Tuesday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 7, 2023

Mark 7, 1-13

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, keeping the tradition of the elders. And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without purifying themselves. And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed, the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.) So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts. You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.” He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and Whoever curses father or mother shall die. Yet you say, ‘If someone says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’ (meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”

I have an observation to share which struck me as I was reading the Letter to the Hebrews the other day: In the Covenant between God and Israel made in the Sinai desert, the blood of animals was sprinkled on the people as a sign of their agreement to abide by the Law given them by God through Moses.  In the Ancient Near East, the making of covenants always involved blood.  In the Covenant made between God and man by Jesus Christ (who himself was God and man), the Apostles are given the Lord’s Blood to drink.  They are not sprinkled with it; they are told to drink it.  And it is not a sign of the Covenant; it makes the Covenant and gives it the power to confer eternal life.  We should think about this: the Lord did not want to merely sprinkle the Apostles with his Blood.  This would make it only a sign which would be washed off eventually. He wanted them to drink his Blood so that they could gain eternal life from the Covenant.  The first Covenant is a sign; the second is the reality.

The Pharisees arose out of the struggle between the Greek rulers of Israel in the third century B.C. and the Israelites who were still reclaiming their traditions and resettling the land after seventy years of exile in Babylon.  Those who banded together to radically separate themselves from the Greeks and from those Jews assimilating to the Greek ways began to be called “Pharisees” at this time.  They played an important part in the fight for independence from the Greeks and enjoyed the favor of the people after that independence was won.  But whether this was true from their beginning or resulted from pressure by fringe elements within the sect, they believed that it was necessary for all Jews to abide by the purity laws which, according to the Law, were to be observed by the priests working in the Temple.  At least in part, this belief arose from a desire to make the Jews even more distinct as a people than their neighbors.  Most of the Jews followed their teachings, as we see from Mark’s comment, “the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands, etc.”because there was no one around to argue that they misrepresented the Law.  But following their teachings also satisfied a certain national or cultural chauvinism.  It was into this milieu that the Lord Jesus came.

“When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus.”  The account presented in today’s Gospel Reading follows stories of dramatic miracles and mentions of the enormous and constant crowds that came to Jesus from everywhere.  It contrasts starkly with the preceding through the hypercritical comments by the Pharisees and also scribe sent as representatives of the high priests in Jerusalem.  “They observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands.”  We should note that these are some of his disciples”, as opposed to his Apostles.  The number of these offending disciples seems small.  And yet the Pharisees and scribes (who tended to be Pharisees) picked them out.  “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?” Their question makes it sound as though all of the Lord’s disciples were rejecting the “tradition of the elders”.  Now, they were right to call it that rather than to call it “the Law”, but for them it amounted to the same thing.  And this may have been Mark’s intent in directly quoting their question: to show how they failed to make the distinction though they knew, on some level, that there was one.  

“Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites.”  This is the first use of the Greek hypokrites, which means an actor who, in the Greek theaters, wore a mask to play his part.  This Greek word was used to translate the Hebrew word for “a godless man” in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.  Perhaps the idea for using this word was that a mask would allow an unprincipled person to appear respectable.  But it may also reflect the Hebrew hostility towards the theater as a pagan Greek invention where plays involving actors portraying the Greek gods were put on.  It is proper, then, for us to read “godless men” where the text says “hypocrite”.  It is a severe charge to make against a Jew who prided himself on his radical separation from people like the Greeks.  The Lord does not hesitate to do so.  The quotation from Isaiah, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts”, defines the term.

After setting forth the example of the qorban (a Hebrew word taken directly into the Greek text), the Lord sums up, “You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”  This is a warning to us as well, lest we modify or drop some part of the laws the Lord Jesus bequeathes the Church so that we might carry on with some activity which seems more important, such as allegedly preserving family unity by attending Masses between divorced people whose former marriages have not been annulled by the Church, or recognizing as a married couple men and women living together in sin.  The laws we follow are the Lord’s and can easily by found in the Scriptures.  They are not mere human precepts.  It is very necessary for us not to treat our Lord’s commandments as though they were.