Homily for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

No respect for tradition

In today’s gospel Jesus is accused of flouting sacred tradition. Religious officials from Jerusalem and local Pharisees want to know why Jesus permits his disciples to disregard the unwritten tradition of the elders. The problem is that the disciples do not wash their hands before they eat. The complaint is not that the disciples ignore hygiene, but that they ignore the tradition of ceremonial washing. In doing this they are numbered among the unclean.

  According to the written Law, ceremonial washing was required only of priests before they entered the sanctuary. By the time of Jesus, however, the ritual of handwashing, before every meal and between each course, had been extended to include all pious Jews. This unwritten tradition of legal interpretation-the oral law- was regarded by the Pharisees to be as binding as the written Law. And they expect Jesus to share their religious outlook. Jesus accuses his accusers of being hypocrites, quoting the prophet Isaiah to underline the point:” This people honor me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.”

  In clinging to human tradition, they ignore the commandments of God. Jesus wants to free people from the weight of a stifling tradition that concentrates on approved performance. When religious performance is lacking in heart, it makes for worthless worship. Jesus goes on to teach the crowd revolutionary doctrine which puts him at odds with his own religious tradition: nothing that people eat can defile them, only what comes from their own heart. In this Jesus declares all foods clean and shifts the focus of moral attention to how people choose and what they actually do. For Jesus, eating with unwashed hands is imaginary defilement. So is eating unapproved food. Uncleanness is a matter of what proceeds from the human heart. It’s not people’s diet that interests Jesus, it’s their heart condition.

  Jesus is interested in the stirrings of the human heart, the personal issues that preoccupy us and influence our choices and behavior. The territory within, with all its complex emotions and desires, holds Jesus’ attention. He knows that no external law can change people’s hearts, even if it makes them socially conform. That is why, when he began his preaching, he invited everyone: ‘’Set your hearts first on the kingdom of God.’’ Jesus believes that when people’s hearts are centered on God, they are emancipated from the litany of human regulations that would script their every move.

  For many of his hearers, what Jesus said was bad news because it contradicted the tradition they honored. We call it good news, Gospel, because it is a word that liberates us from a world of endless regulations. It also challenges us and invites us to live a religion of the heart. To have a heart for Jesus and his values: this will always be our real business as Christians.