8 February 2023 – Mark 7:14-23
Having defended himself against accusations of not observing the traditions of the elders by some of the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus now addresses the people by enunciating what for him are the fundamental principles:
– Nothing that enters the body from the outside can make a person ritually or religiously unclean.
– What makes a person impure are the evil intentions that come out of his mind and are expressed by his mouth or his actions.
This is an important issue that, in the early days of the Church, was addressed by the Council of Jerusalem and is recounted in the Acts of the Apostles.
Then, to his disciples he clarifies his revolutionary statements:
“…there is nothing outside man that by entering into him can defile him; but the things that
out of man are what defile him”. In other words, Jesus was declaring that all Old Testament ritual food laws about kosher food were null and void! For Jesus, those laws were meant to teach the Old Covenant people the importance of offering acceptable sacrifices and worship to God with a clear conscience and a clean mind, with pure thoughts and pure actions. Thus, the true source of defilement is a person’s heart and mind because “out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, concupiscence, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. ”
Furthermore, in Jesus’ time, touching a leper, eating with a publican, eating without washing one’s hands, and so many other activities, etc. all made the person unclean, and any contact with this person defiled others. Therefore, ‘impure’ people had to be avoided. People lived in fear, always threatened by so many impure things that threatened their lives. They were forced to live distrustful of everything and everyone. Now, suddenly, everything changed! Through faith in Jesus, it was possible to have purity and to feel good before God without having to observe all those laws and rules of the “Tradition of the Ancients”. It was a liberation!
The Good News announced by Jesus freed people from fear, from always being on the defensive, and restored their will to live with freedom and joy!
For good workers…
– As Christians, we do not normally worry about pure and impure foods for religious reasons, but sometimes we judge people to be religious by their observance or non-observance of purely external things – a religious who does not wear a habit; a person who, on entering church, does not mark himself with holy water; a person who takes communion in his hand/mouth.
– More than unclean foods or trivial outward appearances, there are many other things we need to be concerned about, primarily the lack of love, especially in ourselves.
P JOBY KAVUNGAL RCJ