Losing one’s way. Not all that hard to do. You just need to stop paying attention. Don’t read the road signs. Don’t listen to your digital travel app telling you to turn. Be in the wrong lane when your interstate exit comes up. And that’s just in the world of transportation. There are lots of areas in life in which you can lose your way by just not paying attention: marriage, school, sports, career, and even one’s faith life.

In the first reading Moses is overlooking the Jordan River after 40 years of journeying in the wilderness seeking the Promised Land. 40 years of wandering because they lost their way. Not that they didn’t know what direction to go, but they stopped paying attention to God and what was required of them. The reading is taken from the Book of Deuteronomy and it is fair to say it is like an end-of-semester review of the first five books of the Bible. Moses is saying, “pay attention!” if you want to go home and keep the Promised Land.

In the second reading, St. James reminds the people of the big picture: you are already home, blessed and gifted in every way. But James also reminds them not to lose focus, to pay attention: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.” Don’t lose your way in this world. Don’t lose your home. Don’t wander back out into the wilderness.

In today’s gospel we have an example of how to lose one’s way without ever leaving home.

1300 years before Jesus’ time, while Moses was leading the people in the wilderness, the Jewish rituals and priesthood were established. There was a priestly ritual for washing one’s hands before offering sacrifices for the people to the Lord. The reason for this practice was because God is holy and nothing impure should come into into His presence. The priests, as mediators between God and the people, washed their hands and feet, a symbolic act of cleansing, signifying that they were purified and ready to perform their sacred duties. By Jesus’ time this priestly requirement was now required of lay people. There were all kinds of ritual cleansings associated with preparing the meal, eating the meal, and even one associated with the couch you sat on while eating the meal.

The Pharisees challenge Jesus, asking why his disciples do not follow the demands of Judaism regarding ritual washing. Have they lost their way, wandering far from the original intention of the symbolic act of cleansing? Makes you wonder if a whole religion can lose its way?

Loss of core values? Replaced by traditions that, like hand washing before meals, become fossilized in practice while the interior meaning/original purpose is lost? Look at the slow motion morphing of the hand washing ritual of the Pharisees. Catholicism is a religion with lots of Sacred Traditions as well as lots of “small t” traditions. Consider how we make the three-part sign before proclaiming the gospel.

If we stopped doing that before the gospel, the world would not crumble. No need to stop, but better to pause and sit with it from time to time to remind ourselves that it is a dangerous prayer and should only be done with intention and forethought.  “Lord may your most holy Word ever be in my mind, on my heart, and proclaimed on my lips….that I may always carry out your true and holy commandments .. and never lose my way to you.”  It is an individual and personal prayer, but said together it is a communal prayer that we, as a church, as a religion, will not lose its way.

The only formal definition of religion in the Bible appears in today’s reading from James. It is not an exhaustive or comprehensive definition. But it does provide a starting point for reflecting on what the biblical tradition understands to be true religion. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (Jas 1:27) – and our readings today, as a whole, help fill in some of the reflection.

The Catholic scholar, Fr. Daniel J. Harrington offers that our reading carry give five road signs to help us on the way:

• Closeness to God, or rather, God’s closeness to us in the Word and the Eucharist
• Pursuit of justice. Live blamelessly, do no harm to others, be honest in dealing with others, and promote a just and Godly society.
• Practical action. James insists that we be “doers of the word and not hearers only.” Biblical truth is something to be acted upon.
• Focus on the essentials. What is comforting or ritualized is not what is essential.
• Interiority. Jesus insists that what really defiles a person is not what goes into the mouth but what comes out of the heart.

Did the Pharisees and scribes seek the safety of rituals and regulations – and lost their way? The German poet, Goethe, once wrote: “The dangers of life are many, and safety is one of those dangers.”

Go live your faith out there on the roadways, highways and byways of the world. Pay attention to  the “five road signs.”  Take a rest stop with us here on Sunday, your home away from home – we’ll keep the light on for you so that you never lose your way.

Amen

The Pharisees Question Jesus | James Tissot | Brooklyn Museum | PD-US