Tuesday of the 32nd Week

James 3:1-10

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 

Mark 7:5-15

At that time, the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honour your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God) — then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

Unable to find any valid grounds on which to accuse Christ, who as man was perfect in His fulfillment of the Law He had Himself given to Moses on Mount Sinai, the Pharisees and scribes accuse His disciples for not eating with washed hands, a rule found nowhere in the Torah. Christ responds by pointing out that it is the Pharisees and scribes who are guilty of breaking the Law of Moses by instead observing a number of man made rules, in this case breaking the commandment to honour your mother and father by declaring your time and money to be a qurban, an offering, to the Temple and that you can therefore rightfully deprive them of it when the time comes for you to care for them in old age. The Pharisees who had taught people to break the Law of God for the sake of the laws of men were responsible not only for their own personal sins, but for all the sins committed by others on account of their erroneous teaching. St. James accordingly warns us that "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness". 

As these words of Christ have been a stumbling block to many with respect to the Holy Tradition of the Church, we should be careful to point out that the Church has Christ as its Head and the Holy Spirit as its guide, and that just because something is not explicitly taught in the Scriptures does not mean it is a "tradition of men" to be rejected. For example, while Christ commands us in the Bible to celebrate the Eucharist in memory of Him, and gives us the so-called Words of Institution ('Take eat,' etc.) (Mt. 26:26-28; Mk. 14:22-24; Lk. 22:19-20; 1 Cor. 11:24), and tells us that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life (John 6), the rest of the Divine Liturgy, it's structure and content, cannot be found in the Scriptures, yet we would never dare to suggest that it is a man made tradition! Indeed, works like the Didache, which is actually older than some books of the New Testament, clearly prove that it goes all the way back to the Apostles. The same is true of many other things. The Holy Tradition of the Church was handed down to us from the Apostles, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and is from God, not men. Secondly, even when a tradition is man made, it only becomes problematic when it is taught as doctrine and when it conflicts with Holy Tradition, of which the Scriptures are a part.

Responding directly to the question of washed hands, Christ makes clear that "There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." In the remainder of today's Epistle reading, St. James demonstrates the power of speech to defile and corrupt a person. Just think how easily life long friendships can turn to enmity, marriages end in divorce, senseless violence break out, a person's confidence shatter, all because of words, sometimes not even spoken with malice, but thoughtlessly or in error. We should perhaps be extra careful now in an age where so much of our casual everyday communication is written down, whether it's private, through e-mails, texts and instant messaging, or public, on open chat rooms or discussion fora. While a damaging spoken word disappears as soon as it is spoken, written words remain available to be read and re-read, even by many for whom it was not originally intended, and can continue to cause harm perhaps even long after the author has passed on. With the tongue (or fingertips) "we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so."