DO NOT TREAT HUMAN TRADITIONS AS DIVINE COMMANDMENTS: A Pharisee who invited Jesus Christ to dine with him at his home was amazed that Jesus Christ did not observe the prescribed washing before the meal, and he called Jesus Christ out on it. This was similar to the complaints brought to Jesus Christ by some Scribes and Pharisees about His disciples eating with uncleaned hands, that is, eating without washing their hands, as recorded in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7, verse 1ff and Matthew 15, verse 1ff. In both cases, the Pharisees seem to have taken the act of not washing hands before meals as a serious offense and transgression. Though it was the common Jewish custom and tradition to wash before they eat, it was a human tradition and not a divine commandment or mandate. Jesus Christ was unequivocal when He said to the Pharisees and Scribes, “You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition… you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition!” (Mk. 7:8-9).
Jesus Christ condemned this kind of action and attitude of the Pharisees in His own case and that of His disciples. It is an act of hypocrisy to enforce human laws, traditions, and customs and neglect the divine will and commandments. Thus, Jesus sees the mere washing of hands without a proper purification of the heart as pharisaic, lip service, hypocritical, and playing to the gallery. It amounts to washing the outside of the cup while leaving the inside filled with dirt, evil, and plunder (Lk. 11:39). It is like whitewashed tombs that look handsome/beautiful on the outside, while the inside is full of dead bones and filth (Mt. 23:27). Jesus calls for a change of attitude and proper understanding of divine will and commandments by the Pharisees, and indeed, us.
WE SHOULD STOP LIP SERVICE
“This people honors me only with lip service, while their hearts are far from me” is Jesus Christ’s response to the Scribes and Pharisees while addressing their complaints about His disciples (Mk. 7:6). Lip service is disregarding and paying less attention to the essential elements of our faith and spiritual life. Instead, we trivialize it with unspiritual, mundane, and ephemeral things. Lip service is when we abandon God’s ways and embrace worldly ways because it is fashionable. Lip service is undermining God’s will and disobeying His commandments while championing the observance of human-made laws and traditions. To stop lip service, we must be sincere in our relationship with the Lord and avoid hypocrisy in every possible way.
OUR PATH TO RIGHTEOUSNESS
John the Evangelist tells us that God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and truth (Jn. 4:24). To worship God in truth means to be sincere in our relationship with Him, built on faith and love, and bereft of any hypocrisy. This is achieved by a resolve to honestly and sincerely obey God’s will and commandments, not in a legalistic manner, as St. Paul advised us against in the first reading, but as an expression of a love relationship. Such a resolution leads to an ardent desire to purify the heart of sinful inclinations, such as evil thoughts, unchaste life, theft, adultery, greed, murder, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, arrogance, folly, blasphemy, and the like. Finally, it leads to undertaking attitudes and actions that lead to righteousness, such as almsgiving, kindness, joy, generosity, patience, love, life in the spirit, etc. This is the cleaning of the inside that Jesus Christ advocated so that the outside will also be clean.
Always remember that Jesus loves you!
Thank you, homily of Love which most Catholics needs to understand.