August 04, 2020

Defilement Comes From Your Mouth, Not From Your Hand



Matthew 15:1-2,10-14 for Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time.

 

As we heard in yesterday’s Gospel, Christ is now at Gennesaret, on the shore of the lake in the land of Galilee.

Today, Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem in the land of Judea, a walk of two or three days away, have come to demand of Christ why his disciples break the old tradition by not washing their hands before they eat, thereby defiling themselves.

But before answering the Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes, Christ first called over the local Galilean crowd.

He made sure the Galileans heard his answer that offended the Judean Pharisees, namely that one defiles oneself by what comes out of one’s mouth.

You and I own up to that at the beginning of Mass, when we say aloud to God and to each other:

... I have greatly sinned,

in my thoughts and in my WORDS,

in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,

... through my most grievous fault.

Elsewhere in his Gospel, Christ says our mouths show whatever evil is within us.

So how do we avoid defiling ourselves?

We need to prudence to open our eyes to seek, know, and name right and wrong.

We need to ask in all things and every moment:

Does this give glory to God?

Does this serve the true good of my neighbor?

Does this serve my own true good?

Then, we need to choose to obey based on what we have come to know as good or bad.

By so doing, we let Christ’s heavenly Father plant us.

Otherwise, as Christ says today, we will be uprooted, and end up at the bottom of a pit.

Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.

Let them alone [the Pharisees and scribes];

they are blind guides of the blind.

If a blind man leads a blind man,

both will fall into a pit.

We have a sharp-eyed guide in the person of Christ.

He is food and drink for what we do with our bodies, feelings, minds, and wills.

In his Eucharist, he gives glory to his heavenly Father.

In his Eucharist, he is the true good of our neighbors and us.

Giving himself to us in his Eucharist, he tells us: Do this in memory of me.

Having received him in his Eucharist, do we then go on to reveal and do what we have received?

Do our thoughts, words, and deeds show that we have the Body and Blood of Christ within us?

Do we serve God’s glory and the true good of others?

Such service is ultimately for our own life and joy, for Christ speaks today of such service as our being PLANTED by his heavenly Father.

PLANTED!

After making the human race, the first thing God did was PLANT a garden to serve as our peaceful home of living and joyous communion with him.

God wants to see us planted there forever.

His Eucharist offers us the reality, the power, and the opportunity.

The choice is ours in every thought, word, and deed.

 

Turn. Love. Repeat.