There was a deacon who had put on quite a few extra pounds of the years, and finally concluded that he should do something about it.   He thought about what he might do, and recognized that he had gotten into the habit of stopping by a wonderful bakery every day on the way to work and getting treats to all his co-workers.  He figured that was certainly contributing to his weight problem, so he should stop doing that.
           He decided to change his route to work, so he wouldn’t go by the bakery and have the opportunity to buy treats.  Folks at work immediately noticed the lack of treats, and the deacon told them what he’d decided to do, and things went along fine for a month or two—no morning treats.
          Then one day the deacon came in to work with a beautiful chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting—his favorite—for everyone.  Folks at work asked him why he’d decided to bring in a treat again.
          “Well,” he said, “there was construction on the road I’ve been taking to work, and the detour sent me the way I used to go, right past that wonderful bakery.  And, as I was driving by, I saw in the window my favorite cake, sitting there calling my name.”
          “So, I decided to drive around the block and let the Lord tell me what to do—if there was a parking place in front of the bakery I’d take that as a sign that I should stop and buy the cake.”
          “And there was a parking place” one of his co-workers asked?
          “Sure was,” said the deacon.  “Ninth time around the block, there is was.”
          Change is hard, isn’t it.  Fundamental change—interior change—is particularly hard, mostly because when it comes right down to it we tend not to want to change.  For that reason we often opt for what is easy—for superficial change—knowing that at the end of the day we can work things around to get what we want.
          We change our route to work, rather than undertake the difficult work of confronting out relationship with food, exercise, and general physical well-being.
          And that is what is going on in today’s Gospel.  The Pharisees are all about exterior, superficial acts that look good—that make them look pure and holy and righteous—but that have no real internal consequences.  They are all about washing hands and dishes and cleaning beds, and they call out Jesus for the fact that He and His disciples seem not to pay attention to those things.
          Jesus’ response, of course, is to say that those superficial actions of ritual purity don’t really matter.  What matters, He is saying, is what is inside.  That is where sin comes from—He lists off: “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.”
          Pretty much covers the waterfront, doesn’t it? And Jesus’ words have applications for us, both as individuals and at an institutional level, as members of the Body of Christ.
          From an individual perspective we realize that because these sinful behaviors come from inside, from who we are as human beings, we need to make interior changes, change who we are as persons. 
          That kind of change is by its very nature dramatic, structural, life-changing.
          We’re reminded of what Jesus says a bit later in Mark’s Gospel, in chapter 9 starting with verse 43:  If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off… If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off…If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out…
          These are all metaphors, of course, or we’d all be hobbling around blind and missing limbs.  But the point is that getting at those causes of sin—those interior causes—requires serious, structural change.
          Perhaps we need to change jobs, or even careers, because what we’re doing now is causing us to experience greed, or envy, or malice, or deceit.  We need to ask ourselves, and pray about, the question of where do those sins come from, and what might we change to deal with them.
          Maybe our work is a place where there is greed and deceit in the air, where the almighty dollar is all that is worshipped, where people are encouraged to do whatever it takes to make a buck.
          If that is the case, maybe we need to “cut it off”—to change jobs, or even careers, so that we can work on the internal change that we need.
          Or maybe we need to change our friends.  If what shows up when we’re with certain folks is arrogance or folly or licentiousness- -cheap “locker room talk,” or “talking trash”, or simply stupid, arrogant, sexist behavior—maybe we need to be with different folks.
          Cut it off—pluck it out—by finding different people to hang with, or different hobbies, or different sites on the internet.
          Or maybe we’re in a relationship that has turned physical, and we’re struggling with unchastity.  We can’t just keep doing what we’ve been doing.  Maybe we need a structural change—either end the relationship or, if this is the kind of emotional, physical, spiritual relationship that you intend for your life, we need to talk about, and pray about, making it sacramental, making it a marriage.
          Structural change—tough stuff, but that’s what it takes to get at our internal dispositions.
          Because institutions are made up of people, it shouldn’t be too surprising that institutions have the same problem making internal, fundamental changes that individual people do.  It is something we need to consider in the context of the current sex abuse scandal in the Church—the Pennsylvania grand jury, the behavior of Archbishop (former Cardinal) McCarrick, all the sniping back and forth in the hierarchy about who knew what when. 
          After all, this isn’t our first rodeo.
 There was a case here, in 1992, of James Porter, a former priest who had abused at least dozens of kids in Massachusetts in the 60’s and 70’s.  All the same issues surfaced around secrecy and transfers from parish to parish without notice to anyone and such. There was national publicity.  Diane Sawyer did a “Frontline” piece on it.
It cause the Bishops to adopt in 1992 a new set of guidelines for how to deal with such situations.
          Then in 2002 there was the scandal of Boston, and the Bishops adopted rules—the Dallas Charter—for what to do.
 
And  here we are 26 years after these things first came to light, and we now have the same public handwringing, the expressions of horror and disgust about the behaviors, the same statements of outrage and shock, the same statements of sympathy and support for the victims, that we have heard so many times before.
          These are all the right things to say, of course, and we certainly should say them.  But it seems very much like the handwashing and purifying of the Pharisees that we read about today—public expressions without any fundamental, structural change.
No cutting off of hands or feet, or plucking out of eyes, metaphorically speaking.
          It is interesting to note the circumstance in which Jesus uses those powerful metaphors—it is the circumstance of abusing children. In chapter 9 of Mark’s Gospel, right before Jesus talks about cutting off those parts of us that lead to sin, Jesus talks of those who “cause the little ones who believe in me to sin”—those who corrupt children—and says they would be better off being tied to a millstone and thrown into the depths of the ocean. Then, Jesus articulates this dramatic remedy – cutting off hands and feet, and plucking out eyes—in this context of child abuse.
          So what would structural change look like? Perhaps what needs to change is the structure around the personnel side of the Church—who gets ordained, how assignments are made, who supervises the human behavior of priests and bishops (and deacons, for that matter), who investigates and disciplines when there is an issue.
          The bishops properly should be in charge of doctrine, and the priests in charge of their parish liturgies, but maybe we need a “College of Lay Consultors” to be the personnel department of the Church.
          Right now there is a “College of Consultors,” a group of priests, without whose approval the bishop cannot do certain things, like sell big pieces of property.  Past abuses in the church have involved money and real estate, and to eliminate those abuses the power of the bishops was appropriately limited.
          Maybe we need a similar limitation to address modern abuses. Maybe we should say that no one can be ordained without a group of lay people, at least half of whom are women, reviewing the candidate’s personal characteristics to determine fitness for ministry.
          And maybe we should have that same group, the “College of Lay Consultors,” have control, or at least input, into who gets parish assignments. That’s where problems can come to light, and where there is a glimpse, at least, into the ministry of a priest or deacon.
 And perhaps most importantly, when there are issues of behavior—whether it is financial, sexual, chemical dependency, gambling addiction—something that goes to the core of one’s ability to minister as deacon, priest or bishop—the group of lay people ought to be the ones to determine if an investigation is needed, oversee it, and determine issues like what the Body of Christ needs to be told.
No more cover-ups.
          These are things we need to talk about because it isn’t Pope Francis’s church- -although I love Pope Francis—and it isn’t Archbishop Hebda’s church—although I think he is doing a great job—and it isn’t Fr. Mark’s church—although we should thank God every day for his presence here.  And it isn’t my church.
It is our church.
And if we don’t get this right- if we don’t make fundamental changes--  we’ll find ourselves like the deacon figuring out a way to stop for the chocolate cake every time we get the chance.
          This is a crisis, and with every crisis there is an opportunity.
And it would be a darn shame would be a shame to let such a good crisis go to waste.