Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Dear Friends,
Teresa of Avila has a great insight on today’s Gospel. In her classic on the spiritual life, The Interior Castle, she points out that progress brings problems. Eventually, our egoism goes underground to protect its turf. In surfaces disguised as virtue. This leads to the curse of self-righteousness and hypocrisy. This is a grave temptation for all religious persons and institutions. In the history of religion, good practices and traditions often evolve into corrupt uses of the law and tradition for personal gain and comfort.
At the time of Jesus, the law given to Moses had been kidnapped by a small group of religious leaders. They had reduced it to a personal source of power, privilege, control and division. By means of their interpretation of the law, these leaders exalted themselves socially and economically. They had also divided the people at various levels of separation by means of application of the law. There was a blatant prejudice against the workers, the poor and especially women. The tradition that Jesus confronts was an instrument of degradation and division. Jesus saw the issue clearly. All religious practice either brings one closer to God or it becomes an obstacle to the sacred calling.
In confronting Jesus about the violations of his disciples, the Pharisees, acting as the purity police, assumed he shared their vision of the law. They soon became aware of their mistake. Jesus goes right to the central issue. The observance of the law finds its integrity in the purity of the heart. The issue is not dirty fingernails, hands soiled by hard work or a woman’s natural cycle.
Jesus quotes Isaiah. “This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.” (Is 29:13) The prophet states with clarity and power what Jesus wants to proclaim. It is the pure heart that defines the correct human relationship to God.
Jesus was addressing the central teaching of Moses: obedience must flow from the heart not mechanical and legalistic rituals far removed from a pure heart. Jesus advances this same
theme through the Sermon on the Mount.
In this encounter, Jesus then undercuts the whole basis of the multitude of legal tenets that had evolved from the continuing self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the guardians of the law.
Jesus stated simply what goes in and what comes out of the person simply is a physical process. What matters is the heart. This teaching radicalized and uprooted the whole approach to the law of God. Thus, Jesus, in one quick proclamation, declared all foods clean.
The things that make for impurity are selfish and destructive actions flowing from the heart: “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these come from within and they defile.” (Mk 7:21-23) Paul, in Galatians 5:22-23 states the good that flows from a pure heart: “love, joy, peace patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”
Jesus made it clear to the people that soap and water do not transcend the pure heart as the way to holiness. The pure heart is the result of a response to God who speaks to us both in his holy word and in the daily experience of life.
