DO GOOD, AVOID EVIL.

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August 29, 2021
Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time – B.

READINGS: Dt 4:1-2, 6-8; Ps 15:2-3, 3-4, 4-5; Jas 1:17-18,21b-22, 27; Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23.

A Romanian proverb says: “The law grows of sin, and chastises it.” And a Russian proverb adds: “There is no law written for fools.”

The primary aim of every law and regulation is human life. To live however means to do what is good and avoid what is evil. In this sense, any social or legal regulation that does not find its primary end in our well-being is not only inhumane but is a bad law.

The purpose of our life, not only as Christians, but also and before all as humans, can be summarized in this our opening prayer: to love the name of God, the giver of all that is good, to deepen our sense of reverence, and to nurture and keep in our heart what is good. That is the real vocation of man. Sadly, we lose sight of that vocation when we give way to evil.

In today's first reading, Moses exhorts the children of Israel to the observance of the Law of God. From Moses' words, we learn that all the laws and customs were given by God to his people so that they may live. The law is for human life, we said. Any human society or association needs rules and regulations. Without them, we fall into what the philosophers call the "state of nature", a state without rules where the rule of one imposes itself to that of the other.

Israel, after they departed from Egypt, was getting organized little by little as a community and nation. They could never be a great nation without a fundamental law. The ten commandments thus, stand as the fundamental law of the people of God. Let us just see our nations today as that of Israel. Which position holds our constitutions and how do we refer to them? Can there be a strong nation without people obeying their constitutions?

In the state of nature, mankind is not a living but a surviving. All he does is save his life. The Divine Law, as given through Moses to the people was for their good and harmonious life as a nation. Israel, nevertheless, forgot one invective of the Law, they were to add nothing to it but only obey it. It is the interpretations and manipulations of the Law that denature it. Every law loses its essence when it is manipulated. What was aimed for the good became an enslaving object for its subjects because of the encumbrances of tradition.

Jesus in the Gospel makes a strong invective to the Scribes and the Pharisees about their interpretation of the law of purity. As we read, the Pharisees were scrupulous observers of external purity. Nonetheless, they forgot the main essence of that Law of purity, the internal, the seat of the genuine relationship with God and others. Jesus accuses them of hypocrisy. They "disregard God's commandment but cling to human tradition." What God expects of us is not our scrupulous attachment to rules, but a greater concern for what is good, that is, to avoid all kinds of evil from within: unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All that comes from our hearts and defiles us.

Rather than being mere law abiders, we are urged to be doers of good, for all that God commands is for our good. St. James in the second reading says it right. "Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves." The true religion, he says, is "to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world." As Christian, the basic rule for us should be: Do good to all, avoid evil at all cost. For it is only on this scale will God judge us and not to the extent of our legalism.

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