OT 22B 2003.htm

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time
Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-8; Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Deacon Lee Hunt, St. Monica

Doing Church Changes; Core Beliefs Don’t

When I was a young boy, my parents taught me some core beliefs. One was to treat others as myself. As I grew older, a lot older, this remains one of my core beliefs. I now recognize it as one of Jesus’ two great commandments.

Since our home was between a lake and a highway, my parents gave me a guideline to stay away from both. As I grew older, this guideline changed as I began to walk to school and to fish. Guidelines change, but core beliefs do not.

The Old Testament tells us that God selected the Hebrew people as a special people to be his own. God, the Father, gave them core beliefs—the Ten Commandments.

In today’s first reading we hear Moses reminding the Hebrews to obey the statutes and decrees as told by the Father. Further, they were told to “not add to what I command you nor subtract from it.” Their core beliefs were not to change, such as the law to love God and one’s neighbor.

By the time of Jesus about 2,000 years later, the Pharisees and scribes had accepted 613 sayings of the elders all the way back to Moses. They would not accept that the traditions of the elders were secondary to core beliefs from God.

In today’s gospel, Jesus sets straight the Pharisees and scribes about eating a meal with unwashed hands. It was important to no longer follow this ritual so that the number of Jesus’ followers could increase. Mandatory washing of hands would have excluded the Gentiles, i.e., non-Jews who did not follow Hebrew rituals. By including the Gentiles, Jesus’ handful of disciples has increased to over 2 billion Christians today.

In more recent times, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council by saying, “that the task of the Council must be to find ways which the Church can present itself to the world today.” This is what God the Father wanted from the Hebrews and what Jesus wanted from his original disciples.

The Council ended in 1965 and changed the way we had done church for 450 years. Core beliefs, were not changed but some of our rituals changed and dramatically altered how we do church.

The position of the altar was changed from being against a wall to a position like this one.
The priest no longer celebrated Mass with his back to us, but faced us.
We began to celebrate the sacraments in our native language rather than in Latin.
We participated in new prayers and scriptures readings during Mass.
We were encouraged to work with other Christian churches instead of avoiding them.
The permanent diaconate was restored.

These were major changes in the ways we did church, but not in our core beliefs.

God wants to add more and more of humankind to the Body of Christ. Will there be future changes in rituals? You bet! This spring our parish made some changes in Mass called for by Rome. When we profess the Creed, we now say, “I believe” rather the “We believe.” We also began to differently handle the Eucharist at the altar during Communion time.

The future will bring more changes as the culture of the world changes. The Hispanic community will eventually be the majority here in the United States. Africa and Asia are requesting the Vatican to make liturgical changes to incorporate their cultures.

God wants everyone. Since four billion people in the world are not Christian, God will allow rituals to change so that he can continue to build up the body of Christ. Our challenge is to go with the flow and to not inhibit the work of God.