This people honours me with their lip

TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY (Mk 7,1-13)

The prophet Isaiah reveals all the “disappointment” of God before his vineyard. Instead of producing good grapes, it produced idolatry, immorality, injustices and crimes: “Let me now sing of my friend, my friend’s song concerning his vineyard. My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside; He spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines; Within it he built a watchtower, and hewed out a wine press. Then he looked for the crop of grapes, but what it yielded was wild grapes. Now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard: What more was there to do for my vineyard that I had not done? Why, when I looked for the crop of grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? Now, I will let you know what I mean to do to my vineyard: Take away its hedge, give it to grazing, break through its wall, let it be trampled! Yes, I will make it a ruin: it shall not be pruned or hoed, but overgrown with thorns and briers; I will command the clouds not to send rain upon it. The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his cherished plant; He looked for judgment, but see, bloodshed! for justice, but hark, the outcry!” (Is 5,1-7).

The prophet announces the Word of God, but there is no conversion to it. God waits in vain for the return of his people. But their heart is not turned towards the Lord, but towards the idols: “Since this people draws near with words only and honors me with their lips alone, though their hearts are far from me, And their reverence for me has become routine observance of the precepts of men, Therefore I will again deal with this people in surprising and wondrous fashion: The wisdom of its wise men shall perish and the understanding of its prudent men be hid. Woe to those who would hide their plans too deep for the Lord! Who work in the dark, saying, “Who sees us, or who knows us?” Your perversity is as though the potter were taken to be the clay: As though what is made should say of its maker, “He made me not!” Or the vessel should say of the potter, “He does not understand”” (Is 29,10-16). Citing the prophecy of Isaiah, Jesus reveals the total blindness of the people, which is without judgment, without intelligence, incapable of understanding that it is the Law of God that must be observed and not the tradition of men. The prophecy does not stop at the denunciation, it also opens hearts to the hope given by the conversion to the Word of Christ the Lord. Despite the moral abyss, we can be converted, we can return and we can knock again at the heart of the Father.

Now when the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 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, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on 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 questioned 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: ‘This people honours 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 tradition.” He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.’ Yet you say, ‘If a person says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”‘ (meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favour of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”

Scribes and Pharisees lead the people towards perdition. Jesus the Lord wants to lead it to reason, to think and to discern. Sound morality, which springs from obedience to the Law of the Covenant, is all for a people. When the morality of obedience to the Law falls, the Lord’s people dies. Scribes and Pharisees lead a spiritual death people. It is their failure as guides. Today the same risk, rather an even greater one is being run. Today, we too are starting to lead a spiritual death people.

Mother of God, Angels and Saints, do not allow us to reach to such a great disrepair.