HONORING GOD WITH OUR LIPS AND HEARTS
          The Gospel for today really asks the fundamental questions of faith. Questions that all of us must be able to answer with utmost sincerity and honesty. What is really the essence of my faith? What do we exactly mean when we say we have faith in God? The Pharisees and scribes who had a tense encounter with Jesus in the Gospel were very much convinced that to have faith in God, first and foremost, means to follow the Law of Moses—It can’t be compromised in any way. Originally, for a Jew, the law meant two things: the Ten Commandments and the First Five Books of the Old Testament, or the Pentateuch, where we find detailed instructions and regulations on how to lead a just and moral life. In the Pentateuch, especially in the Book of Leviticus, an ordinary Jew during the time of Jesus finds the guiding principles of morality. For a long time, the Jews were content with that. But, in the fourth and fifth century before the time of Jesus, a group of experts in the law, known as the scribes, wanted to expand and amplified the moral principles found in the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch, and the results were literally thousands of regulations that practically covered every possible human action and situation. For example, with regard to the 3 ^rd commandment on keeping the Sabbath day holy, there was literally hundreds of regulations that governed the Sabbath – what work was allowed or not, how many steps one could take when walking in order not to violate the Sabbath law, etc. The Pharisees equated following the law to holiness. Nothing was more important than following the law, even if it would do harm to other people and to oneself.   To the Pharisees, as long as one followed the external requirements of the law even though in their heart they had no compassion for the marginalized, even though they were envious of other people, that was perfectly fine. This kind of attitude is what Jesus was criticizing in the Gospel today.
          If we really analyze all the encounters between Jesus and the Pharisees in the Gospels, Jesus was most of the time pointing out the “hardness of heart” and the judgmental positions of the Pharisees at the expense of the good of their brothers and sisters.  Jesus could not really stand their hypocrisy.  It is quite interesting that the Greek word for hypocrisy is hupokrites which originally meant “one who answers”; then it came to mean “one who answers in a dialogue or conversation, like an actor; and later, its meaning evolved to someone whose life is a piece of acting without sincerity behind it. In short, the outward manifestation of the practice of faith doesn’t penetrate in the actual relationships that one has. It seems that Jesus defied the cultural norms of his time. Jesus respected the Jewish tradition; he followed them with zeal, but with a great sense of balance and flexibility. This sense of balance and flexibility was rooted on the primordial understanding that the dignity of the human person comes first before anything else, which means that relationships are really what matter in the end. If my going to Mass every Sunday is solely to fulfill the 3 rd commandment and not necessarily to deepen my relationship with God or is not a consequence of a personal encounter with God who loves me, then there will come a time when I will be bored and get tired of it because I am only doing it out of obligation. If my going to Mass doesn’t inform my personal values, my work ethics, and doesn’t inspire me to be a better person, then one reduces one’s participation at the Mass to a mere social gathering. This is what Jesus meant when he said in the Gospel:  "this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."  God doesn’t need lip service; though he appreciates our praises for him, he doesn’t even need our praise. He is God, he is complete in Himself. In one of the prefaces in the Roman Missal, this point is captured really well— the priest prays this line: “O Lord, even our desire to praise you is in itself your gift.”  We praise Him and adore Him not to add anything to God, but rather, for us to realize who we are in relation to Him, that is as God’s own, and having realized that, to live in God’s grace and love.   God is a big man, ever confident, he doesn’t need any lip service or fake worship ..what he asks of us is our sincerity, our honesty in the midst of our own brokenness and weaknesses, and to truly recognize his image and likeness in one another so that we will treat each other with respect, compassion and love, not for his own sake, but for us to experience the real liberation, freedom and joy of being a child of God.  The outside actions are important for personal and communal well being. What Jesus is laboring for us to understand is that the outward is to be a reflection and display of the inner relationship with the Holy God. Then these actions will be holy themselves, because of that interior relationship. External actions by themselves are nothing but external actions. We are inside-out human beings, and Jesus states things very clearly. What makes a person unclean is not from outside, such as not washing a jug or cup, but the uncleanness is inside and as long as that is not tended to, unclean actions will display the inner disorder. Jesus describes quite a list of human tendencies toward evil and disorder. Most of us have experienced the attraction we have to such evils. Take your pick, you don’t have to look up in a dictionary the definitions of these basic human tendencies. Jesus is saying that they lie within us, and washing cups and hands will not remove the reality of our human fragmentation. The “elders” piled up so many externals that the observance of them had become what religion was. The external became disconnected with the interior relationship, which is the basis of holiness.
          "Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” These are the very words of Jesus Christ himself instructing us on what really corrupts a human person.  From the list of sins that Jesus gave in today's Gospel, it started from more serious sins like murder, theft, and adultery, but as the list continues, it also touches upon sins that aren’t necessarily considered too serious but, at the same time, affects tremendously how we relate to one another, like the sin of envy and arrogance. With envy and arrogance, one stops seeing others as subjects of love, compassion and mercy but, rather, considers others as threats and competitors.
          These words of Jesus are truly a gem to remember because it frees us from pride and a reckless judgment of others. It also explains that the origin of sin is really not from the outside but from within - when one doesn’t act according to the very image and likeness that God has shared with us. Reflecting on our own spiritual life - are there things from within us that defile who we are as sons and daughters of God? And, if the answer is yes - what are ways that we need to do in order to transform ourselves into agents of God's redeeming life and love to others? – Fr. Cary