22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time– Year B
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8; Psalm 15:2-3, 3-4, 4-5; James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Earlier this week, a friend of mine told me about an article she was reading that
described an event at a Catholic cathedral in Indiana.
As intriguing as the piece itself was, what proved to be even more engaging
during my conversation with this friend
was one of the comments a reader of the article posted on the Internet.
It consisted of a mere three words: “Religion ruins lives.”
My initial reaction, you will not be surprised to learn,
was to dismiss the statement.
“Religion saves lives,” I said, “or at least it should.”
I mean, I could get on board with “Religion can ruin lives,” or even better,
“Perversions of religion ruin lives,”
but the plain, ham-handed “Religion ruins lives” was just too much for me.
My friend pressed me a bit, however, and before long,
I started to think more seriously about
the foot that religion puts forward in our world.
What conclusion would someone ignorant of all the subtleties and complexities of religion
draw from a simple look at how religion manifests itself today?
If this person read The New York Times this past month,
I dare say that “Religion ruins lives” could sound like a tame assessment.
July 31st: Jewish extremists were suspected in a firebombing
that killed an 18 month-old Palestinian boy and his father,
critically wounding the boy’s mother and brother.1
th
August 13 : the Times ran a lengthy piece entitled “ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape,”
an article that quoted a man who claimed,
“The Quran not only gave him the right to rape [a non-Muslim] –
it condoned and encouraged it.”2
August 26th: a man murdered two journalists in Roanoke, VA,
and before he took his own life, he wrote a message that said, in part,
“Jehovah had told him to act.”3
This is a sampling from only the last month, in only one country, from only one newspaper.
We could go to other months throughout history, to other countries, to other newspapers.
We would find stories of stunning atrocities committed in the name of religion;
we would also find stories of religious commitments motivating people
1
Cf., The New York Times, “Israel Cracks Down on Jewish Extremists with New Arrests,” 9
August 2015.
2
Ibid., “ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape,” 13 August 2015.
3
Ibid., “Ex-Broadcaster Kills 2 on Air in Virginia Shooting; Takes Own Life,” 26 August 2015.
to bring about profound good,
to engage in deep learning,
to change the world for the better.
We would find a millennia-long interplay of evidence suggesting that religion can ruin lives,
and other evidence suggesting that religion can save lives.
Today’s three readings throw themselves into this interplay,
each offering us guidance on what true religion looks like,
the sort of religion that all believers of goodwill –
Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and so forth – aspire to practice.
Moses’ words in Deuteronomy urge the Israelites
“to hear the statutes and decrees” (Deut. 4:1)
of the Law, of Torah,
and to live their lives in harmony with that Law.
That word “torah” comes from the Hebrew verb yarah, which,
in one of its forms, means “to throw.”
Sometimes, the law, or the teachings, or the doctrine of a religion
can feel like a leash thrown around us, tied off to a post, perhaps,
allowing us to wander only so far before yanking us back.
But I think a richer interpretation of this word, of “torah,”
would have it be a line that is thrown to us,
much like a rope could be thrown to someone
who is falling to injury or even death.
For Moses and Israel, listening to and obeying the Law caused them to flourish,
not to be confined or become mindless.
So too with true religion: it empowers people, buoys them, lets them flourish.
In our epistle, James writes,
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this:
to care for orphans and widows in their affliction
and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (Jas. 1:27).
This is no pie-in-the-sky credo of a do-gooder.
James insists that his community align themselves with people who are marginalized,
who are not able to pay back the kindnesses shown them.
And he insists this because he knows that his world –
and how true it is of our world too –
chews up and spits out such people every day.
Once again, The New York Times, August 27th:
71 migrants found dead in the back of a truck in Austria;
later that same day, about 150 migrants drowned off the coast of Libya.4
True religion has a preference for those
4
_____, “Grim Findings in Austria and at Sea Push Migrant Crisis Into Public View,” 28
August 2015.
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whom the world prefers to ignore.
And in the gospel reading, Jesus chides those who mistake purity laws for ends,
arguing instead that they are means
for cultivating a relationship with God and the community.
He says, “You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition” (Mk. 7:8),
and in so doing, he identifies the fundamental sin described by the scriptures
over and over again:
idolatry, straitjacketing God into our categories,
assuming that all and only those things we think are important
are, in fact, what God thinks important.
True religion casts aside idols, listens for the soft voice of the Spirit,
and follows boldly wherever it leads.
What Moses, James, and Jesus offer us are not criteria to evaluate
Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and any other religion that comes to mind,
in order to determine which is best.
They offer us ways to look inwardly, at our appropriation of our religious convictions,
and to see how we are doing:
as Catholics, or, if you are not Catholic, whatever religion you call your own,
do we empower people, buoy them, let them flourish;
do we have a preference for those whom the world prefers to ignore;
do we cast aside idols, listen for God’s Spirit, and follow where it leads?
Whether we have answered “yes” to these questions, or “no” to them,
or some mixture of both,
let us pray that the Eucharist we celebrate together would nourish us
to embrace and live religion truly.
3