Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time, February 8, 2023

Mark 7, 14-23

Jesus summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) “But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him. From within the man, from his heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils come from within and they defile.”

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass follows that from yesterday, in which the Lord upbraided the scribes and Pharisees for negating the Law of God for the regulations of their particular sect.

“Jesus summoned the crowd again.”  The Lord wanted all the people to understand the true difference between the clean and unclean.  He does not intend for this matter to form the matter for debate with only the professional theologians.  “Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.”  we should note how the Lord speaks simply and directly — this is a sign of love.

“Are even you likewise without understanding?”  The Lord points out to the Apostles how far they still have to go before they themselves can teach.  But their confusion as to his meaning tells us of the enormous truth that he is teaching them.  For well over a thousand years, the people had lived according to the Law of Moses, which instructed them regarding what was pure and impure; what could be eaten and what could not be eaten.  This formed an exceedingly important part of the Law and of their identity as Jews.  It was nearly as important to them as the law regarding the Sabbath.  The Lord seemed to be challenging their very existence as Jews.  He seemed to be challenging the Law given to Moses by God.  In addition, the purity laws played an exaggerated role in the life of the Pharisees.  It could be said that they existed in order to safeguard these laws  “Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?”  The Lord elaborates on what he had told the crowds and affirms that he had said what they thought he had said.  Mark lays it out even plainer in a comment, as though to underline it: “Thus he declared all foods clean.”  Perhaps this even shocked the Gentile Christians for whom he was writing.

“But what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.”. The Lord is now fulfilling the Law of the clean and unclean.  The prohibitions against certain foods was a sign of true impurity, and now that the Lord fulfills the sign with his teaching, the reason for the sign disappears and all foods can be understood as “clean”, while the nature of certain actions is made clear: “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly”.  The Lord specifies that these are from “within”, so, murdering a person in one’s heart, lusting after someone in one’s heart, and so on.  The Lord says, according to the Greek: “But the wicked things that come out of a man defile him.”  That is, these are more than sins.  They render a person fit only for hell.  They are not mere thoughts.  They change a person and make him worse than just a sinner.  The Law described acts that were sinful and were forbidden, but it did not say they made a person unclean, greatly hindering him from living his daily life with others.  But the Lord reveals that these sins make a person unclean, an outsider.

How seriously we should consider sin and how hard we ought to work to avoid it!