Aneel Aranha's video: February 09 2021 Lip service - A Reflection on Mark 7:1-13

Our extra focus on accomplishing the externals should not dilute the essence of what actually matters to God. https://youtu.be/-wpd9XbqhN4 Scripture Reading: Mark 7:1-13 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly 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 human precepts as doctrines.’ You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God)— then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.” –The Gospel of the Lord. Reflection If you observe carefully, each time the Pharisees, scribes or their counterparts approached Jesus to question him, he never offered a straight answer. Obsessed as they were about maintaining external appearances, he often held up a mirror, giving them an opportunity to examine facts and find answers for themselves. Being law ‘experts’, that should have been simple for them to do, or was it? Today the mirror he held up was the fifth commandment; this is in fact the first commandment with an explicit promise attached to it. It says “Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. (See Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16, Ephesians 6:2-3) Scripture is also very clear about the consequences of disobedience to this commandment (See Proverbs 30:17, Proverbs 20:20, Exodus 21:15, 17). Now as per ancient Hebrew custom, Korban is a gift or an offering made to God and the law experts had conveniently used this to twist the fifth commandment. They altered it to mean that if an amount of money was set aside for God, it was alright not to use that money to take care of ones parents. How’s that for a twist? I recall an incident about a lady on her way to church to attend mass offered in memory of her beloved father. On the way, she encountered an elderly man who hurt himself having tripped on the sidewalk. Seeing him alone, helpless and in pain, the lady was moved with compassion; she took him to the nearest doctor to get his wound dressed, dropped him home and then rushed to church. She realized she had spent the money intended to offer in church; she also missed the mass due to the ensuing delay - feeling awful about it she broke down into tears. On listening to her story, the priest reassured her that there was no reason to cry - her dad was in fact rejoicing in heaven at her act of being a good Samaritan to someone in need; never know, that old man could have been an angel. (See Hebrews 13:2) The money could be restored, the mass would be reoffered another day, but the opportunity she got to reach out in love and service that day was priceless and irreplaceable. That is what Jesus was trying to explain to the Pharisees. We are human ‘beings’ not human ‘doings’. While external traditions and obligations are important, let’s emphasize more on the internal cleansing we need for our hearts and minds. On its own the former is mere lip service, but combined together they lead to living and loving service to our Lord and His creation. God bless you!