Breaking the Word

5^th Week in Ord. Time, Wednesday – 09^th February 2022 — Gospel: Mark 7,14-23

Indispensable Inner Purity

Jesus introduces his central teaching in this passage in two ways. First, he calls the crowd to himself, indicating that this is something he wants everyone to hear. “All of you” emphasizes that this is not just immediate audience, but for followers of Jesus in all generations. In a way, Jesus reduced the boundary marks separating Jews and Gentiles. Second, he urges the people to “listen” carefully so that they can understand the full significance of what he is teaching. Then Jesus states his teaching in the form of a proverb (7,15), which the crowd seems to interpret as a rebuke to the customs of the Pharisees. Nevertheless, Jesus actually declares that “all foods are clean”. The implication is that what comes from within a person is far more significant in terms of one’s relationship with God than what kind of food goes into one’s body.  As the prophets of the first testament taught, inner purity that comes from the heart is what matters most. The outward observance and the inward meaning are complementary, not contradictory.

5^th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday – 8^th February 2022 — Gospel: Mark 7,1-13

Making Void in Practice

Jesus accused the Pharisees of nullifying the word of God by favouring and enforcing their traditions over the law. The “word of God” means God’s utterances. “Making void” means to remove all power and authority. In defending their traditions, the Pharisees eroded their own characters and also the character of the Word of God.  Jesus points out that they were hypocrites (Mk 7,6), whose religious worship was practiced in vain. True worship must come from the heart, and it must be directed by God’s truth, not by man’s personal ideas. However, they were not only destroying their character; they were also destroying the influence and authority of the very Word of God that they claimed to be defending. There is a tragic sequence: started in teaching their doctrines as God’s Word (Mk 7,7); led to laying aside God’s Word (Mk 7,8); further to rejecting God’s Word (Mk 7,9); and finally, removing God’s Word of its power and authority (Mk 7,13). Although we cannot really nullify the authority of God’s Word, we can make them functionally useless by living and teaching as if our standards/traditions are greater than God’s. By doing so, we take God’s name in vain. People who revere man-made traditions above the Word of God eventually lose the power of God’s Word in their lives. No matter how devout they may appear, their hearts are far from God. Jesus mentions that He could have given other examples. The best example that He gave is that of refusing to support one’s parents, which is a crime worthy of capital punishment.