22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B
Deuteronomy 4:1–2, 6–8
Psalm 15:2–3, 3–4, 4–5
James 1:17–18, 21b–22, 27
Mark 7:1–8, 14–15, 21–23
This weekend, we return to the Gospel of Mark following our “picnic by the Sea of Galilee with Jesus” and the Eucharistic Discourse of John 6. The new context brings us into the wider world where the Eucharist is the meal that sustains the community in its effort to proclaim the Gospel to the nations. How we are to bring the faith to this world continues to be the question also for us to explore.
The refrain of the Responsorial Psalm offers insight regarding how to live in God’s presence: “The one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.” Justice in its essence refers to giving God His due in our lives. When we live in proper relationship to God, there is a balance, as a “weighing of the scales.” God is God and we are His people. We can live in God’s presence only when we are attempting to live in justice, to “do justice,” aware of our relationship with God as central to our lives. The Letter of James offers practical wisdom, with a clear description of such justice: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
A tendency in our time is to put function over being. What a person does is perceived as identity, as if who we are comes primarily from our actions and preferences. The Gospel today illustrates the falsehood of this way of responding to God that focuses on such externals rather than on the interior reality of relationship, an easy trap to fall into these days.
As one expression of religiosity in the earliest days of Christianity, the “washing of hands” and the “purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds” could be attended to as if these activities are more important than what they symbolize or as if a particular interpretation as to how they are done says everything. When Mark was describing these activities, he was writing for a Christian community, likely in Rome, that had already incorporated Gentiles as equal members of the community along with Jews. Expressing the teachings of Jesus in a new context required explanation as well as a movement forward into a new way of expressing them for Mark’s contemporaries.
The cosmopolitan world of ancient times when the Gospel was young offers many examples of how the wisdom of one culture could be “translated” into a new system. First, the insight had to be expressed clearly. Jesus “reversed the flow” of what made things “unclean” both by His own actions, touching those who were untouchable and bringing healing and holiness to them by His touch, and by His explanation: “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. 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 and they defile.”
When this wisdom and insight is received by an open mind and heart, one who lives justly may put it into practice. The evils that flow from injustice and judgment are uprooted not by a mere change in external practices but by a change in attitude. “To hear and understand” means to see our own actions with new eyes, especially in relation to other human beings.
This perspective calls for a real examination of conscience. What thoughts and attitudes do we bring to our encounters with others who are different than we are? Do we focus on what is outside or do we listen to hear and understand what is in others’ hearts? Are we free to discover the Presence of the Lord where He reveals Himself or do we tend to find Him only where we “expect” Him to be?
The world today needs witnesses who live justly and in the presence of the Lord.
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