(Deut 4,1-2,6-8; James 1,17-18,21-22,27; Mark 7,1-8,14-15,21 - 23: 22nd Sunday of the Year, Sunday22: Year B)
In the Old Testament Theology, a necessary link exists between the quest for life and faithfulness to the law of Yahweh. It is the latter that guarantees the former. In today's first reading, Moses put this very clearly before the Israelites. He enjoined them to be faithful to the laws of the Lord which he placed before them so that they might have life and possess the land. In addition to the guarantee of life which fidelity to the law of the Lord would give, it would also be an indication of the depth of wisdom of the people. He said, "Keep them, observe them, and they will demonstrate to the peoples your wisdom and understanding".
St. James took up this same issue of finding life through fidelity to the demands of the law of the Lord in today's second reading. Consistent, with the Old Testament theology, he was convinced that submitting to the demands of the word of God necessarily brings life. On this issue, he was quite emphatic: "Accept and submit to the Word which has been planted in you and can save your souls. But you must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves ".
In the gospel today, Jesus chided the Pharisees and Scribes for their hypocrisy. They pretended to be very zealous for the religious laws and customs. However, Jesus looked beyond their external observances to condemn their lack of sincere worship. He had this terse statement for them: "You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions ". In essence, true religion is not about the externalities. Observance of religious customs and rites are meaningless without the readiness to allow the demands of the word of God and the divine law to transform one's life. It is in the latter that true religion is found.
In our lives as Christians, we need to discover the wisdom embedded in the commandments of the Lord. They are not just legal codes to be formally observed to avoid punishment. In them, we rather find practical guide to a good and purposeful living. The litmus test of the depth of the Christian life, therefore; lies in the extent to which the commandments of the Lord determine our actions and system of value. When this link is missing, our religion lacks depth and runs the risk of becoming pretentious and empty ritual. When this happens we would be honouring God with our lips and not Our hearts and we would be far away from God. This would be hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is an evil, dangerous snare that can take root and nest itself in our comportment as Christians. It pushes us to pretend to be better Christians than we are, to cultivate in our religious living exteriority more than interiority, to pay more attention to formalisms of religion than to the substance of it, and sometimes going ^thereby, against the commandment of God on justice, love of needy neighbour, honesty of life, and moral rectitude. This is probably why we scandalize the non-Christians and remain a hindrance to their conversion as they do not see the life of a true Christian in us. Rather, what is manifest is the disharmony between what we believe and what we do; a violent contrast between faith and life. What do we do so as not to be hypocrites? The readings of today leave us with some directives. The gospel enjoins us to purity our hearts, make our intentions straight, eradicate from our hearts all those things that are in disharmony and in contrast with the will of God:For it is from within, from men's heart, that evil intentions emerge... We need to put our hearts in order. In the second place, as Moses teaches in the book of Deuteronomy, we have to conduct our lives according to the commandment of God and put into practice the word of God that we listen to every day. St James takes up this theme in the second reading of today. We are not to be onlylisteners to the word of God but also doers of the word of God. The word of God is both dianoetic(imparts knowledge) and dynamic (transforms). When we listen to the word of God it indicates to us what God would want us to do (dianoetic quality of the word of God) and at the same time it transforms our lives (the dynamic quality of the word of God). Transformation of our lives is the end result of listening and adhering to the word of God. Once our lives are transformed to be in conformity with the mind of Christ, hypocrisy will be a far cry from us. Thirdly, to avoid a life of hypocrisy and live as authentic Christian live have to pay attention to the poor and very weak ones among us, (the sick, the abandoned, the elderly ones, the lonely, the handicapped, the homeless, and beggars) and come to assuage both their material, moral and spiritual needs. Also we cannot call ourselves good Christians and declare ourselves in favour of divorce, abortion; practice dishonesty and cheat in business, transgress justice, manifest all sorts of selfishness in our families and in the society. May we therefore ,pray that the word of God we listen to will transform our lives to resemble that of our Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God. Happy Sunday! +John I. Okoye
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