Act on the Word

by Jerry Fuller, OMI

• A few years ago, Billy Graham was playing a foursome of golf with Gerald Ford, Jack Nicklaus and another professional golfer. After the eighteenth hole, a bystander asked the unnamed pro, "What was it like playing with Billy Graham?" Without warning, the golfer unleashed a spate of curses and sneered, "I don't need anyone stuffing their holiness down my throat!" "Was Billy a little rough on you out there?" asked the astonished bystander. "No," came the reply, "he really didn't say anything about God or religion. I just had a bad round."

Without a word, Billy Graham had spoken volumes. Because he is so identified with the things of God, his very presence exudes his message. The golf pro felt "crowded" by his holiness even though it was made present in an imperfect and partially sanctified human vessel. In sharp contrast to the Pharisees in today's gospel, who merely masqueraded as holy people, Graham's authentic holiness shines forth from within. These contrasting examples invite us to ask ourselves, "To which 'brand' of holiness do I aspire?" (1)

Today's readings speak about law and purity of heart. In the first reading, Moses tells the Israelites to always observe the laws God has given them. He is referring especially to the Ten Commandments. Moses says that other nations, seeing how just are such laws, will praise the God of the Jews.

Laws are good in themselves. We could not live in a society where there are no laws. But when laws become an end in themselves, they become unjust. The goal of any law is to bring us closer to God. When they drive people away from God, laws become unjust.

Jesus speaks in the gospel of just such a situation. For Jesus, laws are made for man, not men for laws. Jesus' apostles were going through a cornfield, picking ears of corn, shucking them and eating. The Jews had many laws about what you must do before you can eat anything. You had to use the right pots and pans for washing; and there was a whole ritual for washing before meals.

Before every meal and between each course, hands were washed according to a specified procedure. First, the hands were held with fingertips pointing upward and the ceremonially pure water that was poured over them had to run down to the wrist. The amount of water that was used had to be enough to fill one and a half eggshells. Then each hand had to be cleansed with the fist of the other. At this point, however, the water was rendered unclean; therefore, fresh water, again of a specified amount, had to be poured over the hands, the fingertips of which were now pointing downward. This being done, the hands were clean and the person to whom they belonged was regarded as clean or holy also. There were similarly detailed and specific regulations for washing cups, jugs, kettles and all other such vessels. (2)

Jesus tells the Pharisees that when a man is hungry, he does not have to follow all those unjust laws. Man's first concern is food to live; laws come second.

The problem with the Jewish priests is that they had taken the simple Ten Commandments and written books about them. These books grew into huge volumes called The Mishnah. Then later priests came along and wrote commentaries on The Mishnah. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for exchanging the laws of God for the laws of man. All these laws drawn up by the priests were only to inflate the priests' pride and to bring the people under their control.

Jesus quotes Isaiah who said: "This people pays me lip service but their heart is far from me. Empty is the reverence they do me because they teach as dogmas mere human precepts. You disregard God's commandment and cling to what is human tradition" (Isaiah 29:12-14).

What examples do we have today of what Jesus is speaking?

• Dr. Laura is a popular radio physiologist who is appalled by the culture of moral relativism that has pervaded our society. In her book How Could You Do That?!, Dr. Laura tells of a call from a young woman who was living with her fiancé. The young woman's future mother-in-law was insisting that the woman and her son move closer to her home. What was the problem with that? The young woman claimed to be an Orthodox Jew, and she complained that if she moved closer to her future mother-in-law's home, then she would be too far away from the synagogue. Instead of walking to Sabbath services, she would than have to drive, which would be breaking the Sabbath law. Dr. Laura couldn't get the young woman to understand the inconsistency between observing one tenet of her faith - honoring the Sabbath - but not caring if she violated another -- the prohibition against living with her fiancé out of wedlock. It's not unusual for people to espouse one thing and to do something entirely different. (3)

Pastor J. Harold McKeithen relates this experience:

• When I was a teenager, active in the youth programs of my large downtown church in Winston-Salem, I was impressed again and again at how much more open my church was to others than others were to me and my church. We were always more ready to do things with Baptists than they were to do things with us. I called a Roman Catholic priest up one day and asked if he would come and talk to us about Catholicism, and he said that his church did not permit him to give a program in a pagan place of worship. I remember calling up the minister of a fundamentalist Protestant Church to ask if he would encourage his young people to take part in an ecumenical program we were involved with and being rebuffed even more sharply that I had been by the priest.

The kind of religion that is growing in America today is the pharisaical kind, the kind that draws a clear distinction between who is kosher and who is not and that welcomes those who are and excludes those who are not. And you can certainly understand their point of view and their concern: How can you maintain your identity if you hobnob with nonconformists? How can you maintain the purity of your doctrine if you allow in people who question it? How can you maintain any standards of sexual morality if you have mixed opinions about what those standards should be?

Jesus' answer is that, if you know you are yourself a sinner, you don't worry about associating with other sinners. If you know your own doctrines are imperfect, you can listen with interest to those who question them. If you know your own moral views may be faulty, you can consider the divergent views of others.

The tradition in which I was reared [says McKeithen] and in which I still stand is one that says, "They may draw a circle to keep us out, but we will draw a larger circle that takes them in." (4)

Jesus is talking about justice in the gospel. He is saying that justice and mercy take precedence over a slavish following of rules and regulations. (See Jas. 2:13-- "For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.") Elsewhere he quoted the prophet Micah: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." " (Mt. 9:13).

Caesar Chavez said the following to religious people. He noted that, in the early days of trying to organize the poorest of the labor force, people who at that time worked for less than the minimum wage and without even minimum benefits, could not afford to hire a hall for their union meetings, and they were often refused the parish hall, even though the people asking had helped to pay for these buildings and worshiped in the church that adjoined them. Chavez felt, and many like Robert Kennedy agreed, that his cause was just; he was seeking justice for the poor to whom Jesus showed a special preference. His concluding remarks would make a good reading or meditation at the ordination of clergy or the consecration of bishops.

• "What do we want the church to do? We don't ask for more cathedrals. We don't ask for bigger churches or fine gifts. We ask for its presence with us, beside us, as Christ among us. We ask the church to sacrifice with the people for social change, for justice, and for love of brotherhood. We do not ask for words. We ask for deeds. We do not ask for paternalism, we ask for servanthood." (5)

Jesus, of course, said, "I have come, not to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10: 44-46).

St. James has forceful words to say on the subject of justice from the second reading. "Humbly welcome the word that has taken root in you, with its power to save you. Act on this word. If all you do is listen to it, you are deceiving yourselves. Looking after orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself unspotted by the world make for pure worship without stain before our God and Father" (James 1:27).

James leaves us with a vivid picture of the person in the pew who goes to church and listens to the readings and the expounding of the Word and who thinks that listening has made him/her a Christian. What this person has yet to learn is that the word that is heard in church must be lived out. This can occur only if the believer welcomes the word, lets it take root and then allows that word to prompt him/her to action. James then goes on to explain that the actions, such as caring for widows and orphans, which are prompted by the word of God, are worship in its purest form. In other words, the rituals that comprise our liturgies do not end when the last hymn is sung and the congregation departs. On the contrary, the rituals of prayer, faith, sacrifice and service must be continued so that every moment of the week and every aspect of the human experience are made holy.

• "Rabbi Israel Salanter was very scrupulous in his observance of all the six hundred and thirteen precepts prescribed by the religious code. It was his custom whenever the Passover holidays came around, to personally supervise the baking of matzos in his town. He wished to make sure that it was done according to the time-honored ritual regulations. On one such occasion, when he was confined by illness, his disciples volunteered to supervise the baking of the matzos. 'Instruct us, Rabbi,' they said. 'Tell us all the important things we have to watch out for.' 'My sons, see that the women who bake the matzos are well paid,' was the Rabbi Israel's brief reply." (6)

I think Jesus would have said that this Rabbi had his priorities lined up right.

1. R.C. Sproul, The Holiness of God (Tyndale Press, Wheaton, Ill: 19085), as quoted by Patricia Datchuk Sanchez, "The hard and challenging work of holiness," Celebration 29 (9): 401 (Celebration, 115 East Armour Boulevard, Kansas City, MO 64111-1203) Sept. 2000.
2. Ibid. 402.
3. Schlessinger, Dr. Laura. How Could You Do that?! (New York: HarperPerennial, 1996), pp. 186-187, as quoted in "When your lips are one place but your heart . , Dynamic Preaching 15 (3): 57 (Seven Worlds Corporation, 310 Simmons Road, Knoxville TN 37922) Sept. 2000.
4. J. Harold McKeithen, "A godly life," Lectionary Homiletics" 11 (10): 7 (Lectionary Homiletics, Inc., 13540 East Boundary Road, Building 2, Suite 105, Midlothian, VA 23112) Sept. 2000.
5. "Preaching commentary," Good News 27 (9): 329 (Good News, Liturgical Publications Inc., 2875 South James Drive, New Berlin, WI 53151) Sept. 2000.
6. Good News pg. 328.