NEW TESTAMENT: James 1: 17 - 27 (RCL)
James 1: 17 - 18, 21b - 22, 27 (Roman Catholic)

Jame 1:17 (NRSV) Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
19 You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for your anger does not produce God's righteousness. 21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act--they will be blessed in their doing.
26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

1. Martin Luther did not like James. Martin Luther famously referred to it as “an epistle of straw,” with “nothing of the nature of the gospel about it.”
2. Traditionally, the Church has seen the author of this book as James, the brother of our Lord; however, its excellent Greek style, late acceptance into the canon, and absence of concerns about ritual purity suggest another author. The author seems to have written in the name of James, thus giving the book authority.
3. God now gives us the new creation, i.e. baptism (“birth”, v. 18), into the gospel (“word of truth”)
4. Just as the first-fruits of every harvest in Judea were consecrated to the Lord, thus we Christians have been set apart from the sinful world to be creatures of God
5. Human anger defeats God's purposes. We've learned that also from experience.
6. James is warning about the kind of hearing that deceives itself, a kind of hearing that promptly forgets after the person has heard.
7. Baptism places ethical demands.
8. James is warning against mere external religiosity, whereby a person deceives his inner being.
9. Christians are not asked to visit any and all widows and orphans but only those who are afflicted.
10. Specific mention of “orphans and widows” is not to lift up these two populations above all others; this phrase is often used to represent all oppressed peoples as those about whom God is particularly concerned (see also Isaiah 1:16-17) -- and therefore as those for whom we are challenged to show particular concern, as well.
11. "World" here, as in John's Gospel, is the ungodly, unbelieving mass of humanity.









GOSPEL: Mark 7: 1 - 8, 14 - 15, 21 - 23 (all)

Mark 7:1 (NRSV) Now when the Phar'isees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Phar'isees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles. 5 So the Phar'isees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" 6 He said to them, "Isai'ah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
"This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.'
8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile."

20 And he said, "It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

1. Pharisees were a religious party, Scribes a religious profession. But they joined in attacking Jesus on this occasion.
2. The Pharisees and Scribes cleverly and hypocritically attack Jesus through His disciples.
3. The Pharisees are “from Jerusalem”, so represent official Judaism.
4. Pharisees consider the “tradition of the elders” to be binding, as are the laws of Moses. They wished to extend the laws of ritual purity, which once applied only to priests, to all Jews, thus making all people priestly.
5. The way of life of the disciples did not follow the tradition of the elders.
6. The Talmud is a work in two parts, the Mishnah, containing the traditional legal enactments, and Gemara, with the corresponding interpretative annotations. It is these traditional regulations which are designated 'the tradition of the elders.' These were based on Deuteronomy 4:14 and 17:10. In the 'tradition of the elders' there was one to the effect that a person should not eat with unwashed hands, in accordance with Leviticus 15:11 . . . Rabbi Jones contended that it was just as sinful to eat with unwashed hands as to commit adultery.
7. The hypocrite is the man who hides or tries to hide his real intentions under a mask of simulated virtue, a phony.
8. Jesus is not condemning human traditions and ceremonies per se. But when they displace God's Word and righteousness is attached to them, then hypocrisy results and the traditions become sin.
9. It was not the food as food entering the mouth that made a man unclean, but the man's disregard of the Levitical law given him as a Jew by God, the disobedience he would be voicing in asking for such food and in justifying his eating thereof.
10. The first six of the twelve items are in the plural, the second six retain the singular. The first six describe wicked actions; the second six the evil drives and words that are related to such and similar actions.