PROPER 17 (22) – Year B
15th Sunday after Pentecost — September 1, 2024
Gospel Lectionary Text
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
7:1 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him,
7:2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them.
7:3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders;
7:4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash, and there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups and pots and bronze kettles and beds.)
7:5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?"
7:6 He said to them, "Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;
7:7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
7:8 "You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
7:14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand:
7:15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."
7:21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder,
7:22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly.
7:23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."
Context
Welcome to the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen Jesus blur the lines between insiders and outsiders, proclaiming Himself as the bread of life and inviting everyone to His table. This week’s Gospel challenges us with the question: Who is “pure” enough to join this feast?
Jesus confronts this head-on when He faces the Pharisees and scribes who criticize His disciples for not washing their hands according to tradition. He exposes the flaw in their fixation with purity, challenging the accepted notions of what is “clean” and “unclean.” Jesus gets to the heart of the matter by shifting the emphasis from external to internal.
The poet, W.H. Auden said it this way,
"Look in your heart,
there lies the answer.
Though the heart,
like a clever conjuror or dancer
deceive us with many a curious slight
and motives like stowaways are found too late."
Jesus is inviting us to a table where grace replaces gatekeeping and love supersedes the law. How else can we get to the heart of the matter?
Question
How has purity culture impacted your capacity to give and receive love?
Reflections
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
Look In Your Heart
by W.H. Auden
"Look in your heart,
there lies the answer.
though the heart,
like a clever conjuror or dancer
deceive us with many a curious slight
and motives like stowaways are found too late."
The Place Where We Are Right
by Yehuda Amichai
From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.
The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.
But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.
Prayer
Coming soon.