22nd
Sunday of Ordinary Time – August 29, 2021
To some extent, we
are creatures of habit. We have traditionally done things in a certain way,
and
it can be hard to start doing things differently. The personal habits,
traditions, that we
have developed can serve us well; yet there can come a time
when they begin to hold us back.
As well as personal habits or traditions, we
also have communal traditions, traditional ways
in which we as a family, a
society or as a church have done things. Those communal traditions
also can
serve us well, but there can come a time when they can restrict us.
In next Sunday’s
gospel Jesus comes into conflict with the Pharisees who had a great regard
for
what is referred to as “the tradition of the elders”. These were traditions
that had been
passed down orally for hundreds of years and that applied the
Jewish Law to all the details of
daily living. These traditions were not
written in the Scriptures, but they had come to acq-
uire an authority that was
equal to that of the Scriptures. In the course of his ministry, Je-
sus
challenged the prominence that the Pharisees and other religious leaders gave
to these
religious traditions. Jesus contrasts these human traditions to the
commandments of God, and
he declares that in their zeal to uphold these human
traditions, the religious leaders have
ended up undermining the commandments of
God. Jesus implies that what mattered so much to the
Pharisees did not matter
to God. God had other priorities. Long standing traditions about ri-
tual
washings of hands and of cups and pots do not matter to God; what does matter
to God,
according to Jesus, is what is in our heart and what comes from out of
our heart.
Those who are into
gardening know we have to prune our bushes and shrubs. Otherwise, they can
get
too big, and the flower or fruit loses its quality. Jesus was in many ways a
pruner. He
pruned back the traditions that had come to acquire an importance
they did not deserve. In his
pruning he tried to highlight what was most important
in God’s eyes. Jesus did not abandon the
Jewish tradition completely. In
today’s gospel he critiques the traditions of the Pharisees by
drawing upon the
tradition of the prophet Isaiah. Jesus was able to identify in the Jewish
tr-
adition what really mattered to God and what did not. Jesus did not dismantle
the Jewish trad-
ition in order to start completely afresh. Rather, he wanted
what was best in that tradition
to flourish. He highlighted those elements of
the Jewish tradition that revealed God’s desire
for our lives most fully. Jesus
was very aware that religious tradition can hide God as well
as reveal God. An
important dimension of his work consisted in pruning back those elements of
the
tradition that were hiding God.
Our own religious
traditions are always in need of pruning, be they our own personal tradit-
ions
or the traditions of the church. What has become important to us over time may
not be as
important to God. That is why we need to keep going back to the New
Testament, to the gospels
in particular, to learn over and over again what
Jesus says is important to God. We have to
keep going back to the source of our
Christian tradition, which is the word of God, to allow
that tradition to be
purified and pruned. The Lord continues to speak to us through his word,
reminding us of what is important to God and what, therefore, should be
important to us.
Today’s reading from the letter of James calls on us to
‘accept and submit to the word which
has been planted in you.’ The word of the
Lord is not just outside of ourselves in a book; it
has been planted in us,
through baptism. In attending to the Lord’s word, we are attending to
what is
deepest within ourselves. James reminds us that accepting and submitting to the
Lord’s
word means not just listening to it but doing it, doing what the word
tells us. If we submit
to the Lord’s word in that full sense, then what is
important to God will become important to
us. The letter of James is very clear
about what is important to God. In the words of the sec-
ond reading, a pure
unmarred religion in the eyes of God our Father is this: coming to the he-
lp of
orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the
world.
Jesus would have been very happy with that way of expressing what is
important to God.
Today’s readings call
on us to acquire God’s perspective, so that what matters to God comes to
matter
to us. The gospel reading suggests that this may involve looking at some of our
tradit-
ions, including our religious traditions, and acknowledging that they may
not all be as impor-
tant to God as they have become to us.
Fr. Don, cp