Unimportant Things

Gospel: Mark 7: 1-13

Here is an experiment: spend a month or so observing the concerns and preoccupations of church meetings and happenings at any given congregation.  Make note of budget expenditures, bulletin announcements, events, etc.  Then, in the next month read the four Gospels and see how Jesus spends his time and energy, what he tells his disciples to do, and what his primary concerns were.  The comparison is quite striking.

We have invented all sorts of religious activities and requirements that have nothing at all to do with the Gospel precisely because we do not want to do what Jesus does in the Gospels.  We would rather create a suburban religion preoccupied with first world problems than care for the poor and sick, eat with those different from us, and help others overcome their demons.  We create sanitized ministries, anoint them as normative, and regard as lesser, peripheral, and certainly optional all those things Jesus actually did.  

As we reflect on today's Gospel, we are apt to condemn the Pharisees for their preference for the unimportant as a replacement for what is essential.  But look around and note that we have done the very same thing in every time and place.  Today is the day to recommit to what is truly important and rid ourselves of what is in reality an escape from the Gospel and its priorities.