Homily for the 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, August 29, 2021. Gospel of St. Mark 7:1-23. Theme: It’s All Begins Inside Us
The great scientist, Albert Einstein, was once asked what he would do if he had just one hour to solve a difficult situation. He replied: “I would need 55 minutes getting to know the problem, and then I would only need just 5 minutes to come up with the solution.” In other words, once we have an accurate handle on what’s wrong, we can come up with an effective way to fix it.
As the daily news reminds us, the world is in a terribly desperate need of being fixed on both the national and international levels. Besides violence in our city streets and abuse of human rights in Afghanistan, there is also domestic discord due to heated disagreements over Covid policies, dirty politics and many other things that have us on edge these days. If we want to begin to fix these things and enjoy a time of peace and civility, then the first thing to do is to identify the root problem.
And this is precisely what Jesus does for us in today’s Gospel. He identifies the fundamental human problem as being one of an unclean (which in Bible language means sinful) heart. Jesus is pointing out that it is from the depths of our unconverted hearts that all forms of divisive and destructive living arise in the world. Whether we are talking about personal secret sins known just to us alone or social sins that spread their morally contaminating virus to others, it is our collective unclean choices that combine and give rise to a highly contagious spiritual pandemic of evil in the world. Jesus is basically telling us that all of the division, destruction and conflict infecting the world are not just random things that happen around us, rather, they are more precisely predictable things that happen because of us.
However, this worldview is not all doom and gloom. We have reason for great hope because the other side of the coin is that if the problem originates within us, then so too does the solution. If it is true that much of the evil in the world is the sum total of all our sins and selfishness, then it is equally true that we can reverse the process by intentionally producing a sum total of peace and reconciliation, of mercy and compassion. This means that by God’s grace, you and I can indeed change the trajectory of evil in the world by starting with the uncleanness that originates within our own hearts. We can begin to fix the troubles we see around us by fixing the troubles that reside within ourselves.
Now, just in case we are tempted to think that one person’s choice to change and be a leaven of goodness cannot possibly fix things and influence the world at large, let’s stop and consider a couple of real life examples.
Almost 200 years ago, the destitute poor in the slums of Paris lived without hope of a better life. Often, just to survive they had to enter asylums for the indigent or consign their children to care of orphanages. Then along comes a young college student named Frederic Ozanam who decides that he will personally go to the homes of the poor and see what he could do to help them. Because of this decision of just one man, today there are over 800,000 Vincentians, ordinary everyday people like you and me, serving the needs of the poor in just about every Catholic parish in the world.
Almost 100 years ago, people thought that alcoholism was an incurable mental disease and quite often addicts were confined to institutions. Then along came Bill WIlson, one alcoholic man who opened his heart to the power of God through a 12-Step spiritual program to freedom. Today there are over 22 million recovered addicts just in the USA alone whose sober lives have restored families and brought peace and reconciliation to once-broken lives and relationships.
Peace, reconciliation, mercy and compassion are not just going to happen out of thin air. We must labor for them and begin to do so by working on ourselves first, on the unclean things that come from within us. Now, as we all know this is not a simple and easy thing to do, and Christ knows this as well. He knows that we will start off on this road to change with hearts full of good intentions. He also knows that we will fail at times. Not a one of us can break free of sin and selfishness on our own. Not a one of us can live an unselfish life consistently without the power of God breaking into our lives and changing us from the inside out.
And so this is why Jesus has promised to remain with us always, not just in spirit but in actuality through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Through Holy Communion he comes to us, lives within us, giving us the power to love as he loves. He grants us pardon and the renewal of our hearts through the Sacrament of Confession which is essential to rooting out the uncleanness within us. He comes to us through his Word in the Scriptures which are always readily available to us. He pours out upon us the gift of the Holy Spirit who energizes us to do good and avoid evil if we just obey his voice speaking within us.
So you see, we each have the opportunity to help fix a very broken world by focusing on ourselves and reforming our lives according to the Gospel. We each have the power of God within us to say “Enough is enough!” and become instruments of peace and reconciliation within our own surroundings. So, it seems to me, that if we look at things this way, the way of Jesus, then the only thing that can stop this from happening is ourselves.
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