By Rev. Canon David B. Tabo-oy
v5So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Jesus, “Why is it that your disciples do not follow the teaching handed down by our ancestors, but instead eat with ritually unclean hands?”
v6Jesus answered them, “How right Isaiah was when he prophesied about you! You are hypocrites, just as he wrote:
‘These people, says God, honor me with their words, but their heart is really far away from me.
v7It is no use for them to worship me, because they teach human rules as though they were my laws!’
v14Then Jesus called the crowd to him once more and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand. v15There is nothing that goes into you from the outside which can make you ritually unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of you that makes you unclean.”
…v21For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill, v22commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly— v23all these evil things come from inside you and make you unclean.” (Read: Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23).
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Confronted by scribes and Pharisees who are concerned with details of piety and the law, Jesus asserts that it is not external factors that determine faith, but what comes from within. Our gospel lesson this Sunday tells us that Jesus is embroiled in controversy with religious authorities over what is truly important. The disciples have not washed their hands before eating in accordance with the Jewish tradition, thereby failing to honor a ritual practice that makes Jews distinct from Gentiles. The scribes and the Pharisees believe themselves to be protectors of historic tradition. Since the time of Abraham, the distinctness of Judaism has protected Israel from absorption into surrounding cultures. Hence, let us not look down too haughtily on the Pharisees who clashed with Jesus over what constituted true worship with God.
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Majority of the scribes and the Pharisees were the best people, who devoted their lives completely to guiding souls to God. It would be easy and comforting to simply dismiss them as a group of pious hypocrites. We should assume their sincerity in being shocked and outraged at the way Jesus departed from Jewish tradition. To make matters worse he told them they had missed the whole point of religion, which was to worship God with sincere heart. Because they had made external observance, the supreme test of goodness, their religion had sunk to the level of mere lip-service. Their worship was worthless, as an empty shell, nothing more than a bundle of pious practices.
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One preacher posed a rather interesting question: Which would you prefer for a next-door neighbor: a person of excellent habits or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a good friend: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a husband or a wife: a person of excellent habits, or a person with a good heart? Which would you prefer for a child: a child with excellent habits, or a child with a good heart?
It is wonderful to have a neighbor who conscientiously cares for his property while respecting your property. It is wonderful to have a friend who always treats you with consideration. It is wonderful to be married to a husband who always is thoughtful and courteous, or to a wife who always is gracious in her comments and deeds. It is wonderful to have a son or daughter who shows respect and uses good manners.As wonderful as those situations are, none of them compare to having a neighbor, a friend, a husband, a wife, a son, or a daughter with a good heart.When you discuss good behavior, you are discussing the quality of a person’s self-control. When you discuss a good heart, you are discussing the quality of the person.
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Jesus is pointing out something he wants us to seriously consider. His words to the Pharisees are a challenge and we can hardly deny that they are meant also for us today. The same attitude of the Pharisees still lurks within all of us, so a warning about it is in place. Jesus is appealing to us to be on our guard against merely external compliance with ritual. If we are to keep our worship of God in true focus we must call attention to what we are doing and why. Jesus is telling us that while man looks to appearances, God looks to the heart and cannot be deceived. ‘God demands that our innermost thoughts as well as our outward actions stand up to God’s scrutiny. We are to be continually searching out what God wants of us, purifying the way we live, and practicing our religion. It is surprisingly easy for our prayers and Mass/worship-going to sink into an empty ceremony, for our worship to become heartless and without love.’ (Desmond Knowles).
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As the years pass and the new church in the first century is learning the words and actions of Jesus, habits and rituals are being established. St. Paul introduces or interprets many of them. Later on, the church will make ritual so paramount that even salvation will be bought through supposed good words and indulgences while the poor people starve. The Protestant churches, attempting to correct this, focused on passages that glorify faith, or what came to be called justification by faith, and found ways to misinterpret Paul so that slavery was justified, the denigration of women and children into a lower status was perpetuated, and many wrongs and injustices toward the poor were ignored and, sadly, continue to this day.
Instead of religious rituals, rituals of injustice were established in the church and in the marketplace to the detriment of us all. And that lone voice of the epistle writer James was totally ignored: “But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.” (James 1:22).
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At the time of Jesus, the religious people were arguing about the cleanliness of their hands and of the food they bought in the marketplace and were criticizing the disciples for not doing the same. What they ate and when they ate it was of paramount importance to the religious people of the day. At a time when there were no chemical interventions, Jesus declares all food as clean and then tells them that what goes inside the mouth, inside the body from the outside is not what harms their souls. It is what emerges from the heart to find utterance in the mouth that truly harms them.
A lady preacher observes, “The world has changed drastically since then. But we have changed very little. The difference is that now we have too much to eat and worry about the pounds that are added instead of the unkindness that emerges from the mouth. In church, we too, hide behind rituals and find it all too easy to ignore that which is difficult to obey. Our rituals in the Episcopal Church are so beautiful, so full of meaning. Our Book of Common Prayer is filled with exquisite prayers. And then we leave church and go back to our mundane lives. How can we become doers of the word as we hold on to the words we heard or uttered?”(Katrina K Whitley).
Jesus surrounded himself with the poor and the disreputable perhaps because he saw in their hearts a true longing to love God and obey God’s commandments. He reserved his most acerbic comments for those who were respectable, who performed religious rituals, but who had no compassion left in their hearts for everyone who was different from themselves.
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True religion is a gift from God and comes directly from God to humanity. It is not an obligation or a measuring stick, but rather a way to bring light into the world. True religion involves knowing Christ as Lord. It is more than just believing in a superhuman power; it includes worship, adoration, and a lifestyle reflecting moral teachings.
Let us pray.
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good
things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in
us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth
in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God
for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 17 Collect, BCP).**
