Jesus said to the Pharisees: "Isaiah did well when he prophesied about you hypocrites: These people honour me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me".
This is the first talk or homily that I have ever given in the Catholic Church despite having attended Mass fairly regularly for my whole life. By contrast, I often attend the North Balwyn Baptist Church, where my wife is a member. There I have been asked to speak on a couple of occasions.
I have come to think there is something wrong with the Catholic system.
In the congregation we have a plethora of educated and eloquent men and women with a wealth of life experiences, yet they sit in the pews week after week listening to an unmarried male priest, because by regulations he is the only one allowed to utter one word of original thought.
So how do I come to stand here openly disobeying the regulations? Well, here I can empathise with Jesus when he said:
"The doctrines these people teach are only human regulations". "You put aside the commandments of God to cling to human traditions".
I had most of my school education at St Ignatius Jesuit College in Adelaide, where I received an orthodox Catholic religious education, with the exception that we were encouraged to think for ourselves and I thought we did.
But we still seemed to believe such nonsense as that missing Mass on Sunday was a mortal sin which could condemn you to Hell for all eternity.
Through my 20s and 30s in Australia and overseas I went faithfully to Mass but did enjoy non-Catholic services on occasions. My big step across the denominational divide was when I married Anne, a member of the Baptist Church.
Anne and I were both living in the USA at the time and we were to return to Anne’s home in Southampton for the wedding. Our PO in the USA surprised us by saying as I didn’t have a church in Southampton and Anne did, we could be married in Anne’s Baptist Church in Southampton. I said this was OK with me, provided we could have a Nuptial Mass.
In the end we had a Nuptual Mass with one of Anne’s Baptist Minister's friends reading the lesson. Then we and all the guests drove to the Baptist Church where the wedding ceremony was conducted by the Baptist Minister, but with the Catholic Priest preaching the sermon.
The guests remarked that this was a unique and wonderful ecumenical occasion. This event set the tone for our religious life together ever since.
After we returned to Australia we attended St Bede's North Balwyn Catholic Church and the children were brought up Catholics.
Later on, Anne gravitated to the North Balwyn Baptist Church. I now attend that church every few Sundays and play guitar in one of their music groups.
I have learned a lot from the Baptist Church and have seen how well a non-hierarchical democratic church can function. I have also become the chairman of the North Balwyn Inter-church Council.
By contrast, in the Catholic Church I have had several instances where a Parish Priest has told me what to do and what not to do. I have served on parish councils and became frustrated in that I felt I had more to give but was prevented from doing so by the laws and regulations.
In recent years I have become increasingly disillusioned with the Catholic Church as I saw the necessary reforms of Vatican II being wound back by the last two popes. I have seen good men and true like Fr Paul Collins in Sydney, Bill Morris in Toowoomba and Peter Kennedy in South Brisbane sidelined by the church authorities for the unforgivable sin of speaking their minds and following their conscience.
Then along came Greg Reynolds and Inclusive Catholics, so I leapt at the opportunity to contribute where I could.
What Jesus was really against was the preoccupation of the scribes and the Pharisees with man-made regulations: He said "The worship they offer me is worthless. The doctrines they teach are only human regulations". "You put aside the commandments of God to cling to human traditions".
Originally, for the Jews, the law meant the ten commandments and the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch.
The Pentateuch, especially Leviticus, contains many detailed instructions but in the matter of moral questions the believer was allowed to apply them for himself. But in the 3rd and 4th centuries BC the scribes issued thousands of little regulations that became known as "the traditions of the elders". So for the Pharisee and scribal Jew to observe these regulations was his religion.
This is what Jesus was up against and clearly denounced.
Now I think we can all see a parallel between the Pharisaic and Scribal religion and the hierarchical Roman Catholic Church.
Over the centuries the Catholic version of religion has come to resemble the Pharisaic version of Judaism, with pride of place being given to laws and regulations and to "do's and don’ts".
The latest 1983 formulation of Canon Law now contains 1753 laws, covering everything from the primacy of the Pope to religious vows.
A Canon law seems to pop up whenever a new idea or direction is proposed, and this serves to fossilise the status quo.
For many members of the Catholic Church, especially those in the hierarchy, observing the laws and regulations is the most important part of their religion.
Surely these people have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
In Matthew 22:36-40 we read: A teacher of the Law tried to trap Jesus with a question - "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "Love your neighbour as yourself." All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments".
So for all us Christians in the 21st century we have one law above all: To love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and to love our neighbour as ourselves.
Dear Lord, help us to forgive, understand and love those in the Church who seem to focus more on the laws than on you. Help us to love one another as you have loved us. Help us to show forth by our lives whose disciples we are. Amen