Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (Common English Bible)
In our gospel reading for today, Jesus speaks about the kind of tradition that does harm to one’s faith. He points out there is a form of tradition that gets in the way of spiritual realities instead of guiding people to faith.
Mark begins chapter seven with Jesus confronting the Pharisees over purity laws. But we must not stereotype all Pharisees as bad. They were dedicated to obeying and pleasing God, and that desire led to distinctive practices such as kosher food and circumcision. These practices helped the Jewish people to keep their identity as God’s people in a pagan world.
In this text we find the Pharisees and scribes upset because some of Jesus’ disciples were not properly observing the traditions of the Jewish people during mealtime. The disciples were not performing the ceremonial washing of their hands before they ate.
Before the Jewish people could dine, they poured water over their hands with their fingers pointed upward. This water was kept in special jars and guarded to be free of any impurities. Now, this action had nothing to do with hygiene. It was merely a ceremonial washing that had become a tradition.
Jesus criticized such traditions that became more important than the things they represented. In verse eight, Jesus says, “You ignore God’s commandments, while holding onto rules created by humans and handed down to you.”
Jesus went right to the heart of this issue. The Pharisees wanted to hold onto human traditions at all cost when they should be more concerned about God’s requirement of love, compassion and justice. God is more concerned with a spiritual cleansing than a physical one.
Now during the time Jesus lived on earth, it was thought the heart and not the brain, was the center of emotion and thought. When God looks at us, the first thing that God sees is the state of our heart. God does not care what we look like on the outside. God has more compassion for a poor beggar in rags, than rich rulers who wear fine clothes but have cold hearts.
But each and everyone of us have a heart problem, and not just a physical one. The heart is like a fountain out of which our lives flow. If the heart is affected by sin, it can become deceitful and wicked. It is even thought one’s heart could become the source of evil that can defile humans.
What we eat and drink cannot corrupt us. It is speech that can do that. Jesus wants us to see the core issue. Ritual external purity is not the same as genuine interior purity. Jesus defines true purity as a commitment from the heart, totally dedicated to loving God and all people. Listening and doing are two different things.
Some people who attend churches, especially the larger ones, are like that. They carry their Bibles, they bring their offering, they sing every hymn and listen to every word preached, but it does not change their heart. The church is basically a social club for them. The only real thing that might stir them up, would be changing the church’s carpet color, or heaven forbid, getting a new hymnal. And I’ve heard of churches splitting over a new hymnal. Those are very petty things and the important issues are ignored.
Rituals such as the Eucharist are central to a church’s life and identity. Unfortunately, many churches have turned Communion into a routine, largely empty of Jesus’ ethics and values. The observation of the Eucharist must not become a substitute for living a life of prayer, service, sharing and providing an outward sign of the Gospel. These are the essential demands of the eucharistic practice, a practice that helps us to, “fearlessly make known the mystery of the Gospel,” as the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:19. Being close to Christ is the key to living the Eucharistic life.
AMEN
