Fiddler on the Roof was a successful Broadway musical and movie. In the opening scene, Tevye, the story’s protagonist appears, points to a fiddler on a roof, and says:
"A fiddler on the roof. Sounds crazy, no? But in our little village, you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask, why do we stay here if it’s so dangerous. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word – TRADITION! Because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance, for many, many years. We have traditions for everything -- how we eat, how to wear clothes. We always keep our heads covered and always wear a little prayer shawl. This shows our constant devotion to God. You may ask, how did these traditions start? I’ll tell you -- I don’t know. But it’s a tradition. Because of our traditions everyone knows who he is and what God expects him to do."
Tradition is the focus of today’s gospel passage. The Pharisees and Scribes ask Our Lord, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat with unclean hands?” Jewish law contained many scrupulous, complicated rituals to safeguard purity. These were not a matter of hygiene; they were a matter of ritual. To do them was to please God, not to do them was to sin.
The Pharisees were anxious about being rendered impure from the outside…from contact with impure objects, animals, or persons. In response to his critics, Jesus does not condemn the precept of ritual cleansing. He rebukes their focus on external ritual to the exclusion of the essential, that is to say, what is internal, what is in one’s heart. Nothing from the outside can defile a person, but things that emerge from within are what defile. That is where the Lord looks and what he judges.
This is the challenge the Gospel presents to us today—to look deeply into what dwells within our heart. I lean so often on Fr. Henri Nouwen for some inspiration. Listen as he speaks to the Lord, looking into his own heart:
“Lord, for your word to grow deep roots and yield a rich harvest, it needs a free, open and untroubled heart. But how can your word be effective when it is received by a thorny heart, a heart constantly reflecting on what happened yesterday and anxiously anticipating what will happen tomorrow, a heart perverted by guilt, jealously, envy and lust, a heart always restless and in turmoil? O Lord, give me a heart that can receive your world and let your word produce new life and new love in the midst of this barren world. Amen.”
