Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you.
Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark when the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed hands for the Pharisees. And in fact, all Jews do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of their elders.
And on coming from the marketplace, they do not eat without purifying themselves.
And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.
So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but instead eat meals with unclean hands?
He responded, well, did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites? As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God's commandment, but cling to human tradition.
He summoned the crowd again and said to them, hear me all of you, and understand.
Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person.
But the things that come out from within are what defile from within people. From their hearts come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.
All these evils come from within, and they defile the gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord.
The purpose of the christian church is to evangelize, to give people, to give the world an experience of the love of God that is so tangible, so real, that it changes the human heart.
Looking at our country and the way the christian church is right now, in all honesty, we do a terrible job of that.
And I'm going to explain why.
An easy read of the church in this country that has the most news stories, the most notoriety reminds me much more of the Pharisees and the scribes than the gospel.
Because a simple read of the church right now, it's more about pointing fingers at the faults of others than it is about proclaiming the love of God.
And you can tell whenever you hear anyone speaking on behalf of a bigger church, when they cling to obscure Old Testament verses as ways to make their argument, you rarely hear them quoting Jesus, because to quote Jesus does something a little bit different. It talks about love one another as I have loved you. It talks about, stop judging and you won't be judged. Stop condemning and you won't be condemned.
Or simply read the last judgment in Matthew's gospel to learn how we're meant to be, how we're meant to live, how we're meant to evangelize.
It isn't about pointing out faults in others. In fact, all of scripture and all of the guiding principles that are there are always meant to be. Red looking in a mirror. How am I not living up to these ideals? How am I not changing? How am I not representing Christ?
They're not meant to be used as weapons.
And that is the way, at least I read the church today. There's not much attractive about it.
Here is where we can change that, though. We can use those models of love and compassion, those models that call people not just to community, but to an experience of God's healing, mercy. And if we do that, hearts are changed, lives are changed, the world has changed.
It's not about making others feel less. It's about lifting all people up in the bountiful love of God. And if we do that, we're truly good evangelizers.
