Mark 7:14-23New International Version

¹⁴ Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. ¹⁵ Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.”¹⁷ After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. ¹⁸ “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? ¹⁹ For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.) ²⁰ He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. ²¹ For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. ²³ All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

When The Rules Get in The Way.

A reflection on Mark 7: 14-23

In order to understand what Jesus is trying to get at in our text for today, we need to understand what is going on prior to it.  The seventh chapter of Mark begins with the Pharisees and some religious scholars questioning why the disciples did not wash their hands prior to eating.  (the idea of ritual handwashing and proper cleanliness is what sparks the conversation we have in our text for today)

For the Hebrew people, religion was more about following the law, which consisted of two main things, the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy).  In addition, the Scribes, legal experts of the law, would break down and amplify or explain the law leading to “traditions” that were used to prevent the people from breaking the law.

Cleanliness was a large part of the law, and this is where our text starts today.  The disciples where not following the law as written by the Scribes.   And Jesus responds to them with a text from Isaiah: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (29 vs13)

I like the translation that we find in The Message for verse 13-14 The Master said:

“These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their hearts aren’t in it.

Because they act like they’re worshiping me but don’t mean it,…

The wise ones who had it all figured out will be exposed as fools.

The smart people who thought they knew everything will turn out to know nothing.”

The religious leaders of the Old Testament believed that as long as they carried out the ritualistic end of the religion, it did not matter whether they disliked their neighbor or had hate in their heart.  To them, all that mattered was following the ritual: saying your prayers every morning, noon and night, going to church every day, reading the scripture. And as long as you observed the ritual it did not matter if you have hate in your heart or discontentment toward your neighbor because it was the ritual that was important.

To show them the difference between their understanding of religion and the good news that Jesus was bringing, he uses the example of what you put into your body, doesn’t go to your heart, I goes to the stomach and is discharged through your bowels or you vomit it back up.

What comes out of your heart is what comes out of your souls or your spirit, your true self.  That is where religion is centered.  So the question is asked, is your heart centered on God and toward the efforts of helping others or is your heart centered on yourself and filled with bitterness, grudges, jealousy, and pride?

The point is simply this, Religion, following Christ, is not about following all the man-made rules of that they impede on the ability to follow the greatest command that Christ gives us.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ … ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  Matthew 23:37-39.

We must be aware that we never follow the rules that would paralyze the claims of love.  No rule that would prevent us from helping someone else would ever be approved by God.

So, we must ask ourselves today, are we like the Pharisees and scribes who only want to do what is ritualistic and have no feelings towards God and God’s people? Or are we following the call of our hearts and the call of God to take care of the other, the widow, the orphan, the downtrodden, the outcast, and the hungry?  

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