Well, Monday is Labor Day. And, so, I have a Labor Day question for you. Actually, it’s a question for only the women. You men need not be concerned with this one. My question for you women is: Come Labor Day, how many of you are going to stop wearing white shoes for the summer? If I remember rightly from my younger days, women were “allowed” to wear white shoes only from Memorial Day until Labor Day. That was the “tradition.”
Another Labor Day tradition, at least up north where I lived, was summer officially ended on Labor Day. That’s when all of the shops catering to tourists closed down. That’s when kids went back to school. It was unthinkable kids would go back to school – elementary, high school or college – until after Labor Day. Now, here in Texas, we have laws saying you can’t go back before sometime in mid-August. But as far as I know, there’s no law about whether you can wear white shoes.
As you no doubt realize, today’s readings are about laws and traditions. In our first reading from Deuteronomy, the Bible’s basic list of rules for living a good, Jewish life, we heard Moses say: “In your observance of the commandments of the Lord, your God, which I enjoin upon you, you shall not add to what I command you nor subtract from it.”
And, so, it was, the Israelites followed Torah, the Law which God gave them through Moses. However, as the years passed, the Hebrews realized times do change, the laws of the Lord God as given to Moses did require interpretation for new circumstances, new ways of living. And, so, they developed an oral tradition of interpretations of Torah, oral traditions which later became written down as the “Mishnah” or Talmud.
In the time of Jesus, the pharisees were major interpreters of the law and the traditions associated with it. A major problem, however, was that Jesus did not always agree with their interpretations. He seems to say the pharisees were more interested in appearance than they were in the reality of what God wanted. But we, who follow the teachings of Christ, we may have the same problem as the pharisees. We may be more demanding of the appearance of events than we are for their reality, more demanding of the “externals” of living than of the “internals” of life, itself.
Both the pharisees and Jesus taught about purity, a purity needed for us to be part of God who is pure, who is perfect, without blemish. However, it seems the pharisees were more interested in clean hands than they might have been about a dirty heart. More concerned about external practices of piety, of purity, than they were about actions of charity towards their brothers and sisters.
When we listen to today’s gospel, some people seem to believe Jesus was saying a clean heart is what is desired and that dirty hands are OK, when he says: “Nothing that enters one from the outside can defile that person, but the things that come out from within are what defile.”
It’s perhaps unfortunate today’s gospel reading omits the reference indicating that, when he said this, Jesus was talking about so-called “unclean” food which enters the stomach and leaves the body without making the body, itself, impure. We need to interpret, if you will, what is meant by his statement: “Nothing that enters … from the outside can defile that person.” We need, I think, to be aware of the “I-can-handle-it syndrome.”
And what do I mean by the “I can-handle-it syndrome,” which seems to be an ailment of our modern culture? These words are the ones recited by the guy who surfs the internet for pornographic sites, who says: “Hey, I can do that. It doesn’t really affect me. I can handle it.” Or the married partner who is having a “casual” affair with another person who says, “Hey, this won’t have any real impact on my marriage. I can handle it.” Or the teenager who gets involved with friends who are into drugs. “Hey, they won’t have any influence on me. I can handle it.” Or the person who only occasionally cheats when filling out an income tax form or a job application. “Hey, this is not really cheating. It’s nothing big. I can handle the real temptations when they come along.”
Perhaps, such folks need to be reminded Jesus did not say it’s OK to eat with dirty hands so long as your heart is clean. What he was saying is: just because you wash your hands, don’t think what you do is pure. His focus was on the heart, on the core of the person, not on mere externals. He said doing something merely because it’s traditional is not what life is about.
Imagine for a moment. You’re driving late at night by yourself. On a country road. In the middle of nowhere. And the traffic light turns red. Why do you stop? Because the law says you must? Because tradition says you must? Or perhaps you don’t stop, after all, there’s no cop around to arrest you. Or again, think for a moment. Why are you here right now? Why are you in church at this moment? In fact, why are you even listening to me?
Are you here because you think there’s a church law that says you must attend mass every Sunday or God will send you to hell? Are you here, because your family and friends always came to church? It was a Sunday tradition, something you always did and you’re really not sure exactly why you’re here. Are you listening to these words, because this is what is supposed to be done at this time during the service even though you’d rather we get on with it so you can leave as soon as possible?
Why do you do what you do? Because it’s the law? Because it’s always been done that way, and you want to keep up the appearance of what is right? Or do you do what is right, because of what is in your heart, because it is part of that inner core of your being where you deeply know what is right and what is wrong.
Is it really possible for us to follow the directions we heard a few minutes ago in the Letter of Saint James: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.” Is it possible to have both clean hands and a clean heart – and for the right reasons? Not merely for the sake of appearance, but to be part of the reality of the body of Christ.
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time; August 31, 2003
Dt 4:1-2, 6-8; Jas 1:17-18; 21b-22, 27; Mk 7:14-15; 21-23