TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME B

[cappie]

 In this Sunday’s gospel Jesus  speaks of the great dangers of hypocrisy, he accuses those who question him of being hypocrites: “This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations. ” At the heart of what Jesus is criticising is the perennial problem of saying one thing but doing another.  Saying one thing but doing another lead to empty religion: empty gestures; pointless prayer; rules and regulations which have lost their meaning. As Jesus puts it, it amounts to putting aside, “the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.”

In other words, their focus was all wrong. In focusing on human traditions and looking only at the outward appearance of things, they had failed to actually honour God, because it is what is in the human heart that matters to God, it is easy to mistake the appearance of things for the meaning itself. At that point, distraction reigns and the focus on what matters is lost

 Indeed, distractions abound today., people are bombarded with images every day of what they should be, do, and look like according to the outside world. Western culture and human tradition proscribe “rules” that include being thin, attractive, strong, wealthy, owning nice cars, having big homes, owning the right tech gadgets, smelling good, wearing the right clothes. In addition, people seem to be required to marry a good-looking spouse or have a good-looking partner, have 2.5 kids, and not have any real deficits physically, financially, or mentally. One should appear youthful no matter their age. And so, when people fall short of these rules  their value and purpose in life has somehow been diminished.

But this is not the way of Jesus or the Scriptures. These are not the rules or traditions of God or the standards for one’s life according to God’s Word. These are truly human traditions. Jesus invites his followers to let go of human rules so they can focus on having a heart that is pure and filled with love for God and others. Jesus’ invitation leads to a life that is more than just going through the motions – a life centred on the precepts of God.

One unnoticed problem with an over-focus on outward appearances is that it can lead to a failure to notice the more important aspects of one’s character – the truly beautiful things about oneself that God has blessed them with, including their inner gifts and qualities that shine the light of Christ. Could it be that in the desperate focus to be perceived as attractive, successful, or appearing to have it “all together” that one no longer notices or simply forgets to utilize their deeper spiritual gifts? And, in turn, could it be that they may not notice the true beauty and spiritual gifts in others either? That is a deep and meaningful loss. 

There is a Chinese saying: “You can’t measure the sea with a pot.” It’s similar to “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Judging by the “cover” always fails. God is interested in the heart, not words or mere appearances. In the Jewish tradition, the heart is viewed as the seat of the will, not just the place of emotions. In order to align one’s will and heart with God’s will and purpose, one begins by simply asking God for this grace. “Not my will be done, but Thine.”

 Gospel life which is authentic is life built and founded on love, the sort of love we see God showing for us in Jesus.  This is the love whose presence shows the Holy Spirit is amongst us.

Gospel love is often quite simple and much more practical than people imagine.  We often think being a good Christian is about showing heroic virtue. Sometimes the love God calls us to show is much simpler than that and is rooted in the day-to-day practicalities of the generosity and kindness that we show to one another and to our neighbour.

So we are reminded this Sunday by Jesus of the destructive power of hypocrisy.  If we are to be a community which authentically lives out the gospel, then we need to be founded in love – a love that gives of itself and that shows we are willing to serve others as our Lord and Master taught us.