Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8; James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
The Book of Deuteronomy provides this weekend’s first reading. In it, Moses presents to the people the revelation he received of God’s law. It is God’s law, revealed by God, not the invention of Moses given on the authority of Moses.
While he was a towering, indeed unsurpassed, figure in Jewish religious history, Moses was only human.
Like all humans, Moses was limited, lacked insight, knowledge and a view into the future, impaired therefore from making decisions wisely and open to missteps and their consequences.
The good news in the face of these human limitations is that God constantly and lavishly provides guidance and forgives.
“Law” here is not an arbitrary edict. It is not relative. It is not necessarily a test. Instead, it is like the “law of gravity.” It is reality. To violate God’s law introduces into life confusion or worse. So when humans behave in ways counter to God’s law, they upset things. They create the punishment that befalls them.
The Epistle of James furnishes the second reading.
Several men in the New Testament bear the name of James. Any of these men, or someone else, could have been the author of this book. But scholars today tend to think that the author was James, the foster brother of Jesus.
Reference to James as the Lord’s brother always raises questions. What about the most ancient Christian belief is that Mary always was a virgin? Was Jesus her only child? Who actually were James and the other “brothers and sisters” of the Lord mentioned in the New Testament?
The oldest thought among Christians, recorded in the centuries immediately after Christ and not at all contradicted by the Scripture, were that they were Joseph’s children from an earlier marriage. Under Jewish custom of the time, any foster siblings of Jesus legally would have been regarded as full brothers and sisters.
Maybe less likely, drawing upon other interpretations, they were the cousins of Jesus.
The older tradition influenced classical religious art, which depicted Joseph as an old man, while Mary was young. Here again, the implication in this art is that she was his second wife.
This reading insists that every good thing comes from above. Every good thing is from God.
St. Mark’s Gospel is the source of the last reading.
In this story, some bystanders notice that a few of the Lord’s disciples are careless in observing the law of Moses. It should be remembered that this law provided for virtually every circumstance a human would encounter, great or small.
Jesus replied that some gave God mere lip service or went through the motions of obedience. Instead, the Lord called for a true conversion of the heart, founded upon love for God and others, and manifesting itself in actual deeds and words.
His comments indicate that Jesus, as God the law-giver, could and did interpret the law.
Reflection
These readings repeat a theme. Theologians say that the most devastating effect of Original Sin was that it left humans convinced that they are much more self-sustaining than they are. Every generation thinks that possesses the final answers to the questions of life.
New generations come, and indeed they improve on the past, but so very often notions taken once as state-of-the-art are considered as old fashioned as the steam engine is regarded today.
In their conceit, humans have blundered much. They have brought into human history extraordinary destruction and problems, such as in the Holocaust. Into individual lives, they have brought untold instances of heartbreak and worse.
We are quite fallible, even foolhardy, but God does not leave us to our doom. His greatest gift was, and is, Jesus, the “way, the truth and the life.”
