The word of God offers a biblical mirror for us to look into

Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor.

By Father Perry D. Leiker, pastor

A reflection on the daily readings, for Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time, by Father Perry.

+ As the second half of the creation story focuses on the godliness and the goodness of God, we are introduced to not only the blessed creativity of God, but the godliness and goodness of God in that creation.

Everything is drenched with God’s blessedness, and even God delights in his own creation — in the end he sees it all as very good.

And even though this is not a scientific story with a true timeline and an exact order of creation, it absolutely satisfies on the level of seeing and hearing of God’s greatness and how, in some mysterious way, his love and blessing is foundational and saturates all of creation.

There is nothing and no one that is without God’s dust or breath or smiles or spiritual molecularity (now there’s a new word, for sure), stamping it all as his and in him and for him and with him and through him, and because of him and belonging to him.

Nothing exists outside of him, and he is in all things.

Somehow, we just know that to be so; and that, perhaps, is partly why we find all of creation so blessed and grace-filled.

Yes, with amazing grace!

If the feeble attempt above seeks to show and see God in everything, the Gospel cited here says the opposite.

Instead of finding that balance and blessedness and goodness and love in one another and in all, the Pharisees — with some of the scribes from Jerusalem — instead found fault and attacked yet once again.

And so they questioned the master and great teacher, and insulted him as they accused his followers to be lacking in appreciation and living of the law.

Citing purification rites they accused and condemned; but Jesus, as usual, saw something deeper and something more.

He saw into their hearts an empty adherence to traditions while failing to see and hear what was at the heart of the law of God.

In fact, he nailed them for knowing exactly how to avoid the real demands of the commands of the law.

They knew every loophole. They managed to try to have it both ways. They criticized others for not following the strictest demands of the law, while at the same time figuring out every possible way of negating strict adherence for and from themselves.

In other words, as Jesus would name them many times in the Gospel, they were hypocrites.

The beautiful balance and harmony of the creation story is contrasted and contradicted by the horrible dissonance of this Gospel passage.

Once again, the word of God offers a biblical mirror for us to look into to see and hear what, and how and when, we live that harmony and balance, or sink into dissonance and disarray.

As the psalm would cite for us today: “O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name is in all the earth!”

Yes! Even his name is wonderful — and holy and blessed and stamped into every molecular piece of his creation.

And it indeed is wonderful!

Father Perry D. Leiker is the 13th pastor of St. Bernard Catholic Church. Reach him at (323) 255-6142. Email Father Perry at pleiker@stbernard-church.com. Follow Father Perry on Twitter: @MrDeano76.