Reflection - Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time
Reflection - Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time. Photo: unsplash.com/@heftiba
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
These are the words of the prophet Hosea but they go right to the heart of genuine religion. The Jewish people knew them well. The wonderful prayer of the Jewish people, the Shema “ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” are a fitting background to this gospel.
Scholars say that Mark wrote his gospel especially for Gentiles living in Rome who were attracted to the Christian faith. They had not been brought up with the observances such as washing hands before meals, rituals that made people ‘pure’ or ‘impure’. If they became Christians did they have to observe these traditions? In fact, such traditions give people a sense of identity.
In every age, people perform certain acts which identify them with a particular faith tradition or ethnicity. Muslims do not eat pork, this characteristic is not theirs alone but it goes towards identifying them in a certain way.
We know that Mark was writing his gospel after the destruction of the Temple. The Romans destroyed the heart and soul of the Jewish religion so where were the people now? The Jewish Christians continued to be Jewish in their manner and thinking. No doubt they started to change when as Christians they were excluded from the synagogues? But their ritual practices are a part of the ongoing story in the Acts of the Apostles.
In this Sunday reading, Mark describes a full-blooded confrontation with the Pharisees and the scribes. This has already occurred earlier in the gospel but now the antagonism is clear and heated. Their discussion had to have something to kick start it and the Pharisees see the disciples eating food with unwashed hands which provokes them because they were strong on these practices which they received from the elders.
But such actions were not part of the Torah. Jesus points out to them that they are tied up in trivial things like washing hands which has nothing to do with true worship of God. They place too much emphasis on these issues which are a distraction from the real work of loving God as the Shema demands them to do.
Jesus calls them hypocrites! He quotes the prophet Isaiah who criticises the people from an earlier time for paying lip service to God while their hearts were far from God. Hosea said the same thing. People are like that. They are like that today, it is an ongoing reality of life.
Jesus says with great insight, ‘Nothing that goes into a man from outside makes him unclean, it is the things that come out of a man that makes him unclean’. True religion comes from the heart where we battle with good and evil intentions. Let us battle with the important issues, not the trivial ones.
Columban Fr Gary Walker is currently living at the Columban house in Sandgate, Brisbane.