Welcome, the text for Sunday comes from the book of Mark. Prior to this passage Jesus has fed the 5000, walked on the sea and ministered at Gennesaret, which was Gentile territory.
V1 Jesus is being watched by some Pharisees and scribes. The Pharisees were a sect of Judaism that were the keepers of the law. They had originated in the second century B.C.E. and considered the Torah and the oral tradition (the tradition of our elders) authoritative. They believed that the study of the Law (Torah-first five books of the Bible) was true worship. They have been demeaned by some biblical commentaries but they did serve a purpose – to teach the law to the people because the scrolls were to expensive to reproduce for everyone so most only heard reading from them in the Synagogue. However with any group, what starts out as a good thing can morph by some into a legalistic thing.
V2-4 The Pharisees watching Jesus and his followers (and not all Pharisees did) notice that some of his disciples haven’t ritually washed their hands before eating. This wasn’t an issue of cleanliness but an issue of ritual purity. They had, over the years, developed a set of oral traditions to define every nuance of the God given law. The oral tradition was not given by God but rather defined by men – the Pharisees and scribes – but they attributed it to God. As an example: the disciples should have first pointed their fingers up while ½ an eggshell of water from a stone jar (for purity stone was used as it was impermeable) was poured over the hands. They then needed to rub the fist of each hand into the palm of the other. The fingers were then pointed downward as more pure water was poured over them allowing the ritually pure water which is now unclean to run off the fingers. This washed away any impurity that they had contacted (i.e. from Gentiles) in their daily life. They thought to do this was to please God.
V5 So they question Jesus as to why his disciples do not follow the oral law by ritually washing their hands before eating.
V6-7 Jesus responds by quoting from the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 29:13) in which Isaiah accused the people of his day of honoring God with their lips while their hearts were far away. They are teaching human made rules as doctrines from God. In this answer Jesus is challenging the oral law devised by the generations of Pharisees and scribes.
V8 They have substituted the commandments of God for the human rules they have devised. They are not focusing on God.
V14-15 Jesus then speaks to the people who have gathered around him and are listening to this exchange between him and the Pharisees. He instructs them that it is not what they put in to their mouths that defile them (the taboo on eating certain foods with “dirty” hands) as that passes through the body and is discarded in the sewer but it is what comes out of their mouths from their hearts that defiles them. The words that express the feelings they carry in their hearts makes them unclean. Purity is not ritual or physical but spiritual. Legalism only shows man’s outward actions it doesn’t show his inward feelings. The Jewish people had been using the food taboos to set themselves apart from the rest of the population. What had started out in the book of Leviticus as a way to distinguish themselves from the pagans so they could become a nation that “lived correctly” and drew others to God had turned into an exclusive club which rejected others for not keeping the club rules. They had changed from inclusivity to exclusivity; it was too hard to be a member of Gods family if one had to follow all the nit picky rules even for the Jews themselves.
V21-23 It is from the heart, within a person, that the evil intentions begin which will eventually be acted upon by the person himself in a physical way. All the things he lists begin as kernels of ideas with in a person and may grow a while before being acted upon. We are to fix the problem at its source; our hearts. We are to root out evil thoughts and intentions before they become action. As an example: we can attend every Sunday church service (an act of legalism) but while we are there we can harbor mean thoughts about people whom we feel have wronged us (an act of impurity) and no one is the wiser – EXCEPT GOD. God knows our hearts. We may even let it grow into an act of some type of retaliation for which we will get a smug feeling of satisfaction but this is impurity in the eyes of God. We are to have a pure heart towards everyone as God has towards us.
These teachings of Jesus show us that we are to be welcoming to all. Our churches are not clubs where people are not included if they don’t follow our human imposed rules. I think that the ELCA struggled with that this week. What did God actually say and what have we tacked onto his teaching as our club (moral) rules. Are we inclusive to all, as Jesus was, or are we exclusive and only the “right” people are admitted? In addition to that what do we harbor in our hearts? Do we behave in the “correct” ways while holding evil in our hearts towards our brothers and sisters? Remember anyone who has been invited to dine at the table of Jesus and has accepted the invitation is our brother or sister and as in our physical families we may not always see eye to eye but we still love each other.
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