Holy Spirit Catholic Church
Homilies
Archive
22nd Sunday in
Ordinary Time
September 3, 2006
One
evening at a baseball game when the crowd stood for the "Star Spangled
Banner", a young boy failed to remove his cap. A man behind him leaned
forward and said gruffly, "Hey kid, take off your hat." The child’s
father bristled but he waited' until the end of the singing, and trying
to control his anger, he said quietly to the man, "My son has been
undergoing radiation treatment for cancer and he has lost all his hair!"
The boy was not disrespectful during the singing of the
national anthem; he was simply too embarrassed to remove his cap. That
man learned a valuable lesson: externals do not always indicate what is
in the heart. That is also the lesson the Pharisees had to learn in
today's Gospel reading. They were upset with Jesus' disciples because
they failed to follow the regulations for a ritual washing of hands
before eating. Their concern was not hygiene, but adherence to the
letter of the law.
When the Pharisees demanded of Jesus why his disciples
acted as they did, he refused to answer. Instead he warned them, in the
words of the prophet Isaiah, "This people pays me lip service, but their
heart is far from me." He went on to explain that internal dispositions
are far more important than external observance.
T.S. Eliot ranks as one of the great poets of our
modern times. One of his most quoted lines is this: "The greatest
treason is to do the right thing for the wrong reason." Let me repeat
that. "The greatest treason is to do the right thing for the wrong
reason."
We have an example of that in today's gospel. There we
find Jesus confronting the Pharisees for doing many right things, but
for the wrong reason. Who were these Pharisees, anyway?
And how did they get into the practice of doing the right things for the
wrong reason?
They were mostly laypeople who wanted to reform
Judaism. They felt that it had become too lax. And so, in their minds,
they became self-appointed models to what every good Jew ought to be.
Their reform focused on two points, especially: a more rigid observance
of the Law of Moses and a more rigid observance of human traditions.
It was their rigid observance of human traditions,
especially, that led them to do things for the wrong reason. For
example, among the human traditions were the endless ritual washings
that Jesus referred to in today's Gospel.
Worse yet, the Pharisees got so caught up in these
highly visible human traditions that, in some cases, they put them ahead
of the Law of Moses. This is why Jesus spoke out so bluntly to the
Pharisees, saying to them in today's Gospel, "You put aside God's
command and obey human teachings."
As a liturgical people we need to reflect on Jesus'
teaching. The liturgy, as a matter of fact, is concerned with lots of
externals, such as gestures, standing, sitting, kneeling, processing,
singing and reciting prayers, as well as the use of vestments, candles,
and decorations. In fact, the Church teaches in the Vatican II document
"Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy" that full, active, conscious
participation in the sacred liturgy is the indispensable source of the
true Christian spirit, and the same Constitution makes it clear that
participation is accomplished "by means of acclamations, responses,
psalms, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and
bodily attitudes."
And yet the chief element of worship is internal. That
means that what we do externally is intended to express and intensify
sincere interior dispositions, such as faith, hope and love. Sometimes
the best measure of our devotion is not what we do during Mass, but how
we act and live outside of Mass.
Is the faith we express liturgically the guiding norm
of our conduct so that we live in such a way that if God did not exist
our lives would not make sense?
Does our faith make us different from others whose
values are secular and materialistic?
Does the virtue of hope brighten our outlook and make
us basically optimistic people?
Does our hope give us a trust in God, which moves us to
embrace his will?
Does the love we express for God during our worship
guide and direct the way in which we live?
Do our lives reflect the truth we are taught that we
are all brothers and sisters of one another in Christ?
Externals are important, but of themselves, they do not
make us holy any more than a patriotic bumper sticker makes a driver a
good citizen. St. James, in today's Second Reading, tells us, "Welcome
the word with its power to save you. Act on this word. If all you do is
listen to it, you are deceiving yourselves." That is his way of saying
that it is not enough for us to simply listen to God's word; that
worship must lead to life; that external observances must express
sincere and honest internal dispositions.
IT'S WHAT'S INSIDE US THAT COUNTS!!!