Trinity 14 2018: Deut 4, 1-2, 6-9; James 1, 17-27; Mark 7 1-8, 14-16, 21-23
The Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan
Athens has been full of tourists during this last month – sufficient I hope to help sustain the essential tourist economy. Inevitably if you walk around the Plaka district you will see the usual signs of tourism. Little necklaces with names spelled in Greek, made of wire; I love Greece T shirts, gold coloured laurel leafed crowns, and in particular for females those sandals with leather work that you tie up to the knees. Such is Athens in the tourism season.
I contrast this with what you would see if you went to Jerusalem, and in particular to the Western or ‘Wailing’ Wall. Not sandals with leather straps up to the knees, but men with leatherwork bound around their hands and lower arm and a leather box strapped to their foreheads. This is not a sign that they are tourists in Jerusalem, but that they are faithful Jews. They do this to keep faith with the command we have heard in today’s reading from Deuteronomy.