When Majoring on Minor Things Might Not Be Wise—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 15B (Mark 7)

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23   New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

7 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, ² they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³ (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders, ⁴ and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash, and there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups and pots and bronze kettles and beds.) ⁵ So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?” ⁶ He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,

    but their hearts are far from me;

⁷ in vain do they worship me,

    teaching human precepts as doctrines.’

⁸ “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵ there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

²¹ For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³ All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

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                Now, just to be clear, I strongly believe in the importance of proper hygiene. Washing our hands before we eat is important. Washing the dishes after we eat is important. Even if COVID-19 wasn’t spread by touching things as first thought, thoroughly washing our hands before eating or (you know), is wise. If you really want to clean your hands sing the birthday song while washing. That way you do it thoroughly. So, I can understand why the Pharisees might get upset when they see Jesus’ disciples eating without washing their hands. I might feel the same, especially if I was going to share a meal with them.

                When the Pharisees and other religious leaders reacted to Jesus’ disciples' lack of proper hygiene, Jesus turned the conversation to a question of tradition. Apparently, the issue wasn’t hygiene it was tradition. However, it should be noted that these guidelines that the Pharisees appealed to were biblical. That’s because, Jewish priests were instructed to wash before eating holy food in temple rituals, as described in Numbers 18:8-13. The Pharisees, who are often misidentified in the Gospels as being hypocritical, simply wanted to live lives, just like the priests. So, in search of a purer community, they pushed these standards on others.

Jesus on the other hand took a different approach to things. Instead of focusing on external matters, he focused on what goes on inside us. So, in Mark’s presentation, Jesus returns the critique by suggesting that the Pharisees' criticism was based on human tradition.  In calling his critics hypocrites, Jesus appealed to a version of Isaiah 29:13, which declared: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me;  in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines” (Mk 7:6-7). So, they reject God’s commandments and embrace human tradition.

                While Jesus calls into question human traditions, we should not be too hasty in rejecting tradition. Protestants, especially those who claim to be New Testament Christians, have often shied away from tradition, suggesting it's just a collection of human doctrines. Jaroslav Pelikan famously distinguished between tradition and traditionalism. He declared that traditionalism is the “dead faith of the living,” while “tradition is the “living faith of the dead.” I think that is a good set of definitions. Tradition isn’t all bad. In fact, as a historian, I would say that Tradition can be very helpful. Tradition helps preserve and pass on important information that can help a person define their identity and purpose. Tradition serves, in a way, as a kind of genetic code that carries useful information from one generation to the next. It’s good to remember as Christians living in the twenty-first century that we wouldn’t have Christianity without tradition. The very New Testament we appeal to was gathered and passed down through the centuries. The way we read Scripture is influenced by earlier interpreters. It is a bit arrogant for us to believe that we alone have the true interpretation of the Bible. So, Tradition has its place. The problem is when we let traditionalism have free reign so that we end up fighting over relatively insignificant or disputed matters that aren’t at the root of the Christian faith—what theologians call adiaphora. Perhaps hygiene, as important as it is for health reasons, might not be a central theological concern. 

                As the curators of the Revised Common Lectionary will do occasionally, they have us skip over verses that don’t seem to fit the theme. Walter Brueggemann calls this gerrymandering texts (The Emancipation of God, p. 143), and there’s some truth to that critique. In the verses we skip over, Jesus speaks of how some get around the commandment to honor their parents by declaring their stuff as corban or dedicated to God so they don’t have to share (Mk. 7:9-13).

                When we pick things up in verse 14, Jesus reinforces what he shared at the beginning about giving too much heed to externals and ignoring what goes on inside us spiritually. So, Mark’s Jesus tells the crowd: “Listen to me, all of you, and understand:  there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (Mk. 7:14-15). Jesus makes use of euphemism here, but he suggests that what comes out of us is what defiles, not what goes into our bodies. It’s not food that defiles you, it’s the excrement that comes out of us. In our time, we might think here of what is said about others. Think for a moment about some of the political speech we hear with regularity, especially from certain politicians who are not averse to speaking derogatively of others. Unfortunately, Christians can participate in such behavior.

                After we hear Jesus tell the crowd that it’s what comes out of us that defiles, we jump down a few more verses to Mark 7:21. Here Jesus tells the crowd that evil starts in the human heart, which can produce such evils as “sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly” (Mk. 7:21-22). This list covers a lot of territory, but I’m sure we could add to the list. If we return to the opening line, what we hear is Jesus pointing out that his critics have defined purity in such narrow ways that it can exclude rather than include people, while neglecting weightier matters. So, you might say that Jesus is addressing those who are religious without being spiritual. They know how to do the correct religious things, but their hearts aren’t in the right place. Therefore, while Jesus emphasizes the heart (the inner person), he recognizes that external behaviors reflect what is going on in the heart (see the Sermon on the Mount—Matthew 5-7). Martha Moore-Keish points out that here in Mark 7, Jesus isn’t speaking of a disembodied spirituality. She writes that “he is not teaching his disciples to disregard embodied practices. He is Instead refocusing practices: those that display faithfulness, self-restraint, honesty, compassion” [Feasting on the Gospels: Mark, p. 202].

                Since for several weeks, the Gospel readings  (RCL) came from John 6, where Jesus reveals himself to be the Bread of Life, and has Eucharistic implications, perhaps the same could be said about this reading, which begins with a conversation about proper eating. The Christian community as a whole struggles with being able to eat together inclusively. The church has tended to place doctrines and regulations above people in ways that exclude people from coming to the table and possibly encountering the risen Christ. It is often doctrinal matters, which might be called human traditions, get in the way. The founders of the tradition of which I am a member—Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)—Thomas and Alexander Campbell, as well as Barton Stone—were concerned that creeds such as the Westminster Confession were human traditions that divided rather than united. They were concerned about relationships, especially when it came to gathering at the Lord’s Table. They rejected the idea that church leaders could judge the heart and determine who could come to the Table and who should stay away. When it comes to gathering at the Table what matters is the heart, not rules and regulations (including church bylaws).

I have been strongly advocating a fully open table that is rooted in Jesus’ own practice of Table fellowship (I have a book that is at the publisher titled Eating with Jesus, in which I argue that Jesus’ own practices of Table fellowship serve as support for a fully open table). While many religious folks focus on boundaries (and some boundaries are important), Jesus focused (I believe) on relationships. How often are we concerned about boundaries at the expense of relationships? What traditions might get in the way of our relationships with God and one another? When it comes to the Table, could the requirement that people first get baptized be one of those traditions? I believe baptism is an important sacrament that seals our relationship with Jesus and the church, but what if it becomes little more than being properly washed (wash your hands) before you eat dinner? Martha Moore-Keish again speaks to the moment when she points out that “Jesus shows throughout chapters 6,7, and 8 that he desires for all people to be fed, not because they are worthy, but because they are hungry. If we have made baptism into a rite of purity and the Table into a place where only the clean may approach, then we have misrepresented the gospel and made ourselves unfit to sit at the Table of the Lord” [Feasting on the Gospels: Mark, p. 204]. To that, I offer my hearty Amen!