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22 Ordinary Time – B
No. 13
Dt 4:1-2, 6-8, Js 1:17-18, 21-22,27 Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23
Fr. Carl McCarthy
September 3, 2006
We can be serious creatures of habit. We get up at the same time every
day, eat the same thing for breakfast, drive the same way to work
everyday, fix our hair the same way, shop at the same stores, watch the
same TV shows, and use the same toothpaste on our toothbrush when we get
ready for bed at night. Then the next day, we get up and repeat these
habits all over again. And heaven forbid something were to interfere
with our routine. It would not be a good day!
A story is told of a
church where no one ever sat in the fifth pew. Parishioners would sit on
folding chairs in the back of the church rather then sit in that pew.
If visitors unknowingly sat in the forbidden pew, an usher would
politely ask them to find another seat.
Everyone in the
church knew that no one must ever sit in the fifth pew. But no one knew
why. It looked the same as all the other pews. It was cleaned and
refinished with all the others, and it was as structurally sound as the
others. There was nothing obviously wrong with the pew.
All kinds of theories
and legends were told about that pew. One teacher scared the kids
in the church by saying that t he
devil sat in that pew, asking “you don’t want to sit by the devil, do
you?” Another teacher told the children that this pew was reserved for
Jesus, cautioning them that “you don’t want to take His seat.” One story
claimed that a parishioner had actually died during a Sunday Mass in
that pew. And another story explained that the wood from which the
pew was constructed came from a holy site, and no one wanted to damage
that pew. But when it came right down to it, no one really knew
why you could not sit in the pew. Even when the church started to grow,
and the eight seats could have been put to good use, no one ever sat
there.
Finally, a new priest
came to the parish, and he decided to get to the bottom of the mystery
surrounding this pew. After a few hours of looking through parish
records, he came across a journal, kept by a priest some 50 years
earlier, and in it he read: “The parish does not have enough money to
fix the leaky roof at this time. I have instructed the men to put a
quilt and some tarpaper over the 5th pew to protect it. A
bucket has been placed in it to catch the water.”
We can become so
absorbed with our routines that we can forget why we do them. Our lives
quickly can become routine, and we can lose the heart for what we do.
This is exactly what
happened to the Pharisees; they were obsessed with the details of
keeping the law, washing their face and hands before they ate, cleaning
their pots and pans, and challenging others to do the same. They had
become so entrenched in the routine performance of keeping the religious
law that their hearts were closed to the changing law of love and the
encouraging routine of mercy that Jesus Christ offered.
It can become easy
for us to get in a routine about our religious practices. We uphold the
law and hold others to the law, but we lose the heart of our faith. It
becomes a routine to come to church. We take our places in the pews; we
sit, we kneel, we stand, but we get nothing out of our actions. Maybe we
expect little from our responses to the prayer, and maybe we would
rather listen to the people around us sing than pick up a hymnal and
join in ourselves. Even our private prayer lives can become routine. We
have a routine of prayer but nothing really comes from the prayer. We
feel dry and lost in it all. Our relationships can also become routine.
Not that our relationships are broken, but they have lost their spark,
their life, and the shine is gone.
Being Church is not
performing routine actions. Being Church is in the actions of living it.
Church is not a spectator’s sport. It’s not sitting on the sidelines and
watching a football game. Church at its heart is being on that football
field and running the ball with the rest of the team. We must believe
that Christ is calling us out of the routine and into the worship of God
with integrity of heart. We must believe that Christ is calling us out
of the routine to embrace the Gospel at its heart. If you have been
stuck in a routine for awhile, ask God to lead you down a new path.
sdrose@bellsouth.net
9-12-2006
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