A homily for the Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 1, 2024
Dt 4:1-2, 6-8, Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27, Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
The Sisters of St. Francis from the Glen Riddle, PA, mother house who taught us at St. Leo the Great School in the 1960s were an enlightened bunch. They clarified the difference between nationalism and patriotism, framing the former as potentially sinful. They instructed us in single-gender classes about sex and love and how both are gifts from God, with only minimal blushing. (Yes, I know the joke.)
And they believed in buy-in. They knew that people older than 3 deserved to know “why” for them to follow rules. So the sisters took the time to explain, for example, why we were forbidden to talk during a fire drill (the person in front of us might turn around to listen, might trip, and then everyone would tumble over them, disastrously).
Rules, we learned, were for our well-being. Even the annoying ones … which weren’t as annoying once we understood the “why” they were built on.
Once any of us lets someone in on the secret of “why,” we elevate them. We recognize their maturity, their ability to understand situations bigger than themselves. We honor their growth as people when we deep-six “Because I Said So” as the reason for obeying.
We invite their buy-in. We welcome their choosing to follow the right leader in the right direction because they embrace what that leader is offering.
And we celebrate their buy-in, because there’s an element of joy or relief or contentment associated with it. When any of us buy into a norm or a rule, they often become warm-fuzzies and cease being hard boxes or narrow cattle chutes.
We see, and make part of ourselves, the care for us that whoever crafted the rule employed.
One explanation of laws in a civil society posits that laws are created for two intertwined reasons: Laws protect the majority of us from foolish people and laws protect foolish people from themselves. Food for thought.
But Jesus tried to explain to the Pharisees and their followers something akin to this.
In our passage from Mark’s Gospel, Jesus takes a swipe at the religious leaders’ insistence on the letter of the law, the blind obedience, the following in a line where the scenery never changes.
Because. God. Said. So. (or so we say)
Because: Angry Old Testament God.
Because we elites say everybody’s emotional and spiritual growth halted at 2½ and we elites must treat them as children.
But just as the semi-cynical explanation for civil laws is two-fold, so too was Jesus making twin points about embracing The Way.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.
and
From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts…
The letter of the law.
vs.
The underlying reasons for God’s commandments.
Following the letter of the law, of customs, of norms, of a spiritual or social script or playbook requires little to no thought, other than to remember the steps in the right order. Follow the instructions, and your Ikea bed frame won’t collapse in the middle of the night. (Hmm, even that wound up having a good underlying reason.)
Following the letter of the law, and only the letter, means all of us will fit in the herd, will go with the flow. So much for God-given individuality.
To be sure, following the letter of the law will keep us safe from pitfalls and sins and the inevitable — and deserved — punishments that accompany them.
But when we actively choose to embrace the spirit of God’s laws, especially when we embrace them as the Law of Love — love God, love our neighbors as ourselves — then we are good for good reasons.
We recognize the consequences, and acknowledge that there often are unanticipated consequences, of the evils that Jesus cites to the Pharisees
… unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
and the many, many more that Mark did not catalog. Consequences that destroy lives, wreck homes and businesses and lead to conflicts or even wars.
Avoidable consequences.
So: Why?
Because of the love of God. And for the love of God.
We are good, we do good and we do well because we treasure our relationship with God Who Is Love, and we want to imitate Jesus and be Christ for everyone we meet, especially Our Lord’s least sisters and brothers.
That should be our normal.
