September 2, 2012
Tradition: Guide or Jailer?
by Paul Rooney
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23; James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27
- I hope many of you have seen the movie Fiddler on the Roof. In my opinion, it is one of the best musical stories that have ever graced the stage and screen. The setting is 1905 in Russia. It's about a good Jewish man named Tevye, his wife and five daughters, and their interaction with Jewish tradition.
Tevye is a poor milkman, so he was unable to provide a good dowry. Instead he had to rely upon the local match-maker to find husbands for his girls. That caused some problems. The oldest daughter wanted to marry the tailor, not the match-maker's pick. The second daughter accepted a marriage proposal to a radical Marxist, without even consulting her father. Then a third daughter fell in love with a Christian, and wanted to marry him. All three girls were violating Jewish tradition of those times.
Well, Daddy Tevye drew the line with the third daughter; he could not approve of a marriage with a Christian, because it would mean that his daughter would have to give up her Jewish faith. And that was seemingly an unforgiveable offense, since Tevye thought the Torah forbade such a marriage.
The Fiddler on the Roof story showed that religious traditions of the elders seemed to be more important to Tevye than the biblical commands to love and forgive his daughter. Tevye was culturally trapped in the rabbinical tradition. And that was precisely the tragedy of his story.
It is also the tragedy of our Gospel story today. The Pharisees were following through with the man-made traditions, such as precisely how to wash their food, their hands, their pots and pans, and so forth. They were quite good at keeping these so-called purity laws.
It reached the point where they couldn't even shake hands or touch a non-Jew outside the Temple, because then they would become impure and could not go into the Temple. (If you recall the Good Samaritan story, that was the reason that the Jewish Priest and the Levite passed by without helping the injured traveler; they were on the way to the Temple and could not risk becoming ritually impure.)
There is no evidence that Jesus ever violated the Jewish purity laws. But he looked beyond the well-intended habits of the Pharisees, and pointed out what was wrong: they were clinging to these human traditions, while violating the divine commandments. Jesus even quoted the Prophet Isaiah to back up his accusation.
One could also consider it a tragedy of sorts to see folks who worry about whether we as Catholics should follow certain traditions, but then those same folks pay little attention to Jesus' call to us to live the Gospel. Not that those folks are wrong in following longstanding pious practices; it is simply that those external things are not the essentials of true worship.
The last verse of the Second Reading today from St. James sums it up well. It is only through acts of love that one can demonstrate a religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father (v.27). And that means reaching out to those in need. We are called to practice the 14 spiritual and corporal works of mercy. (If you don't remember what they are, today is a good time to do some research perhaps as a family project.) If we don't reach out, then we are in the same group that Jesus calls hypocrites in the gospel. They worried about the externals and forgot about the essentials.
Jesus calls us today to be honest with our self-evaluation. What counts is cleansing our heart, not our hands. What counts is whether our prayers of love and devotion are backed up with concrete action on behalf of the "least among us". We approach the Eucharist today, trusting that we will receive the wisdom and courage to help those we encounter who are in physical or spiritual need.
(Comments to Paul at deaconpaul@cox.net.)