HOMILY OF 22ND SUNDAY OR ORDINARY TIME| DR. BENNY KARUVELIL CMI| Mark 7:1-7

What does it mean to be Christian? Of course, our church activities are all part of it. But if my Christian life does not go beyond that, to a personal relation with God, we are only worshiping him with our lips, and not with our hearts, says Jesus today. And we are reminded that the essence of true religion is to know and love God; to understand the spirit of His laws; to recognize His presence in our neighbors and to do them loving service.
On this 22nd Sunday of Ordinary time, we are back to St. Mark’s gospel, after 5 weeks, when we were with St.John, explaining the miracle of the multiplication of loaves, which St. Mark also gives. But unlike Mark, John helped us in understanding its deeper meaning, that it was Jesus’ teaching on the Holy Eucharist, where he is truly present. Now, St.Mark will take us through the rest of the Liturgical year.
Today’s passage begins with a dispute between Jesus and the leaders, about the observance of the “traditions of the elders” and it is followed by Jesus’ teaching that true religion is a matter of a heart to heart relation with god, and loving service to the people and hence it is much more than external rituals and performances. And he criticises the leaders, who focussed only on the external rituals with the words of prophet Isaiah that ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
The pharisees and some scribes, who were keenly watching Jesus, saw that some of his disciples were not following the ritual washing of hands, as prescribed by the “traditions of the elders.” They said, “Why is it that your disciples, do not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands.” I am sure, Jesus knew it. But instead of agreeing with the scribes, or rebuking the disciples, he supports them and criticizes those leaders for neglecting the true spirit of religion and the laws of Moses, but only holding on the man-made traditions, which only suppresses the people.
The tradition of the elders, referred to the oral tradition of the jews. Initially, the Torah or the first five books of the bible, contained the god given laws and the summary of it was the 10 commandments. However, as any law would require clarity and interpretation, the 10 commandments were elaborated and simplified into 613 practical commandments, 365 of them prohibitions, what not to do and 248 of them prescriptions, what one must do. Though one would expect the 613 laws to cover all practical affairs of the daily life, still there came up a number of matters that still needed precision. And this is where the oral “tradition of the elders” or what was known in the beginning as the oral Torah, began to take shape, which was not yet written down during the time of Jesus, until AD 200 and it is known as the Mishnah. But the pharisees and the scribes were so keen to practise them all. But what went wrong was that in their overconcern for these traditions, they had actually side-lined the spirit of the ten commandments. For example, the same chapter 7, verse 10 onwards Jesus tells them, “Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die’; but you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me, is Corban’ (that is, given to God) then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother.” And verse 13 says, “thus you make void the word of God through your tradition.” This is why Jesus was against them.