Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jan 30 2025

What Dwells Within?

“Be careful what you allow to dwell in your hearts,” Archbishop Edward Gilbert of the Trinidad and Tobago archdiocese once preached during an ordination. This thought clearly flows from the words of Jesus today. The criticism of the scribes and Pharisees about his disciples not washing must have sparked something in Jesus because he lands a verbal body-blow on them, calling them hypocrites and then quoting Isaiah against them for saying one thing with their lips but keeping their hearts distant from God.

All the readings come together harmoniously today. Moses calls the people to keep God’s law, to observe all the commandments carefully, not only for their own sakes but so the people might draw others to God. James calls his listeners to welcome God’s word that has been planted in their hearts, and to act on it by taking care of those most vulnerable in society: the widows and orphans.

My brother’s pastor weaves his Sunday preaching into themes that run several weeks. Last Lent he began a series he called “Christian Atheism,” asking whether those who come to church on Sunday act is if they didn’t believe the rest of the week. Sometime we get used to living with two creeds competing for our attention: what we say we believe, even want to believe, and what we act out daily. Jesus reminds us that our actions spring from within. So be careful what you allow to dwell in your hearts. From the heart comes forth good or evil.

Consider/Discuss

What are the commandments that really govern your behavior? Are they God’s or merely commands of human tradition?
Can you think of any time “human tradition” has assumed greater importance than God’s commands?

Responding to the Word

God of truth, we pray for the courage to take inventory of what we truly treasure. Help us to recognize the values that are more reflective of our culture than of your Son. Give us the strength to pursue what you would have us do, and thus honor you as the Father of lights.

Jan 30 2025

Scripture Study for

Moses calls the people to hear (shema). It is a solemn summons used to assemble the people of God for consultation, worship, or war. It is used here to stress the significance of the proclamation of the law that is to follow. Obedience to the law is not for Israel’s sake alone. Israel’s compliance will serve to witness to the other nations the extraordinary character of these statutes and decrees. Such obedience is, then, a sign of Israel’s wisdom. The nations will recognize the wisdom contained in this law, and conclude that only a great people would merit so great a God.

Three characteristics of God are praised in the Letter of James. God is first described as the fountain of giving and the source of all the gifts themselves. Furthermore, God’s goodness is constant, not intermittent. God is the source of both our birth and our re-birth or salvation. Finally, the Christians are admonished to avoid those practices of the world that challenge Christian values. They are also to intervene on behalf of the community’s most vulnerable, the widows and orphans who have no legal status in the patriarchal society. When they do this, the word of truth will take concrete form in their lives.

The conflict between Jesus and some of his opponents concerns ritual cleansing. The custom of hand washing originated as a regulation observed by priests when offering sacrifice, and over time developed into an obligation for everyone. Jesus’ disciples were not observing this custom. Jesus’ response to criticism is swift and incisive. He explicitly draws a comparison between those whom the prophet condemns and the scribes and Pharisees who condemn the disciples. The very ones who demand strict observance of their law fail to observe God’s law. Jesus uses this encounter to teach a deeper lesson. He insists that defilement originates from the innermost recesses of the heart, not from some external behavior.

Jan 28 2025

Wash Up and Wake Up!

Have you ever been relaxing in a nice hot shower when suddenly you got blasted with cold water? Someone started the washing machine, turned on a hose, flushed, and—unexpectedly—liquid icicles stream from the shower head. It wakes you up!

That’s what Jesus did to the Pharisees in today’s reading. They were comfortable with their purification rules. Washing hands mattered to them—they washed when they woke up. They washed before eating. They bathed once a week before the Sabbath. That washing set them apart from others in their day. (They probably smelled better than the Romans and the Greeks as well.) They were comfortable with their nice balmy shower. Then Jesus startled them up with a blast of cold water. They cried out, “What? Your disciples don’t wash?”

Jesus didn’t say, “Don’t wash.” He said, “Don’t be satisfied with external washing only.” In the Beatitudes, he also said, “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God.” Clean is good.

Seasons of blessing flow upon us like a nice warm shower. Times of trial, on the other hand, wake us up. Hardships can be more than a sudden blast of icy water. Sufferings can rip us apart. Our true character is revealed in times of trouble; we can no longer bask in ease.

Jesus calls us to a cleanliness that is deeper than soaping our shoulders in a warm shower. Jesus asks us to allow the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier to flood us, to purify us, to wash us from the inside out: as St. James says, to do justice, to walk blamelessly, to be doers of the word and not hearers only, to care for widows and orphans, to keep ourselves unstained by the world. Clean is good. Jesus says, “Be holy.” Nothing less.

Consider/Discuss

What? Don’t wash your hands? In our world, “Wash your hands” messages are still everywhere. Yet in the ancient world, hand washing and other hygienic practices were rare. It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that a Hungarian doctor discovered that washing his hands between treating new mothers increased their survival rates—he was considered to be an oddball. How does this passage strike you, that Jesus’ disciples didn’t wash their hands? How much knowledge about disease transmission do we take for granted?
Holiness—where have you seen goodness and kindness in ordinary life, a robust “doing” of the word rather than “just talking about it”? Who do you know whom you’d consider a “clean” or “pure” person as St. James defines it, by the way that person treats others?

Living and Praying with the Word

Holy Spirit, you are the one who sanctifies. You are the one who makes us pure. You are the source of our holiness. Wash us clean. Scrub out the gunk that blocks your love from flowing through us. This world needs your strength and your power. The world in which we live needs your goodness and your care. We cannot do this on our own. Sanctify us for this task.

Jan 28 2025

Scripture Study for

The thrust of the book of Deuteronomy is that the Promised Land that Israel is about to enter is a gift to them from God, but one that they accept as part of a covenant relationship. For them to continue to enjoy the land they must be faithful to this relationship (otherwise, there really is no relationship). Thus the first part of the reading stresses fidelity to the covenant. The second part of the reading alludes to the formation of Israel as a people who are destined to introduce their God to the rest of the world by manifesting the wisdom and justice of that God. Thus, fidelity to the covenant is not just to the benefit of Israel, but to the nations as well.

The Letter of James begins with an exhortation to persevere in times of trial and temptation. The author challenges those who claim that their temptations have come from God as a test, arguing instead that what comes from the unchanging God is not testing but “all good giving and every perfect gift.” The greatest of these gifts is new birth in the “word of truth” (the gospel). For this word of truth to bear fruit, however, it must be “done,” that is, acted on and lived by, rather than passively accepted in an abstract or purely intellectual sense. Caring for the vulnerable and avoiding contamination by the values of the “world” (that aspect of reality opposed to God) are ways that we live the word of truth we have received. Just as earlier in Mark’s Gospel questions had been raised about the Jesus’ disciples and fasting (3:18–22), now the Pharisees note that Jesus’ disciples also do not engage in ritual hand-washing before meals. Jesus suggests by quoting from Isaiah that such cleansing can be simply a superficial observance that conceals a failure to observe “God’s commandment.” He goes on to assert that cleaning the outside of the body as a form of purification means nothing if the inside remains defiled by the various sins he lists. These are not purified by washing; only repentance can accomplish that.

Jan 15 2025

The Cost of Closeness

The prophets often spoke bluntly, whether addressing the people or even God. Take Jeremiah today. He accuses God of seducing and overpowering him, making him speak a word that has led to his ridicule and persecution. He was even thrown down a cistern and left to die because of his preaching! Jeremiah confesses he has no choice in the matter. When he refuses to speak God’s word, he experiences a fire burning in his heart, consuming his very bones.

The cost of drawing near to the living God can take us down a path we would rather not go. Peter saw this coming when Jesus began to speak of the suffering that lay ahead, instead of being the powerful Messiah people had been waiting for, who would cast down their enemies and restore Israel to the glory days of King David. Instead, Jesus spoke about taking up the cross, losing one’s life, or, in Paul’s words to the Romans, becoming “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.”

God’s plan for us is the transformation and renewal of our minds according to the pattern of God’s Son Jesus. This transformation comes about when we “offer [our] bodies as a living sacrifice,” seeking to discern and do God’s will as Jesus did. Such self-offering may lead to our following Jesus on the way: finding life by losing it for the sake of others, and coming to know the living God as purifying fire, life-giving water, and nourishing food for our spirit.

Consider/Discuss

Would your reaction to Jesus’ speaking of having to go to Jerusalem be like Peter’s? Why or why not?
Can you apply Paul’s words to your life: “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God”?

Responding to the Word

We can pray that we have the strength to respond courageously to Jesus’ call to be willing to lose our life for his sake. We ask to be able to discern in our daily lives the way we can “offer [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, your spiritual worship.”