7 February 2023 – Mark 7:1-13
The theme of today’s Gospel passage, to which Mark devotes ample space (7:1-23), is very important. We find in it one of the qualifying elements of Christian ethics. Jesus harshly attacks the “tradition of old” because it has ended up replacing the commandments of God (7:7-8). Tradition’ consists of a set of minute, highly detailed, but unwritten prescriptions accumulated over the centuries for the purpose of specifying the precepts of the law. For the Pharisees, they have the same binding value as the Law of Moses. Jesus rejects this identification and shows how in some cases tradition actually stifles the law of God (7:9-12).
A group of scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem went to see the behaviour of Jesus and his disciples. They immediately noticed
that they were not observing certain “traditions of the elders”, especially with regard to washing their hands before eating.
Jewish tradition had extended this purification to before every meal, in an attempt to give meals a religious significance. Ritual purification was symbolic of the moral purity that every person should have when approaching God, that is, he should have a clean conscience and a clean mind. But the Pharisees had focused on the mere external ritual. Therefore, Jesus, accusing them of hypocrisy, restored the genuine meaning of these precepts of the Law, whose real purpose was to teach the proper way to pay homage to God. The Pharisees, in fact, served God with words by replacing His teachings with interpretations made by men. For instance, they cleverly circumvented God’s commandment to honour one’s parents by falsely interpreting the Korban precept. Declaring
the money, goods or property intended for the maintenance and care of their parents in their old age, as “Korban”, i.e. a special offering to God, they were no longer obliged to help them. By telling the scribes and Pharisees these things, Jesus taught them that the true source of contamination was a person’s heart and mind and that true religion should not be mere outward observance, disconnected from the heart, mind and intentions.
For good workers…
– There can be a little Pharisaic in each of us, and that is the teaching of today. We will only be judged by the depth of our love and nothing else.
– Let us ask for the grace not to fall into the trap of precepts, but to walk in the paths of the Word, indeed to run on the road of love. When everything comes to an end, charity will remain.
P JOBY KAVUNGAL RCJ