The gospel For Tuesday, the fifth week in Ordinary Time is taken from Mark 7:13. 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, hands keeping the tradition of the elders and 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 question him, why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but instead eat a meal with unclean hands? He responded, well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites? As it is written, the people honor 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 traditions.

He went on to say, how well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition. For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, if someone says to father or mother, any support you may have had from me is Gorban, meaning dedicated to God. You allow him to do nothing more for his father or for mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.

There’s always a shadow to everything. In the shadow of so many religions is that they put in the place of the core message of God, a message of forgiveness and compassion and healing for their practices. And the practices seem at times to take over and give them the permission to be judgmental, narrow minded, closed off. Nothing is more important in the kingdom of God than compassion, understanding, grace. And these are not things that come across because you wash your hands or don’t wash your hands. They come across only when a heart is touched by God and becomes like him.

Closing prayer Father, give us a mind and a heart that is open to what is truly essential. You’ve preached a message consistently of mercy, compassion, forgiveness. And yet at times we put other things in place of those that keep us distant and judgmental and demanding. Help us to grow out of a religion that robs us of our freedom and most especially that might rob us of of our peace. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.