Do not entangle the word of God with ulterior motives

Gen. 6:5-8.7:1-5.10, Mk 8:14-21. The flood story in today's first reading begins with the motives of the human heart. It says that when the Lord saw such wickedness on earth and how no human desire was evil, His heart was grieved. To benefit from such stories, we need to quietly examine our motives as well as our behaviour. In the same vein, Jesus seems very frustrated with His disciples in today's Gospel. In spite of all they have known Him to say and do, they do not really understand who He is or what He is about. They do not wonder about the real significance of His deeds, such as, His feeding of the multitudes. To make the matter worse, they not only misunderstood Him but they eventually abandoned Him.

Human error spontaneously blurs their memory of divine intervention. Along the spiritual journey, from time to time our eyes of faith is confronted by human challenges and struggles. At such moments, we have got to recall: Jesus does it and will still do it for us, all we need is to just be patient. What does the yeast of the Pharisees refer to? The book of Leviticus (2:11) states: "no offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven", in other word, no mixture, worship should be pure. Dressing to be noticed and walking obsequiously in market places to attract attention are all exaggerated forms of religious orchestrations. The pharisaic showing-off, shifts attention from worship of God to human ‘self-praise.’ Christian spirituality places the values of humility and meekness before us. Our Christian vocation is a call to offer pure worship to God and not self-projection. We are therefore warned ‘not to entangle the word of God with our ulterior motives’, that is, not to interpret the word of God to match our desired postulations. 

May the Lord be please to help us understand and remain focused on God and worship Him alone as the source of our strength! Amen!! Good morning and have a pleasant day!!!