KEEPING THE TRADITION OF LIFE

SUNDAY, TWENTY SECOND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Deut. 4:1-2,6-8; Ps 15:2-5; James1:17-18,21-22,27; Mk 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

Death is to put Aside the Word of God

The passage from St. James captures our theme for this Sunday's reflection. According to James, everything that comes to us from above is given to us by the heavenly Father. Because the heavenly Father is good in every ramification, what he gives us is ultimately good. Among the gifts we receive from the heavenly Father, the most perfect is his word that gives life, and the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord called the gift. “It is all that is good, everything that is perfect, which is given us from above; it comes down from the Father of all light; with him, there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change. By his own choice he made us his children by the message of the truth so that we should be a sort of first-fruits of all that he had created.” It is by the gift of his word, through which he made the whole creation, that he makes us also his children. Though we are his children by the very fact of our being his creatures, by sending us his word in a fuller sense, he has made us participate more in his own life. This is what the apostle James implies in the above passage. The message of truth, the Gospel, has given us a new life as children of God in the Son. The word of God is God, and those who receive the fuller revelation of his word are ushered into a deeper communion in the life of the Father.

In the incarnation of his Son Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, God the Father has invited all humanity to participate in the banquet of life without restriction. The only hindrance is the one we individually and collectively put for ourselves. To guard against this self or communal hindrance to participation in the fullness of God’s life, St. James admonishes us to accept and submit to the word of God. “Accept and submit to the word which has been planted in you and can save your soul. But you must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves.” It is not enough to listen to the word of God, we must also meditate and contemplate the word, to digest and be assimilated into the truth. The same requirement was put before the people of Israel by God through Moses when he led them out of bondage in Egypt. They were required to listen to the laws and customs the Lord gave them to have life and possess the Promised Land of Canaan. The first references are physical or temporal life and the Land of Canaan. But the Commandment given to them was a doorway to immortality and possession of heaven. The word of God confers immortality by bringing God into our hearts. As Moses noted, people will exclaim when they know the gift they have received. “No other people is as wise and prudent as this great nation.”

Our Lord confirmed that the Commandment introduces immortality into our lives when we keep them in the conversation between him and the rich young man. When he demanded from our Lord how to possess eternal life, he directed him to keep the Commandment. Hence, the way to immortality or to live the life of God is open before us in the Commandment of God. Thus, the Psalmist says that those who dwell on the mountain of the Lord live according to the demands of the Commandment of God. “Lord, who shall dwell on your holy mountain? He who walks without fault; he who acts with justice and speaks the truth from his heart; he does not slander with his tongue.” No one can speak the truth often and always if he does not first fill his mind and heart with the word of God. Hence, the Psalmist says such a person must speak the truth from his heart, to connote constancy or a habitual act. If it is from the heart, it is spoken from the love of the One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.    

Subsequently, to live and speak the truth habitually is to live on the holy mountain of God. The sacred mountain of God is no other than the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the fullness of the revelation of God the Father. To keep his company is to eat of the banquet of divine life and truth. Hence, he answered the prayer of the rich young man by instructing him to sell everything he owned and follow him. The things he owned were keeping him away from the presence of Truth, and making him walk the way of death. The way of death is to live away from the word of God. The Pharisees and scribes made a habit of walking the way of death, which they passed on as a tradition; for they consistently put aside the word of God to do their own thing. They wanted to make Jesus and his disciples keep their evil traditions. “Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?” The response Jesus gave them is very crucial for us. “You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.” It is because we follow the Pharisees and scribes in this practice that we do not fully participate in the life of God. By putting aside the word of God for men’s tradition, we walk the path that leads to darkness and death and abandon the way to life. This is why our hearts are full of fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, and folly. Let us fill our hearts with the word of God and eat of the banquet of divine life.

Let us pray: God of might, giver of every good gift, put into our hearts the love of your name, so that, by deepening our sense of reverence, you may nurture in us what is good and, by your watchful care, keep safe what you have nurtured.