God desires our hearts
(Sunday Gospel: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)
AFEW years back a video with the title “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus?” became viral. A young evangelical pastor passionately asserts that Jesus hated religion and that we should, too. If we listen to his rant, he is speaking a lot about false religion but also about a strong evangelical doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Jesus used harsh words against the establishment - the Scribes and the Pharisees but He never said that he came to abolish it. Rather He said He came to fulfill it.
In today’s gospel we hear Jesus himself speak about what is true religion. According to YOUCAT (Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church), religion can be understood generally to mean a “relationship to what is divine.” What matters to Jesus is the heart - the interior. But the Pharisees and scribes see things differently. What matters to them is the strict exterior observance of the laws rather than interior conversion of the heart. If we merely look at religion exteriorly as the observance of rules and regulations but not interiorly in our relationship with God - then we can say it is a false religion. We hear in our gospel how the Pharisees rigidly interpret and follow the rules. On the question of what is clean and unclean (holy and unholy), for Jews it is not a question of hygiene rather of worthiness to be sacrificed to God - who is holy. Certain things, animals and even some food and people are deemed unclean. Things or people become unclean when they are in contact with these objects and persons like blood, disease or non-Jews. Purification like washing of hands is required. But Jesus and his disciples did not follow these instead they publicly mixed with people the Pharisees labeled as unclean. And even ate with them without washing.
Religion is the embodiment of our relationship with Jesus. Bishop Robert Baron commented on the video I mentioned. According to him, the video is “a simplistic and radical form of evangelicalism,” based on Martin Luther’s understanding of justification. Luther believed that salvation happens only through grace accepted in faith and not through any good works. But Bishop Baron provides us with a number of biblical basis to counter Luther.
For example, in Matthew 25, salvation depends on the quality of our love towards those who are the weakest and poorest and not dependent on one’s faith alone. Further St. Paul wrote “If I have faith enough to move the mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Furthermore although Paul experienced the risen Jesus in an intensely personal moment of conversion, spoke convincingly of becoming a member of Jesus’ “mystical body,” which is the Church. The Bible does not therefore separate a person’s faith and his/her expression of that faith in love thru the Church. Jesus who protested against the hypocritical rigidity and legalism of the Pharisees said, “I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.” Jesus who threatened to tear down the Temple in Jerusalem also promised “in three days to rebuild it.”
More than ever, today Jesus challenges our idea of religion - it is more than an obligation and the mere observance of rules and laws. Rather Jesus points us to the right place of religion, the heart. In biblical language the heart is the center of the human person. In the Old Testament we are invited to “love God with all your heart.” So we are invited to love God with our whole person. It is in the heart that we decide how to relate with God and with others.
In the Hebrew tradition, the offering called korban is any of a variety of sacrificial offerings described and commanded in the Scriptures. The root of the word means “be near.” According to a Jewish rabbi, “spiritually,” korban also refers to some part of an individual’s ego, which is given up as a sacrifice to God. To be true to the root of the word, meaning to draw close, and to the common use as “the sacrifice of an animal, the worshipper can sacrifice something of this world in order to become closer to God.” It is our hearts that we must give to God. It is our hearts that God desires. Those clean hands don’t matter to God if you come before Him with unclean hearts.
This month we celebrate the Season of Creation, from September 1 to October 4, Christians around the world unite to pray and care for creation. Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical letter ‘Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home,’ “The emptier a person’s heart is, the more he or she needs to buy, own and consume.” (LS 204)
Guard you heart!