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Exegesis
September 3, 2006 Twenty-second Sunday of the Year (B) Betty Jane Lillie, S.C. Dt 4:1-2, 6-8 X Ps 15:2-5 X Jas 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27 X Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
In the Book of Deuteronomy there are three great speeches that the sacred writer put into the mouth of Moses. The immediacy of the proclamation makes it applicable to the contemporary situation. We notice that Moses’ speech is in the first person. “This is the law which I set before you this day.” (Dt 4:8) This helps us to remember that the law is relevant even in our lifetime. The tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures regarded the law as a precious gift of God to his people. It spelled out for them the way to live in the covenant relationship they had with their God. This factor of their covenant was unique in the ancient world where covenants were generally made to enforce the domination of a conquering nation, whose demands for tribute and subordination were stringently one-sided. In Israel’s case their relationship with their God was a loving one that called for a loving response to the law of their God. Within our discourse there is another speech that reflects what other nations would say about Israel. They were a wise and intelligent people, and their law was just. Then the last two verses are rhetorical. What nation has gods so close as is the Lord? What nation has statutes and decrees that are as just as this whole law is? This passage from Deuteronomy has a link with the Gospel reading from Mark that also talks about the law. By the time of Jesus the religious establishment had developed laws for people to keep with regard to purification rituals and other traditions of the elders. Those were human laws which, in the minds of the leaders had come to be of more import than the law of the Lord. As Jesus put it, the people of his historical time span had come to disregard God’s commandments and to cling to human tradition. Finally, the Gospel passage turns to Jesus’ teaching to the crowds about what is really the source of evil. All the external traditions and washing rituals do not correct the internal motivations and inclinations that really defile people. These are the issues involved in God’s commandments. Among those mentioned are greed, malice, deceit, and licentiousness that lead to other vices and debauchery. God’s law is directed to the issues of the heart and the issues of the interior life, and these far transcend external rituals of purification. Our second reading comes from the letter attributed to James and reflects knowledge of the Christianity of around the end of the first century. He calls upon Christians to welcome the word that had been planted within them and to be doers of the word and not merely hearers of it. The word within us that saves our souls is a link with the interiorization of religion that is the focus of our other two readings. We can also reflect on the Psalmist’s description of the characteristics of a blameless life that call for the internalization of covenant morality. These dispositions root a person firmly in the way of the Lord. (Ps 15) Betty Jane Lillie, S.C.
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