Breaking the Word

He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)  “But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles.  From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.” (Mk 7:14-23)

Jesus, once again, speaks a parable – a one sentence parable. To the people he always speaks in parables. In the parable he communicates something about defilement of persons. This parable has got some message about the religious practices of the times of Jesus. But it speaks about ‘inside’ and ‘outside’.

Purity rules are made specifically to make boundaries. These boundary rules deal with concerns of the society or a culture. Often these boundary rules get overstressed when a society is threatened by invasion or infiltration by another group. In short, these rules are to hold on to ones own identity.

Jesus, by speaking about the kingdom, talks about new way of life. He is not concerned about defilement or identity. He is interested in all and his interests are shown their spiritual life. His spirituality here is seen in fighting the evil. It is evil that defiles a person and contaminates him. So defilement comes from evil.      

Now when the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles (and beds).) So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.’ You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition!  For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.’ Yet you say, ‘If a person says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”‘ (meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.” (Mk 7:1-13)

Every society (even every community or family) has its own traditions. Some of these traditions pertain to purity laws. Ritual washing of hands before food, and of cooking vessels, was one key part of highly complex and developed system of purity regulations among Jews. In fact some of the followers were considered gentiles by scholars because of purity laws.

Some of these traditions went, at times, against the scriptures. Jesus gave an example of this: scripture demands the people to honour parents; but the Jews have made a tradition by which they offered to God (qorban) what was suppose to go to the parents. Because this tradition they need not do anything to the parents.

Jesus comes with the word of God and wanted the people to fulfil the word of God in their lives. He himself was the fulfilment of the word of God. When he began his public ministry he said that man does not live on bread alone but on the word of God. Jesus stressed the importance of the word of God over against the human traditions, though some of these traditions were pious activities.