Leora Weitzman’s Homily, September 1, 2024

22^nd Sun in Ordinary Time • Deut 4:1–2, 6–9 • James 1:17–27 • Mk 7:1–8, 14–15, 21–23 • 9/1/24

My physical therapist says to do my exercises with a mirror. Though I resist, I know she’s right; without a visual check, I don’t always know when I’m practicing a habit that will cause pain down the road. In the words of Moshe Feldenkrais, “As we become aware of what we are doing in fact, and not what we say or think we are doing, the way to improvement is wide open to us.”

I know this to be true; I used to be scrupulous about it as a violin student. If my hands weren’t doing what I thought they were, things wouldn’t sound right. The only remedy was figure out what I was “doing in fact,” and then over and over slow down enough to be sure of doing things correctly instead, until the new habit replaced the old one.

It took tremendous patience. There was also embarrassment, if someone else pointed out flaws before I found them. So perhaps it’s not surprising if much of the time, we are like the people James describes. After a glimpse of ourselves in the mirror, we may be quick to turn away and forget what we saw.

How do we even look in the mirror James refers to, which is ethical rather than physical? One way I’ve learned uses the distinction between intention and impact. Through ignorance of the impacts of my actions, I can cause harm even with the best of intentions. Thus, I have a responsibility to learn from others about the impacts of my actions to make sure that I’m really doing what I think I’m doing and not something worse.

I have a brave co-worker who embodies this caring sense of responsibility. She used to have outbursts of temper at work, real fiery rage, flames practically shooting from her eyes. She was just trying to be heard; she didn’t intend the actual impact, which was that students became too scared of her to bring her their concerns. But at her core is a huge, warm heart with the integrity to take responsibility for her actions. I’ll never forget the last day we really argued, over a dozen years ago. She started to shout, then caught herself and moderated her tone, then slipped into shouting again, then caught herself again… Every time she caught herself, I felt I was seeing into her soul and her ultimate commitment to goodness. There was someone with the courage to look in the mirror and persist.

If Jesus would say that the rage coming out of her was defiling her, then surely the hard-won self-restraint that followed was cleansing and purifying. Like confession, apology, and acts of restitution, self-reform like hers both helps to heal the harm done to others and restores one’s own integrity.

Jesus illustrates the question of integrity in a few lines skipped over by today’s condensed reading. The Pharisees had decreed that you could exempt yourself from honoring your parents by reallocating whatever you would have given them to God via temple donations. This is a bit like shareholders telling a hospital it can fulfill its mission by cutting nursing staff and passing the savings to them. When Jesus says the Pharisees are abandoning the commandment of God in favor of human tradition, that’s the kind of thing he means.

His point is the priority of essence over periphery. Donating resources to one’s house of worship, or washing hands and utensils as described in the passage we heard, is all well and good. It’s just not as essential as heartfelt, responsible care for those around us. And that begins on the inside. Hence the shift in focus from what goes into us to what comes out of us—not just our actions but also the underlying habits of the heart.

We can see that Mark’s Jesus cares about habits of the heart because his list of what defiles people not only begins with “evil intentions” (as it does in Matthew) but also includes a number of internal habits Matthew leaves out: avarice, envy, pride, folly. The great thing about habits is that, unlike individual actions—which we can’t take back—habits are subject to change. Changing habits may take patience or a willingness to endure embarrassment, but it is possible. That brings us back to Feldenkrais: “Once we see what we are doing in fact… the way to improvement is wide open to us.” Seeing our conduct accurately, unintended impacts and all, may be painful—but it’s profoundly liberating.

Liberation is not always about doing what we feel like. In expanding on his mirror analogy, James speaks of “look[ing] into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persever[ing]” in our efforts to match our doing of the Word to our hearing of it, our impacts to our intentions.

I wondered at first why he called it the law of liberty, which sounds contradictory; he draws examples from Mosaic law, with all its “thou shalt not”s. Then I remembered that this was the Israelites’ own law, given to them personally to replace the law of their Egyptian oppressors. Thus, even though it told them what to do, it represented their autonomy.

We have the freedom to choose what code to live by. Our presence here attests that at some point, we’ve chosen to be governed by the word of God as we understand it. Last week, Wayne described how, when things get tough, every disciple confronts the question, “Do you also wish to go away?” Today’s readings invite us to look honestly at what we are doing in fact. Seeing our conduct and our habits of the heart as they are  frees us to adjust them, until they match what, at our deepest ethical and spiritual core, we want them to be.

Let us turn to God in prayer. —That leaders and legislators may earnestly consider the impacts of their actions… For the grace and courage to see what we are “doing in fact”…That we may open ourselves to the Divine Potter of our souls, who loves us as we are and into who we can be… Divine Potter, we bring you our prayers, our mistakes, the habits that do not serve you—and our aspirations. Hold us in mercy, and continue to shape us lovingly in your image. We ask this through Jesus, your Incarnation.