By Father Paul Nord, O.S.B.
Sunday Scripture
First Reading: Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8; Response: Psalm 15:2-5; Second Reading: James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27; Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Most of the book of Deuteronomy consists of a “farewell speech” by Moses. The Israelites will soon enter the Promised Land, but God has forbidden Moses to go with them. In today’s reading, Moses reminds the Israelites of “the statutes and decrees ... which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.” God communicated these “statutes and decrees” through Moses at Mount Sinai (see Exodus). Moses is calling the Israelites to remember and keep these laws, so that they might be worthy to receive the land that God promised them, through their ancestor Abraham. God had commanded Abraham: “Go forth from your land, your relatives, and from your father's house to a land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). Abraham obeyed and trusted God. When Abraham arrived in the land, God promised Abraham: “To your descendants, I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7).
God’s fulfillment of this promise is a primary concern of the first five books of the Bible. After Genesis, the book of Exodus records God freeing the descendants of Abraham (the Israelites) from slavery in Egypt. Then God forms a covenantal relationship with the Israelites at Mount Sinai. After this, the books of Leviticus and Numbers record the Israelites’ 40 years in the wilderness after God freed them from Egypt. All this time, they await God’s fulfillment of his promise of land for Abraham’s descendants.
The fifth biblical book — Deuteronomy — depicts the Israelites just east of the Jordan River — poised to enter the promised land. God’s promise will finally be fulfilled. The Israelites are excited to enter the land promised to them by God. But in this reading (Deuteronomy 4), Moses reminds the Israelites that they must remain faithful to “the commandments of the LORD, your God.” They must be worthy of God’s promise. God has protected them, and made them a “great nation.” If the Israelites are faithful to God’s commands, then “the nations” will see this and praise the Israelites as “truly a wise and intelligent people.”
Today’s second reading is from the letter of James, which exhorts the Christian community to remain faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The letter’s writer identifies himself as “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ” (James 1:1). James calls on his fellow Christians to persevere in their faith and to “Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials” (James 1:1-2). The following verses likewise call for perseverance amid “lowly circumstances” (1:9) and during “trial/temptation” (1:12). They are cautioned against desires that lead to sin (1:13-16).
This reading recognizes God to be the source of “all good giving and every perfect gift.” Every gift comes “from above” — “from the Father of lights” (1:17). This title for God points to God as creator — the one who created the great “lights” — the sun, the moon and the stars. God is described as one “with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.” The contrast between “shadow” and “the Father of lights” emphasizes the goodness of God who created us and gives us “every perfect gift.” Further, God is described as having “no alteration.” God’s goodness and providence are constant, unchanging. God’s constancy is the opposite of the “shadows” of this world which shift along the ground, ever-changing, as the sun rises and sets.
God “willed to give us birth” so “that we may be a kind of firstfruits.” These are similar images — new human life and new growth of fruit from the earth. The “firstfruits” are the portion of the harvest offered back to God as a sacrifice. Here James describes his fellow Christians as “a kind of firstfruits” that anticipates the future redemption of all creation in Jesus Christ. Christ’s second coming will produce an abundant harvest of men and women redeemed in Christ.
Jesus’ redemptive action is described as “the word of truth” in verse 18. This “word” image is then compared to a seed in verse 21 — “the word that has been planted in you.” Obviously, James is repeating imagery used by Jesus in his public ministry — as recorded in the Gospels — Mark 4, Matthew 13, and Luke 8. The Good News of Christ is “the word” which is planted within us, so that it might give us life. It “is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).
The “word” imagery continues: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.” Disciples of Christ must act in accord with his gospel message. For example, Christian believers are “to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
In today’s gospel, the Pharisees object that some of Jesus’ disciples “ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.” This is followed by a narrator comment about the Jewish practice of washing their hands before eating, and of purifying various eating utensils. This is more than normal sanitary practice. Jewish laws about food consumption are an integral part of the Law of Moses. An essential theme of the Old Testament is that failing to keep God’s Law results in the loss of God’s blessing and protection. Thus the whole community may suffer destruction. For this reason, the Pharisees scrupulously strove to keep the law in every detail.
Jesus responds to the Pharisees’ objection by quoting Isaiah 29:13: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” The Pharisees are focused on external purity. By contrast, Jesus’ focus is on the sinful thoughts and desires of the human heart. Jesus describes the Pharisees’ purity regulations as “human tradition.”
Instead, Jesus insists that we purify our hearts. In verses 9-13 (omitted here), Jesus teaches that providing for one’s parents must take priority over a (previous) vow to make a gift (qorban) to the Temple. The Pharisees were expecting a person with needy parents to still make the vowed gift. Thus Jesus says the Pharisees “disregard God's commandment” (v. 8) of “honor your father and your mother.”