest against conventional rules and regulations. Would we accept that at workplace - or in our favourite sports?

I have played games with my nieces and nephews that they have made up. Now initially you may think this is going to be easy and relaxed. But the amount of rules and regulations that go with that game are phenomenal!

If the ball hits that tree you are out. Those 3 posts are safety bases so you can’t tag me there. You have to count 20 seconds before throwing the ball or else I win. You need a lawyer to keep up with the rules.

So this is something intrinsic to us. We need rules. It’s human nature. However, when rules get too complicated they undermine the very game they are trying to protect. So Jesus condemns the fussiness of the Pharisees. They pay lip service to God but their hearts are far away from him. There is no love.

Think of a medieval knight with his suit of armour. If it’s too heavy it’s no good. The very thing that is meant to protect him threatens him!

There are essential laws and peripheral laws and this is what Jesus is getting at. The heart of the law is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and your neighbour also.

Do we follow the deeper, underlying spirit of the law or simply the letter the of the law? Jesus calls us to reset our priorities. He wants us to keep the apostolic laws and not those just made up by us. He knows what he is saying so we must trust him.

We should keep the spiritual laws out of love for him not fear of regulations. Jesus doesn’t play games with us. He wants our authentic hearts. Let’s give them to him.