Message of Abbot Paul - Tuesday 8th February
Message from Fr Paul for Tuesday, 8th February 2022
Many primitive norms of hygiene gradually came to be included in the expanded Law of Moses as found in the Pentateuch and eventually ended up as rules and customs that had to be obeyed under pain of sin. The scribes and Pharisees were particularly keen on these laws, but not for the purpose of hygiene and caring for public health, but rather to keep the people enslaved under their control. This is why Jesus, in today’s Gospel from Mark, (Mk 7: 1-13), criticises them for paying lip service to the Law of God. Mark explains some of these laws, which the disciples of Jesus appear not to observe to the letter. “The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered round Jesus, and they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them. For the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on returning from the market place, they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are also many other observances which have been handed down to them concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes. So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’” It’s not that the disciples did not wash their hands and were a danger to public health, rather that they did not fulfil the prescribed ritual of washing the arms up to the elbows before eating or, after coming in from market, sprinkling themselves with water. In a way, it’s much easier to have a religion made up of rituals and minor religious rites, than one that goes in for repentance, conversion and the practice of fundamental virtues such as faith, hope, love, patience, kindness, justice and so on. That is precisely Jesus’ quarrel with the scribes and Pharisees. He quotes the Prophet Isaiah in his reply to them.
“He answered, ‘It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture:
This people honours me only with lip-service,
while their hearts are far from me.
The worship they offer me is worthless,
the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.
You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.’ And he said to them, ‘How ingeniously you get round the commandment of God in order to preserve your own tradition! For Moses said: Do your duty to your father and your mother, and, anyone who curses father or mother must be put to death. But you say, “If a man says to his father or mother: Anything I have that I might have used to help you is Corban (that is, dedicated to God), then he is forbidden from that moment to do anything for his father or mother.” In this way you make God’s word null and void for the sake of your tradition which you have handed down. And you do many other things like this.’” The scribes and Pharisees are obsessed with minutiae and ignore or even reject what lies at the very heart of the Law, God’s justice as exemplified in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. They put aside God’s law but observe human traditions, which might have their origins in the Law, but now are a misinterpretation of God’s will for his people. There have been times when the Church has appeared to do this too. It is not difficult to become a Pharisaic Church, which reduces the Christian faith to the observance of minutiae to the sad neglect of what is truly important and fundamental. We ask forgiveness for the times when this has happened and of the faithful whom this has damaged, and we pray that it will never happen again, let alone in our own time.
