After a series of Sunday Gospels from St. John, we are back with St. Mark. Jesus is being upbraided by the Pharisees and some of the scribes for His disciples’ failure to pay attention to the laws governing eating. For us in our culture there is an element of parents ticking off their children: “Wash your hands before you eat!â€
For the scribes and Pharisees it is not just a health-and-safe issue, thought that is where the rule may have come from in the beginning. The observances governing the washing of hands and of eating and drinking vessels carry a religious weight of right and wrong. Jesus says this view is unbalanced and hypocritical. These rules, which are purely human, have been turned into the measure for judging whether we are right by God.
At the same time what really matters in God’s eyes is ignored. What makes us unclean, says Jesus, is not what goes into us, namely food and drink. It is what comes out of us. Goodness and good behavior were seen to be not just a matter of keeping social rules for form’s sake. What was important was having a right relationship with God and others in our hearts, a rightness that bore fruit in good intentions and behavior, the opposite of the list of fornication, theft, murder and so on.
We are called to build up in ourselves a deeper understanding of good and evil. We learn to discern the difference between what is right and wrong as we go through life.
“Because you are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with heartfelt mercy, with kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another, forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you.†(Colossians 3:12-13)