A 40-DAY JOURNEY WITH THE KING: Lenten reflections from Mark’s Gospel (27)

 


“When [Jesus] had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. He said to them, “Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)  And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles.  For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come…” (Mark 7.17-21)

     Once again Jesus’ opponents, who had previously slandered him as being demon-possessed, “gather around him” to scrutinize the eating habits of his disciples (7.1-2; cf. 3.20-22; 2.15-28).  Jesus had multiplied the loaves and fish for the crowd of 5,000 in the previous chapter, and the theme of bread continues here (7.2).  The Pharisees and the scribes ask: “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” (7.5).  The word “tradition” is repeated several times in this passage, and it refers to a collection of rabbinical teachings (interpretations of the Mosaic law) that had been collected and transmitted orally from generation to generation since the exile in Babylon.  Let us not forget the presence of the crowd (7.14); this has all the makings of a public debate.  Jesus responds to his adversaries’ accusative query by quoting the prophet Isaiah (29.13):

“This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines” (7.6-7).

This passage from Isaiah is particularly appropriate since later, Jesus will insist that nothing that “enters the lips” (as it were) of a person can defile them, but rather it is what comes out of the heart that defiles a person (cf. 7.18-23).  Jesus then makes a series of statements that amount to a scathing attack on the scribes’ methods of interpreting Scripture:

·        “you abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition” (7.8)

·        “you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!” (7.9)

·        “you…make void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on” (7.13)

Rather than justify his disciples’ practice of eating without washing their hands or criticize this specific element of the “tradition of the elders”, Jesus goes on the offensive and puts a case to his opponents.  This conversation has become a veritable legal duel.  Jesus parries:

“Moses said ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die’” (7.10; cf. Ex. 20.12; Dt. 5.16 = #5 of the 10 Commandments).

“But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God)…” (7.11-12).

Jesus is here referring to a well-attested practice at the time whereby someone could donate to the Temple something that might have been expected to contribute to the care of their parents.  With this coup de grace, Jesus demonstrates for the onlookers that though his disciples may be guilty of neglecting an aspect of tradition, his opponents are guilty of a much more grievous offense – that of justifying the violation of the very commandments of God as recorded in Scripture!

     Once he has dispatched his opponents, Jesus gathers the crowd around and responds to the scribes’ initial question.  “…there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (7.15).  As per usual, once Jesus is away from the crowd, the disciples ask for clarification.  Jesus offers them a detailed description of the digestive process, followed by the statement that “evil intentions” (spelled out in the form of a lengthy list of vices) come from within a person, from “the heart” (i.e., mind: 7.17-23).  Therefore, the scribes’ preoccupation with washing their hands and their eating vessels (cf. 7.3-4) turns out to be a category mistake.  They are unnecessarily burdening people with obligations that do not contribute to authentic holiness.  Once again, as far as king Jesus is concerned, the goal is not conformity to external conventions, but rather transformation from within.  Not for the last time, Jesus publicly proves himself a worthy Rabbi (cf. 12.13-40).

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