9/1/2103 – 22nd Sunday in Ordinary time – Luke 14:1, 7-14

         What's striking about Jesus' mission & ministry is that he never passes up an opportunity to teach us, especially in the ordinary, everyday moments of our lives. In today's Gospel, as Jesus is invited to dinner at the home of an influential Pharisee, he uses this gathering to teach us about how we should be in relationship with God and with each other. Like many of Jesus' teachings, we can apply so much from this simple parable to our own daily lives.

         Jesus tells us, not only should we be the kind of host who invites the poor and outcasts to share a meal, but when we are guests ourselves, we should display humility and grace in not automatically taking the seat of honor.  Jesus tells us: we will be repaid in God's eternal kingdom if we possess humility, if we seek to humble ourselves rather than to be exalted. 

         How we define humility is the key in understanding today’s Gospel.  I’ve recently been reading a book entitled the Six Questions of Socrates by philosopher Christopher Phillips.  The book addresses how we in the modern world define different values such as moderation, justice, the good, courage, piety, and excellence in our lives and how we live out these values.  We can approach humility in the same way that Socrates questioned the very definition of these values.  We can start by thinking how our secular world often defines success in terms of achievement, power, control, and wealth.  Humility is often seen not as a virtue in our world, but rather as a weakness that hinders us from achieving worldly success.  While many view someone who is humble as a doormat or a pushover, Jesus and the early Church saw humility as an important virtue for us to emulate in our journey of faith.

       Roberta Bondi, a Church historian from Emory University in Atlanta, sees humility as the foundational virtue upon which we should build our entire spiritual quest.  We might mistakenly believe that our spirituality is defined by the heroic acts that may happen to us on a rare occasion, but, more than likely, what truly shapes and nurtures our spirituality and our love for others are our day-to-day small acts of service, hospitality, and kindness.   We start to live the Gospel value of humility by seeing others as valuable as we ourselves are in the eyes of God. Gospel humility is a relational virtue that pertains to the way we learn to value others, no matter who they are. In our humility, we empathize with others, rather than judge them out of our own self-righteousness. 

         The word “humility” has its roots in the Latin word “humus,” which means “earth,” “ground,” or “soil.”   As God made the earth, he made us: we draw our life and our breath from that same source of all creation, from the God who made heaven and earth, from the God who loves us and who calls us his beloved. We're all a part of God's good creation. In our earthiness and our humility, we're to interact with our brothers and sisters in mutual dignity and respect, not in a way that is subservient or demeaning.

         Even though we're still in the midst of hot & humid weather here in Mississippi, we're not far away from the season of autumn, when the weather will get cooler and the leaves on the trees will start to die and fall to the ground.  The decaying leaves will bring nutrients to the soil and will nourish the beautiful azaleas and dogwoods that bloom in the spring. 

         Just as the new life of springtime won't be created if the leaves don’t fall and decay in the fall, our pride and desire to always be in control must fall away in order for us to live out a sense of Gospel holiness and humility with Jesus as our model.  As we practice humility in our lives, we will make room for the surprising ways God's graces will enfold: beyond what we can imagine and what we can expect, beyond what we can desire, as God touches our lives and helps us to reach out to others. 

         As we go about our week bombarded by so many messages and so much information, may we make time to reflect upon the Gospel message we receive in mass each Sunday. This week, let us reflect upon how we are challenged to incorporate this simple, earthy Gospel virtue of humility in our lives, especially in the ways we offer and receive hospitality in relationship to God and to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

9/2/2012 - 22nd Sunday of ordinary time – Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

         In today's Gospel, we hear about the Pharisees and scribes arguing with Jesus about the tradition of washing one's hands as a purification ritual before eating in ancient Israel.  It made me think about how important it was for me to wash my hands and to try to stay clean as a missionary, which you can imagine was quite a challenge living in the middle of a rainforest jungle.  I would always carry soap, hand cleanser, and bottled water with me in my backpack to make sure that I could wash up and have clean drinking water wherever I went.  And even though I did get sick from diseases such as malaria and Dengue fever, I managed to keep clear from stomach ailments like amoebic dysentery that could come from dirty hands or dirty drinking water.

         The back and forth amongst Jesus, the Pharisees, and the scribes in today's Gospel is not really about who has clean hands, but rather about what it means to keep God's laws.  The Pharisees and scribes were so intent with keeping the letter of God's law that they forget all about the spirit of the law.  

         As we hear Moses explain to the people of Israel the laws and that God gave them to live by, we get a sense of the wisdom behind them.  God’s laws are designed to give his people life and freedom, not to burden them or enslave them.  They come from the God of wisdom, the source of all life.  The way the Israelites are called to live by these law will help them bear fruit and to live in trust & justice, showing their neighbors that they live under the one true God. 

         If we keep in mind Moses' instructions regarding God's law, we can better understand the interaction between Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes.  The scribes and Pharisees believed that Jesus and his disciples were not respectful of the traditions of the elders.  The laws of God are one thing, but Jesus is taking exception to the rules that have been added through human traditions, such as the washing of hands, cups, jugs, and kettles, and other such purity rituals. 

         What Jesus proposed to the scribes and Pharisees about purity was very radical compared to their normal way of thinking, as he redefines purity in terms of what comes out of a person.  What Jesus is telling them is that while they are so intent in practicing the correct traditions of their religion, they ignore matters of substance in their relationships with their brothers and sisters and in their practice of justice. 

         As we see Moses explain the law to God's people, as we hear Jesus instruct the scribes and the Pharisees, we see how the law is all about the covenant between God and his people – it is about our relationship with our brothers and sisters.   Jesus does not want our hearts to foster motives or actions that hurt others or that set us apart from them, such as the theft, murder, greed, malice, and deceit that Jesus mentions in today's Gospel. 

         In a pastoral letter on Catholic social teaching entitled Economic Justice for All, the US Bishops state that the “codes of Israel reflect the norms of the covenant (between God & his people): reciprocal responsibility, mercy, and truthfulness.  They embody a life of freedom from oppression: worship of the One God, rejection of idols, mutual respect among people, care and protection for every member of the social body.  Being free and being a co-responsible community are God's intentions for us.”  Again, as the bishops state, it is our relationship with God and with others, and how we live out those relationships in love, that is at the center of God's law.  This teaching from our bishops reiterates what Jesus is teaching us in today’s Gospel.

         Like we see in the Pharisees & scribes, it is so easy for us to manipulate exterior laws and rules to feed our egos, to make us feel good about ourselves.  As Jesus tells us, quoting the prophet Isaiah, our lips can honor God, but if our hearts are elsewhere, we are not really following God's laws. 

         When I was a missionary in the jungles of Ecuador, & also when I was a Peace Corps volunteer on a small island off the coast of West Africa, I noticed how most people there, no matter what their religious belief, also believed in the existence in good and evil spirits that were in a battle against each other in our world.  They saw these spirits as a very real presence in their daily lives.  Some even sought people to give them assistance with these spirits, such as witch doctors who would invoke evil spirits through curses, and others who would lift the curses through special magic potions and rituals.  While  it can be easy for us to blame an evil spirit if our minds are overtaken by evil motives or thoughts, or if we foster envy, blasphemy, or arrogance in our hearts. Jesus tells us to look at our deeds & thoughts that come from within. It is a change of heart, it is an embrace and cultivation of God's love & commandments that will change us from within, that will have an affect on the deeds and actions that come out of us.  We can wash our hands and saucers all day long, but this will not cleanse or purify that which we foster in our hearts, in the way that the Holy Spirit can convert us and affect movement and change in our lives.  It seems so much easier to concentrate our efforts on outside actions, such as the obsession of the scribes & Pharisees to clean their hand, as well as jugs & kettles. But God calls us much more difficult work: to the cleansing of our hearts & our souls.