22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B
Last Sunday, we were reminded that Service to God and Following Christ entails Hearing His word, Listening to the word we have heard - which means giving one's attention to God’s word, Understanding the word we have heard and listened to, Accepting the word we have understood and Practicing or living out the word of God we have accepted. In today’s second reading from the letter of Saint James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27, Saint James tells us to "Be doers of the word and not hearers only" thereby pointing out to us the need to live out the gospel of Christ.
Jesus in our gospel reading today from the gospel of Saint Mark Mk 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 calls out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Scribes saying “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts."
So my dear friends in Christ, what makes us hearers of the word and not doers of the word? What makes us honor God only with our lips and our hearts are far from me? There seems to be many reasons for such actions but I would like us to concentrate on three of them: Fear, Laziness and Lack of love. Fear of the world and its people have made it impossible for us to live out and proclaim the gospel of Christ in our world today. We are so worried and concerned about what people will say, think of us or respond to us that we shy away from our duty of proclaiming the gospel of Christ to the whole world. We are scared of the criticisms, ridiculing, cajoling and persecution that we might experience when living out or preaching the gospel of Christ that we have refused to be true disciples of Christ in the world. We all want to be politically correct and accepted that we have vehemently ignored answering our call to discipleship.
Laziness is another major reason why we have failed to be doers of the word and have only honored God with our lips while our hearts are far from Him. We all want to make it to heaven yet we are so lazy to work hard in our spiritual lives and make significant changes in our lives so as to come closer to God and become better disciples of His. We always have and give excuses for not persevering in our faith and belief in God but we are very willing and ready to do better in other areas of our lives that are not spiritual.
Our lack of love for God and our neighbor is another reason why we have failed to be doers of the word and have only honored God with our lips while our hearts are far from Him. We always point out our love for God yet we don’t live out that love of God in our thoughts, words and actions. How can we say we love God when are scared of preaching and proclaiming the gospel of Christ in our world? How can we say we love God when we are not working hard to grow in our faith in Him, change our lives to be better disciples of Christ and come closer to Him? How can one say they love God and at the same time hate his or her neighbor?
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is time to become doers of the word and not just hearers. It is time to honor God by living out the gospel of Christ in our world today and by proclaiming Him to the world with our lips and in our actions. It is time to have God be in our hearts to help us change our lives and come closer to Him. So let us wake up from our spiritual slumber by being courageous rather than being fearful, by being hardworking rather than being lazy and by loving God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind. Amen!
