Moses said to the people:
“Now, Israel, hear the statutes and decrees
which I am teaching you to observe,
that you may live, and may enter in and take possession of
the land
which the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.
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.
Observe them carefully,
for thus will you give evidence
of your wisdom and intelligence to the nations,
who will hear of all these statutes and say,
‘This great nation is truly a wise and intelligent people.’
For what great nation is there
that has gods so close to it as the LORD, our God, is to us
whenever we call upon him?
Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?”
R. (1a)One who does justice will live in the presence of
the Lord.
Whoever
walks blamelessly and does justice;
who thinks the truth in his heart
and slanders not with his tongue.
R. One who does justice will live
in the presence of the Lord.
Who
harms not his fellow man,
nor takes up a reproach against his neighbor;
by whom the reprobate is despised,
while he honors those who fear the LORD.
R. One who does justice will live
in the presence of the Lord.
Who
lends not his money at usury
and accepts no bribe against the innocent.
Whoever does these things
shall never be disturbed.
R. One who does justice will live
in the presence of the Lord.
Dearest brothers and sisters:
All good giving and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change.
He willed to give us birth by the word of truth
that we may be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
Humbly welcome the word that has been planted in you
and is able to save your souls.
Be
doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the
Father is this:
to care for orphans and widows in their affliction
and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
When the Pharisees with some of the scribes who had come
from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that
some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is,
unwashed hands. - For the Pharisees and, in fact all Jews,
do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping
the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the
marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves.
And there are many other things that they have traditionally
observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and
beds. - So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why
do your disciples not follow the tradition of the of the
elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you
hypocrites, as it is written:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines and human precepts.
You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human
tradition.” He summoned the crowd again and said to them,
“Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters
one from the outside can defile that person; but the things
that come from within are what defile.
“For within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts,
unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All
these evils come from within and they defile.”
They had come all the way from Jerusalem to catch him. Not
out of love for God, not out of love for God’s law, but
because of their hatred for him, because he threatened to
undermine their power over the crowd. They had been
watching him all day, but they had not been able to find
anything wrong in him. Obviously he was an observer of the
law in dress, words, and behavior. They stopped looking at
him; they gave up on him. Instead, they started to observe
his followers, that ignorant bunch who were no longer
listening to them but were following him as if they had
found a new leader, as if they did not exist anymore.
They looked and they watched, and finally they caught some
who were picking corn as they walked along on a Sabbath
day. Why hadn’t he warned them? Why hadn’t he reproached
them? Why did he let this pass without a word? They
attacked in the name of their law, in the name of their
prestige and power. They did not appeal to that law to
guarantee or improve the human condition. They did not
appeal to that law to enable life and joy. They did not
appeal to that law to enhance or celebrate. They did not
appeal to that law out of love of God. They appealed to it
to litigate and win, to profit and to gloat, to catch and to
kill. He looked at them, at their faked pious faces full of
hatred and greed, and he said: “You hypocrites, how far are
God’s intentions from your hearts; how false is the
reverence you seem to pay. Is that God’s command, to catch
and to kill, to hunger and to lust, to rule and to reign, to
exploit and to plunder? You sat that you stand for
justice. You say that you defend God’s will; but you only
intend to profit yourselves at whatever the cost.”
Jesus did not say my friends that the law is no good. He
did not say that the law should be abolished. He did imply
that law can be used in such a way that it kills, that it
stinks, that it makes human life impossible. And you know
as well as I do that in this sorry government that we have,
those who are leading our country right now, are using the
law or will try put into law, the means to make life
impossible, to in fact kill us. And the law does that in
the most literal sense of the word.
You know about how fewer and fewer people will stop at an
accident along the road these days because if you make a
wrong move, like trying to administer to the victims, you
just might be sued. Or if you see a car stalled along the
roadside at night and you think that someone might need
assistance, you think very hard about it, and most often do
not want to take the risk, because someone in that car just
might blow your head off.
Jesus’ words are a warning to us. If we do what people from
Jerusalem did, watch to be sure everything is done according
to the letter of the law in or to catch and fleece, we are
not sincere. We are hypocrites, making human life
impossible. Even a good thing like the law, even an
excellent thing like God’s law, can be turned into something
that kills, as it did in the case of Jesus, when they nailed
him on the cross in the name – so they said – of God’s law!!
The heart of the matter, Jesus says, is what is inside (our
motives and intentions), not what is outside (observing the
proper ritual). Is Jesus contradicting what we know from
Deuteronomy, James, and the psalmist? Not really. Our
earlier writers were right: Our faith is reflected in what
we say and do. Jesus reminds us that the opposite is also
true. What we say and do also reflects what is inside us.
Do not be fooled. Motives are important. Indeed, what is
in the heart can even make the difference between doing good
works and simply “going through the motions.”
I hope that this message
was meaningful to you. Thank You, God bless, and have
a great week. Don't forget to scroll down for this
weeks video, "Why Me Lord" by Conway Twitty.
