XXII Sunday in O.T.  B  (1 September 2024)

1. "This great nation is the only wise and intelligent people". The statement is found in the first reading from the book of Deuteronomy and refers to what everyone could say about Israel when it remains faithful to the Covenant. The Creator's plan is that, attracted by the example of this small people who chose themselves as the driving force of humanity, the day will come when people from every continent will ask to be part of the people of the new covenant and will be able to shout with joy that they have finally found the joy of living and living together with the one God, God of all peoples.  The biblical texts of this XXII Sunday of Ordinary Time help us to discover what is the snag, rather the obstacle to the realisation of such a divine dream.  The first reading taken from Deuteronomy (written between the 8th and 6th centuries B.C.) attributes the speech to Moses, although in truth it is many years after his death, but it is as if it is intended to repeat what he would have said at that time if he were alive. Here it is insisted that nothing be added and nothing be taken away from the Law given by God to Moses on Sinai because unfortunately the people had drifted away over time and it was urgent to reaffirm the essentials of the Jewish faith, that is, the observance of the Torah that keeps the Covenant alive over the centuries. The Covenant between Yahweh and his people has two inseparable aspects. On the one hand, God faithfully fulfilled what he had promised (a land to his people), while the same cannot be said of Israel's response. Indeed, from the moment he entered the promised land, the land of Canaan, he could not resist the temptation to abandon the one God and his precepts (mitzvot) to turn to the idols of those peoples. The Lord had given him the land for him to live in in a holy way, and the term 'holy' (Kadosh) indicates someone or something that is distinct from the rest, for good or evil, and could be translated as 'separate'. We speak of a holy land, but it would be better to say "separate land", a land given to Israel to live in in a different way, and this means at least three things. Firstly, it is a land destined to be the homeland of a people that is happy because it is faithful to its God; secondly, it is a land called to become a land of justice and peace because the people has learnt from the mouth of its God that it is not the only people in the world and that it must therefore learn to cohabit with others. From this point of view, the long biblical history of Israel can be read as a path of difficult conversion from violence to fraternal openness to others. Thirdly, the Holy Land constitutes in the divine plan the space to learn to live entirely according to the Torah. We then understand the command of the Lord: "Now, Israel, listen to the laws and regulations that I teach you, that you may put them into practice, so that you may live in and possess the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is about to give you". If this text dates back to the time of the exile in Babylon, it could be interpreted as follows: Israel would never have lost this Land if it had followed the Torah and the commands of its God, but now that it is about to re-enter it, it seeks at least this time to be faithful to what guarantees its happiness. Being faithful for Israel, however, did not appear easy and that is why the sacred author, to encourage it, invents a new argument: "hearing of all these laws", that is, seeing the life and style that animates it, the other peoples will say: "This great nation is the only wise and intelligent people". Here we hear the echo of the book of Proverbs that considers the acceptance of Wisdom (Pr 9:1-6 that we heard last 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time) the best way to learn to live. Finally, a final argument: the sweetness of life under the Covenant is the unique spiritual experience Israel was privileged to have: . "What great nation has gods so close to it, as the Lord our God is close to us whenever we call upon him?"

2. In turn, we, the baptised people, can paraphrase and repeat: "What great nation has the gods as close as the Lord is to us every time we call upon him?" This question provokes us, and to attempt an answer we must start from another word of Jesus that we find today in the gospel: "This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me by teaching doctrines that are the precepts of men". We are in the midst of a dispute with the Pharisees who rebuke his disciples for not observing the Torah. Mention is made here of the "tradition of the ancients": the word tradition repeated in verses 3 and 5 is not to be understood in a derogatory sense. On the contrary, it constitutes the richness of what the ancestors tried to teach about the divine Law and codified, in the form of precepts, the behaviour pleasing to God, concerning every smallest detail of daily life. This is why the Pharisees considered the observance of such discipline indispensable to preserve the identity of the Jewish people. Israel felt itself a "separate" nation to belong to God and therefore any contact with pagans constituted an impediment to its fidelity to the Covenant. This is why the Pharisees are indignant against Christ's disciples for going against the Law by eating without washing their hands.  Quoting the prophet Isaiah, Jesus calls them "hypocrites" and this severity of his calls them "hypocrites" and implies a fundamental problem that challenges our lives. In truth, Jesus also quotes the Scriptures that are for all the supreme reference of every choice and says: "This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me". Herein lies the problem: the faithful observance of every norm of the Law becomes a useless cult if the doctrines that are taught are reduced to human precepts, as the prophets had already declared several times (Cf. Is 29:13). Jesus says: Neglecting the commandment of God, you keep the tradition of men". Which commandment of God he is referring to, which the Pharisees and scribes trample on, Jesus does not say, but rebukes them for "having their hearts far from God". He returns often in the Gospel to this rebuke of the Lord - fighting against any exclusion made in the name of God and this is the underlying canvas of his disputes with the religious authorities. One misunderstands the divine law if one believes that to approach God one must separate oneself from other men. On the contrary, the prophets deployed every energy to make it clear that true worship pleasing to Heaven begins with respect for every human person. If we read in Leviticus: "Be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy" (19:2), let us not forget that the same God is announced by Isaiah as the God of forgiveness (Is 43) who can never lead to contempt for others. And Jesus then explains what true "purity", that is, authentic worship rendered to God, consists of. If in the biblical sense "purity" means the way of approaching God, the true purity of heart, as many prophets have repeated, is love and forgiveness, tenderness and acceptance: in a word, mercy, while the impurity that condemns in his adversaries is the hardening of the heart because it is what comes out of the human heart that makes us impure.

3. For Jesus then turns to his disciples and thus completes his teaching: For from within, that is, from the hearts of men, come forth evil intentions: impurity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and make man impure. It must be acknowledged that this is a difficult teaching to understand not only for the Pharisees, but also for us. It is, however, a lesson of life that we can only fully understand and accept because God came to dwell among us, showing by his example not to be afraid of contact with the impure beings that we are. And to encourage the disciples immediately afterwards, Jesus leaves for a region inhabited by pagans.  As in Christ's time, there is the risk of the Pharisees, which was the religious movement that arose around 135 BC out of a desire for sincere conversion. The term Pharisee means 'separate' and translates into the rejection of all political compromise and laxity in religious practice. These are two deeply felt problems and Jesus never attacks the Pharisees or refuses to talk to them, as he does with Nicodemus (Jn 3) and Simon ( Lk 7). But the pretension to the highest spiritual and religious ideal can have its pitfall: the rigour of observance can generate a conscience so centred on the pursuit of the optimum, that it despises those who do not achieve it. More profoundly, when one conceives of perfection in living exclusively and 'apart' one forgets that God's plan is to see all men united in love. If Jesus sometimes uses harsh words, it is not against the practice of the Pharisees, but he condemns those deviations concerning what is called 'Phariseeism', and no religious movement, including Christianity, is exempt from this risk.

Have a good Sunday and a happy month of September 

+Giovanni D'Ercole