Homily for Tuesday, 19 January 2021– Ferial

Readings of the day: Hebrews 6:10-20; Psalm 111:1-2, 4-5, 9, 10c; Mark 2:23-28

Tuesday of the 2nd week in Ordinary Time

One of the many points of wisdom that my novice master has handed on to me since my novitiate year was to ask myself what my most absolute convictions are, especially on more contentious issues, and on which issues or personal or faith convictions I would allow a bit (or a lot) more leeway. And when I determine what my most absolute convictions are, I still need to exercise due charity toward other people who may not share the same absolute convictions that I do, culpably or not: Be prepared to listen; to ask questions aimed at a better mutual understanding of truth and not questions “baited” with my own agenda, and so on.

Could we not say that, in the Church as in the secular world, all truths, teachings, or convictions are not created equal, so to speak? In the Church, the truths we hold to be the most directly divinely revealed, those more absolute truths and convictions, we call dogmas or definitive doctrines. Only a small proportion of our Church’s teachings and convictions belong to this category of what is essential for our faith.

So, in today’s Gospel, what did the Pharisees consider to be the essential tenets or convictions of their faith? On the surface, the heart of their complaint against Jesus and his disciples seems to be their breach of the Sabbath law. After all, Jesus’ final retort to the Pharisees today is that “the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.” But if the Sabbath law were at the heart of the controversy in today’s Gospel, then why were the Pharisees conveniently on scene to complain about Jesus’ disciples making a path “through the grain fields [and plucking] heads of grain”? By some interpretations of Jewish Law at the time, the Pharisees would have been doing work, therefore violating the Sabbath themselves, by having walked far enough from home to notice Jesus’ disciples making a path through the grain fields.

The Gospel passage we hear today is nestled within a series of similar controversy events in Mark involving Jesus or his disciples versus the Pharisees, so something a bit more complex and probably sinister is happening in today’s Gospel than the Pharisees simply complaining that Jesus’ disciples were violating the Sabbath.

Once again, Mark shows the Pharisees going out of their way to bait Jesus into excusing his or his disciples’ violations of Jewish Law that to them were an inexcusable breach of their essential convictions. Maybe we could say that they were an inexcusable breach if somebody other than the Pharisees were doing the breaching! Anyway, their essential convictions do not correspond with Jesus’ most essential conviction that meeting basic human need—feeding the hungry, for example—is more important than laws governing the Sabbath.

Here again, we have what Vatican II would call “a hierarchy of truths”: What are our most absolute, essential convictions? To which rules, religious or civil, are we willing to make exceptions, for ourselves or other people, and why? How willing are we to exercise charity toward people (even when they are in error and our truth is worth defending) who do not share our most absolute convictions? Maybe the Pharisees; maybe everybody could benefit from a figure like my novice master to invite us to keep these questions in mind.

Homily for Saturday, 3 September 2016– Feast of St. Gregory the Great

Saturday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: 1 Corinthians 4:6b-15; Psalm 145:16-18, 19-20, 21; Luke 6:1-5

What is the purpose and meaning of the Sabbath? For the Pharisees of Jesus’ time and indeed for any faithful Jew, the Sabbath meant a day of rest from any and all work. This is why, in the Gospel reading we hear today, the Pharisees become angry at Jesus and his disciples for “picking… heads of grain” from the fields, “rubbing them in their hands, and eating them.” Jesus’ disciples had been doing work.

This concern among devout Jews about not working on the Sabbath day may seem foreign to our culture in which many people work and many workplaces and businesses are open on Sundays. But the Sabbath rest is not simply some practice of the distant past. I was reminded of this when I visited the Holy Land three years ago. In multi-storey buildings in Tel Aviv, where our pilgrimage stayed for a few nights, there are so-called “Sabbath elevators” that stop automatically on every floor. There is no need to push a button to stop the elevator on the desired floor; this would be considered doing work.

I am not trying to criticize either cultural practice: A more relaxed attitude toward work on Sundays here or the “Sabbath elevators” in the Holy Land. And yet, in our Gospel, Jesus calls us beyond the mere question of whether or not to work on the Sabbath, to question more deeply the motivation behind our actions. If we choose to keep the Sabbath day by not working this is well and good. If, as Christians,  we choose to go to Mass on Sundays as our way of keeping the Commandment to “keep holy the Sabbath day,” or not to shop on Sundays, or other practices, these, too, are excellent and to be encouraged.

But the purpose and meaning of our Sabbath; our worship once a week or more, is deeper than simply not working or gathering to worship one day a week. All our work and our worship, even on days that are not Sunday or the Sabbath, are to be oriented toward service to God by serving one another, especially people in any kind of need. Jesus is clear about this by his reminder to the Pharisees that King David once served the hungry people of Israel “the bread of offering” that “only the priests could lawfully eat” or even touch. Meeting human need is greater than slavishness to laws. The commandment to “keep holy the Sabbath Day” has an ethical component; it is meant to free us for service,  justice, and mercy toward one another, not simply to forbid us to work for one day each week.

Pope St. Gregory the Great,  whose feast we celebrate today, also reminds us of this greater purpose of the Sabbath day; of any human labor;  of our worship. In a homily, St. Gregory says that “when we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs… We are performing a debt of justice.” And so our service; our works of justice and mercy;  our meeting of human need are the true meaning and purpose of the Sabbath day. Our service; our works of justice and mercy;  our meeting of human need ultimately point us toward God; toward “the Son of Man [who] is Lord of the Sabbath.”

Homily for Friday, 18 July 2014– Ferial

Friday of the 15th week in Ordinary Time

Optional Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis

Readings of the day: Isaiah 38:1-6; Responsorial Canticle: Isaiah 38:10, 11, 12abcd, 16; Matthew 12:1-8

Have any of us ever acted in a way we knew was against a rule? Rules, laws, commandments, and guidelines are meant to establish and maintain social order. Ideally, in the case of our Church’s laws, they are meant to bring us closer to God. Laws or rules, then, are not meant to be broken without good reason. And yet, in the Gospel reading today, does not Jesus quite boldly condone his disciples’ breaking of the law not to work on the Sabbath? Clearly, the Pharisees take exception to Jesus’ permissive attitude toward his disciples’ picking of “heads of grain” and eating them on the Sabbath.

The Pharisees’ main responsibility during the time of Jesus was to defend and interpret the Jewish Law, the Law of Moses. Most Pharisees were just people. They were even considered to be a more liberal group of Jewish leaders than the priests who administered the Temple in Jerusalem. Here, though, some Pharisees criticize Jesus for allowing his disciples to break the Sabbath.

Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ criticism is a humanitarian one: Are there not exceptions to the Sabbath in times of human need, such as hunger? The punch line of Jesus’ argument against the Pharisees is memorable: “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” When David “and his companions were hungry,” David broke the law against feeding themselves from “the bread of the offering” on the Sabbath. The priests of the Temple in Jesus’ time were routinely exempt by their service from the Sabbath rule against work.

Jesus breaks the rule against “unlawful” work on the Sabbath, but for good reason: Jesus himself is “Lord of the Sabbath.” Jesus’ reason for breaking this rule and allowing his disciples to do the same is not so much because he is God as because he is human. Jesus understands intimately what it means to be human; to experience the urgent need for food, both physical and spiritual. In this context of his intimate knowledge of human need; of his full humanity, Jesus shows us that urgent human need can be an exception to important rules, in this case that of the Sabbath fast from work.

Neither Jesus nor our Gospel reading condone disregard for laws, rules, or commandments, whether civil or of the Church. Rules are generally meant to be kept, although there are exceptions that we are occasionally called to discern thoughtfully and prayerfully. Will breaking a rule lead us and others closer or farther away from God (as is usually, but not always, the case)? Would breaking a rule, in exceptional cases, better satisfy an urgent human need than obeying it? Who or what rules over us: God or a rule or law? 

Laws like the Sabbath fast are meant to draw us to God. And yet these laws, we are reminded in today’s Gospel reading, are not gods. Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, “is Lord of the Sabbath.”