Mark 7:1-13

Clean and Unclean

1The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and 2saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. 3(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)

5So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"

6He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

" 'These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

7They worship me in vain;

their teachings are but rules taught by men.' 8You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."

9And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! 10For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' 11But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God), 12then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."









BACKGROUND READING:


Exodus 21:15-17


Leviticus 20:7-9


Isaiah 29



Dig Deeper

Some have argued that this section proves that Mark was written to a Gentile audience. The point of this passage wouldn’t make a lot of sense if you don’t understand the Jewish culture in which it takes place. If his audience, was intended be Jewish, goes the argument, then he wouldn’t bother explaining some of the details that he does. It is only because Mark knew that his audience was not Jewish did he feel the need to explain certain details from the Jewish culture. I don’t think that this is necessarily the case. All that is necessary to know, however, is that Mark was aware that both Jews and Gentiles would read this book, not one or the other. Jews, of course, wouldn’t need the extra explanations, but the Gentiles would.


Mark interrupts his stories about healing and awesome displays of the coming kingdom, in order to describe a debate between Jesus and the Pharisees and teachers of the law over Jewish traditions and customs. The obvious question is why, but first we have to examine a few things.


We can all appreciate cleanliness, especially in a society where we almost demand that people wash their hands after using the restroom or before they eat. We understand the importance of cleanliness. The Jews had a great many customs to do with remaining ceremonially clean, which Mark briefly explains. These would eventually be codified and written down about two centuries after Jesus’ death, but by this time there was already a great deal of oral tradition that had built up. Seemingly, cleanliness is a good thing, so why would there be an issue with this? Why does Mark include this incident?


The question that Jesus was asked was about the observance of the purity rituals of his disciples. The answer Jesus gives concerns the controversy between Scripture and tradition. This is not, however, the same type of argument over Scripture and tradition that is often debated today between the Protestant and Catholic Church. The real debate here was about two different concepts of what it meant to be a good Jew in the first century. The charge that Jesus is leveling against them is teaching human custom as fundamental law. This is, in Jesus’ mind, hypocrisy. They claim to be teachers of the law, but are really teaching tradition.


To clearly demonstrate the hypocrisy of their position on tradition, Jesus gives an example of how they were using tradition and custom to circumvent the law rather than uphold it. They were like creative accountants looking for a loophole in the rules when it fit their fancy. Rather than upholding the law’s standard of honoring and supporting their parents, they were claiming that all of their money and possessions belonged to God (they were just the stewards holding his possessions). That way, they didn’t have to live up to their obligations to take care of their parents; they just claimed that they didn’t have any money. By claiming to give the money to God and not really honoring their parents in the process, they were actually making a mockery of the God they were claiming to honor.


At the heart of the matter, then, was who spoke for God? Was it the Pharisees and those who had built up hundreds of years of extra laws, rules, and traditions? They had moved Scriptural interpretation in a particular direction. Not the least of that direction were certain political agendas, and the view of God’s kingdom that called for revolution against Rome. Believe or it not the purity laws were all a part of that mentality that desperately wanted to distinguish the Jews from everyone around them, highlighting the belief that the pagans were the unclean ones and the Jews were the only true, clean children of God.


Jesus says that in doing what they were doing, they were joining the not-so-fine tradition of Jews that Isaiah had described as claiming to honor God in their words, but doing so in vain. In creating a form of worship and honor to God that was comfortable for them, they had really created a situation in which they were not honoring God at all.


The reason that Mark includes this passage then becomes clear. Jesus wasn’t entering into an abstract argument about one set of Scriptural interpretations over another, he was challenging the entire foundation upon which they had built their worldview, and their belief in how the kingdom of God would come about and what it was like. Jesus’ vision of the kingdom was feasting, celebrating, and including all. If he was correct, then the Pharisee’s whole vision of the kingdom was wrong from the very beginning.



Devotional Thought

The Jews of Jesus’ day had started out with the good intention of following YHWH’s law. They had, however, lost sight of God and began to serve the law and their interpretations and additions to it instead. Do you ever have the tendency to go through religious motions and do things out of obligation rather than due to your love of God? What can we as Christians do to keep from doing that?