Sunday, September 1, 2024: We have created elaborate rituals to protect ourselves from contamination. Unlock your Hearts!
The Gospel today begins with the scribes and Pharisees complaining that Jesus’ disciples don’t wash properly before eating. These Pharisees are obsessed with purity because they
want to believe that sin is a kind of contamination that infects us from without.
Stop and think about this for a moment. If sin is a defilement that comes from outside of us, then all we have to do is protect ourselves from becoming contaminated. Don’t be surprised by the fact that human beings have created elaborate rituals to protect themselves from contamination. But Jesus is telling the wisemen and clerics who are bound in tradition - keeping the people bound too: Unlock your hearts! Does it matter of you don't eat fish on Friday? That you don't go to confession every Saturday? That woman keep their head covered when entering the church? Do those externals matter? Or is it what's in your heart?
We take comfort in demonizing others and we have found countless ways to build walls between ourselves and others by looking down on them. Many of us still frown on interracial marriage. We demonize immigrants. We confine the poor in ghettos. We kill those who are of a different faith. Our solution to homelessness is eviction.
Jesus will have none of this.
He summoned the crowd again and said to them, "Hear me, all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
Our problem is not some contamination that comes from outside of us. Our problem is that defilement comes from within. What afflicts us is not contamination. What afflicts us is the smallness that lies in our hearts.
"From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within." Whoa.
Shakespeare said it so succinctly:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
This is a hard teaching. There is a reason we prefer to spend our lives protecting ourselves from external contamination. It’s much easier than the difficult task of looking into our souls
and coming to grips with the greed and lack of compassion that arises from within.
Yes, this is a hard teaching. Who could possibly summon up the courage to look into their own soul and embrace their faults, foibles and arrogance? The answer to this question is simple.
The one with the courage to look inward and to acknowledge their faults is a person of faith. The one who looks inward is a person who has been touched by the power of grace. And once touched by grace how can we judge others?
Grace not only gives us the courage to look inward. Grace leads and guides us on this difficult journey. It's our super power.
Do not be afraid to look within and to examine your conscience. The Father of Mercies has filled our hearts with the Holy Spirit so that we have the grace we need. This is a hard teaching. But do not be afraid. Through the mysterious grace of God, the acknowledgment of our failings has become for us something precious and something to be treasured.
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