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Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

By Brian Pizzalato *

First Reading – Dt. 4:1-2, 6-8

Responsorial Psalm – Ps. 15:2-3, 3-4, 4-5

Second Reading – Jam. 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27

Gospel Reading – Mk. 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

This Sunday, after having heard from John 6 for the last five weeks, we now return to the Gospel of Mark. In the reading from Mark for the twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary time, coupled with the Old Testament reading from the book of Deuteronomy, we learn that sometimes we just don’t learn.

What we hear from the book of Deuteronomy takes place after the Israelites have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, which was a punishment for not trusting the Lord. They are now on the plains of Moab listening to Moses give one last teaching before he dies, and they enter into the Promised Land. They are renewing the covenant first made a Mt. Sinai 40 years earlier, with the Deuteronomic covenant. Moses tells them clearly, "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it; that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you" (Deuteronomy 4:2). Did they learn from Moses? Did the add or take away from the commands of the Lord?

When we come to the Pharisees in Mark’s Gospel this is precisely what they have done, added to the Law of Moses. As Mary Healy notes in her book, The Gospel of Mark, "The law of Moses had prescribed rules for cultic purity of priests, including the washing of their hands and feet before offering sacrifices and ritual purity before eating their share of a sacrifice. These biblical rules apply only to priests serving at the altar, but the oral tradition developed by the Pharisees had extended them to govern the behavior of all Jews at all meals…" (pp. 135-136, original emphasis). The washing of hands did not have to do with hygiene, but with ritual purity.

In Mark 7:13, a verse not read in this Sunday’s reading, Jesus makes clear what the Pharisees have done, they are "…making void the word of God through the tradition which you hand on." Here he is speaking in reference to their not keeping the fourth commandment to honor their father and mother, in favor of keeping a tradition they have made up. Jesus introduced what he was going to say here by quoting Isaiah 29:13, "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain to they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men" (Mark 7:6-7). Jesus then says, "You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast to the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8). Jesus and his disciples have, on the other hand, left behind the traditions of men to hold fast to the commandment of God.

Jesus’ issue is not with tradition as such. It is with merely human traditions which make void the word of God, i.e. his commandments. The Pharisees have used their traditions to get around keeping the Ten Commandments. They are giving God lip service. They want to seem holy to everyone who sees them, but inside they have forsaken the Lord. They are hypocrites, stage actors, pretending to be something they are not.

Jesus turns their understanding of holiness and purity on its head. "There is nothing outside a man which by going into him can defile him; but the things which come out of a man are what defile him" (Mark 7:15). Exterior things cannot defile. It is what is in the heart and what comes out of the heart and lips that defile. Jesus moves them from exterior to the interior dimension of holiness and purity.

Jesus says, "What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride foolishness" (Mark 7:21-22). Though the Pharisees may appear holy and pure from the outside because they wash their hands, they are in fact unholy and impure on the inside. As Jesus will say in the Gospel of Matthew, they are like "whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness" (23:27).

One lesson for the day is that all religious practices that have an outward appearance, need to come from the heart. The outward should be a true expression of the interior dimension of the person, and his devotion to God.