Empty Rituals

Gospel: Matthew 15: 1-2, 10-14

This Gospel passage seems strange to us as we are accustomed to washing hands before meals for hygiene purposes.  Yet, the ritual washings in Judaism have nothing to do with physical cleanliness.  The rituals had to do with interior purity of intention and judgment before God.  The practice, however, became a mere formalism and few knew and internalized the meaning of the ritual.  In fact, the objection of the Pharisees here is that the disciples don't follow the tradition, nothing more.  The meaning is utterly lost.

We ourselves have many such rubrics that most have forgotten and have become empty gestures devoid of meaning.  Take, for example, the practice of dipping one's hand in holy water and signing oneself upon entering a church or even one's home.  Few know that this practice is designed to be a reminder of one's baptism and a recommitment to our baptismal promises.  Yet, how many people just perform the action of of mindless habit, or have invented all sorts of nonsense about its meaning.  

The warning Jesus gives of rituals and their defenders of his day apply in our own.  If one is to partake of the ritual, know and enter into its meaning.  Jesus invites us not to abandon ritual as much as being conscious of its meaning and appropriating that meaning into the lives we live.  How often the hardest of hearts are those so fastidious and rigid about ritual and external practice but neglect the inner meaning that is designed to transform the heart of a person, to illuminate and divinize our negligible love into an ever expansive heart open to all. 

Adrift at Sea

Gospel: Matthew 14: 22-36

After feeding the large crowd, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and go to the other side of the sea.  There, Jesus leaves the boat and goes up the mountain to be alone with God.  Meanwhile the disciples remain out on the sea between the crowd on one side and Jesus on the other.  The sea grew unsettled and the disciples grew nervous and on edge in the night.  Consider this as our condition and status all so often as ones claiming to be disciples of Jesus.

In the midst of the the darkness and turmoil, Jesus comes across the water to assure his disciples that all is well.  Instead, they grow more afraid, seeing him as a ghost and not real.  Peter then gets the courage to accept Jesus' invitation and walk out on the sea toward him, and for a brief moment he succeeds.  But then a gust of wind comes, the slightest of distractions and discomforts, and he once again falters, sinking into the sea, focused more on it than the Lord.

We hear so much about the "crisis" in the Church and in the world.  It is the constant perseveration of rival camps who use the "crisis" to their political and financial advantage.  But, like this Gospel scene, the "crisis" is of our own making.  Had we joined the Lord on the mountain we would be at peace.  Had we focused on him at the boat all would be well.  But we do not because, in a perverse way, we prefer the "crisis", we prefer being adrift at sea.  Today, however, is a day for us to prefer the peace of the Lord.

All Are Served Here

Gospel:  Matthew 14: 13-21

The Gospels always present at least two possible paths to follow in every scenario.  There is the path of the disciples and others who continually look for reasons not to do something, not to help another.  In today's Gospel portion they tell Jesus that the crowd is just too large, that they cannot go to the village for food as it is too far, that they just do not have enough provisions to care for everyone.  Here, the modern disciples would create conditions of exclusion - the worthy poor, illegals - in order to limit care to others.

But then there is the path of Jesus, who always finds a way to help others without qualification or discrimination.  Here, he challenges the disciples - go to the village, feed them yourselves.  Each solution offered by the Lord is met with an objection.  Yet, Jesus provides for everyone.  No litmus tests, no checking for lawful status, no worthiness criteria.  He just feeds everyone simply because they are hungry, much like the invitation of the prophet in the first reading from Isaiah 55.  

Christians love to call themselves disciples of the Lord Jesus, as if that title is a positive thing, as if that is our goal in the spiritual life.  In the Gospels the path of the disciple is the one that leads away from the cross; it is not a positive connotation.  For the Gospels are not about being a disciple, but rather about being the Lord in all we do.  Today we are challenged to be the Lord Jesus in our service and care for others in the world.