There are two choices for the gospel reading today. The first choice is the gospel reading we just had yesterday, so it might be good to focus our attention on the second choice for the gospel reading today. It may not seem as powerful as yesterday’s gospel, but it’s beautiful in it’s own way.
The gospel today is about the Pharisees who came to see Jesus and questioned him, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands when they eat a meal.”
We should stop right there for a moment, and think about this verse. What concerned the Pharisees the most was their tradition. This is the way it’s always been done, so why was Jesus allowing his disciples to do otherwise? They found fault with him because his disciples did not wash their hands first before they ate. If you’ve ever had a strict grandmother than you can surely relate to this! But, the Pharisees did not have the disciples’ best interests at heart like our grandmothers did. They accused Jesus. Their accusation was aimed at showing everyone that Jesus didn’t follow the rules, the traditions of their faith. He broke their traditions.
Who knows why the disciples didn’t wash their hands first before they ate? Maybe they got distracted, or busy and forgot to do so? Perhaps they washed up earlier and did not feel it was necessary to wash their hands a second time. It was a minor detail that they forgot.
It wasn’t so much the hand washing, or the question that the Pharisees had, but what was in their heart when they asked it, that mattered to Jesus. A perfectly benign question turned into an accusation, because of what was in their heart. The heart matters to Jesus. It is the same when we go to communion, when we eat the Bread of Life. What is in our hearts matters to Jesus. We should never receive communion in a state of mortal sin. A good guide for this, is if we have broken one of the ten commandments. To receive the Bread of Life at communion in a state of mortal sin, is also a sacrilege.
However, many people voluntarily refrain from receiving communion because they feel they are not worthy to receive the Lord, or they do not want to receive him with the wrong disposition of heart. They want a fitting home for the Lord, the temple of their hearts. This belief is very prevalent in the Hispanic Catholic community. Sometimes a third to one half of the congregation at Mass chooses not to receive Jesus because they do not feel worthy to receive him at that time.
Back to the subject of the gospel today though, Christ’s disciples came to him after he told the crowd that it wasn’t what enters the mouth that defiles a man, but what comes out of his mouth defiles him. They told him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” Jesus said in reply:
“Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.”
This is worth stopping for a moment, to think about this line in scripture all by itself. This is the beautiful thing in the gospel today. It applies very profoundly to our lives. Everything that is of God, everything that God wills, will take place, but if something is not of God, it will fail. There is another verse in the book of Acts that goes along this same line of thought:
“I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!” ~ Acts 5:35-39
If what we or other people do is not God’s will, it will fail. If it is God’s will, then no amount of opposition will change that fact. We do not need to worry about it, if we are doing God’s will in our lives and other people do not understand our actions. It’s in God’s hands. God wrote a straight line with crooked instruments, throughout mankind’s history and only time will tell if something turns out to be God’s will. If it isn’t, then it will fail. This is what is beautiful about today’s gospel. It’s not up to us how things turn out, it’s up to God. It has been all along. We can rest confidently in His hands and not have to struggle so much, because He really is the one at work in our lives, if we have honestly tried to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey Him.
We should leave the matter in God’s hands, whatever it is that we are facing in our life right now. Our problems, worries, trials, temptations, our future and our plans. Our plans will succeed if it is God’s will, if they don’t succeed it is still ok, because in the long run we should seek to do His will and not our own.
Daily Mass Readings:
Jeremiah 30: 1-2, 12-15, 18-22 / Psalm 102 / Matthew 14: 22-36 or 15: 1-2, 10-14
