Mark 7:1-13

Counter-Culture: Ritual Purity

Mark 7:1-13 – Ritual Cleanness

The encounter was with significant people - not just with some local Pharisees, but with professional legal experts from Jerusalem. These, presumably, were not in Galilee simply by chance but precisely for the purpose of observing the disturbing behaviour of Jesus and his disciples. Perhaps after the mission of the disciples around the countryside, knowledge of Jesus had become more widespread, and concern about him had increased.

In the light of the frequency of recent references to loaves of bread, it is important to note that in fact Mark mentioned that the disciples were eating loaves of bread. Their non-observance of the ritual of washing their hands was the basis of the scribes’ criticism - Pharisaic tradition was not concerned with hygiene.

Mark’s observation was not particularly accurate. Observing the tradition of the elders was a determining feature of Pharisees, not of all Jews. The priestly caste, for instance, did not see oral traditions as significant. And at the time of Jesus not all Pharisees were equally observant of ritual niceties – some were stricter than others.

It is nevertheless true that Jews throughout the diaspora were known for their concerns with ritual cleanness, whether they were always consistent or not, and they were careful about ritual uncleanness derived from contact with Gentiles and Gentile artifacts. Their food had to be “kosher”.

It is important not to miss the contrast between the attitudes of Jesus and these Pharisees. In the immediately preceding incident, the marketplaces had been places where the sick had encountered the saving action of God in the healing response of Jesus and their friends. For the Pharisees, by contrast, the marketplaces were places of ritual contamination, serving to separate them from God.

In criticising Jesus, the Pharisees could also have criticised many others of their contemporaries who did not accept the tradition of the elders. In particular their criticism would have been directed at the poor whose very life style meant that they did not have the leisure or the inclination to observe the details of Pharisaic purity regulations.

Jesus distinguished the Mosaic (scriptural) legal requirements from the traditions of the elders, giving obvious precedence to the Scriptures and, with Isaiah, particularly to genuine issues of morality (doctrines).

A Problem with Law

The particular problem with Pharisaic tradition is not restricted simply to Pharisees but is a wider human problem. The ideal, the basic commandment to love, is clear, even if general. Genuine attempts to educate people to the practical requirements of the general ideal (or commandment) tend then to be expressed in numerous detailed by-laws and rubrics. The tradition of the elders was one expression of this attempt. The Code of Canon Law, for Catholics, is another. These attempts are valuable, because many people lack the wisdom or experience or general capacity to see the practical implications of generalised values. The by-laws are often educative and can lead to a useful conformity and consistence in social groupings, and thus avoid unnecessarily hurting the sensibilities of others.

Yet laws can easily be distanced from their original purpose and meaning and be allowed to take on a value in their own right. Many Pharisees no doubt were quite unconscious of their separating law and value. They would probably have felt quite unjustly criticised by Jesus, oblivious of the fact that, in their own case and in the case of people who have not grasped the basic values, by-laws can assume an importance that they do not have. They can even be destructive of the values they were originally formulated to protect. Being often concrete, precise, programmed and habitual, they can be taken for granted. They can become ends in themselves rather than being means (generally but not always) conducive to the ends in question. They can serve to focus attention on external behaviour rather than on conversion of mind and heart.

The example used by Jesus in the passage in question was precisely one where a concrete by-law was given greater importance than a basic value and in fact on occasion destroyed the value in question. Jesus used the tradition of Korban and its possible misuse. For the moment he chose to bypass the issue of ritual uncleanness derived from the marketplace that had been the original issue of contention.

In Jesus’ mind, so many of the traditions of the elders (as well as many of the other practices of the priestly caste and of the socio-religious culture in general) had obscured God’s original dream for humanity. They had become so embedded in the culture that Jesus believed any simple fine-tuning, or efforts at reform by groups such as the Essenes or Zealots, and perhaps even of the disciples of John the Baptist, would have been totally inadequate. 

The traditions associated with Korban, for example, had been designed to clarify matters of financial support for the temple in Jerusalem. Soon Mark would show Jesus’ deep loss of faith in temple practice as a whole.

Along with issues about the identity of Jesus, another motif running through this section of Mark’s narrative was that of the nature of the community of disciples. Mark had indicated the problem experienced in the community in reaching out beyond Judaism to the Gentile world. One of the major concerns of diaspora Jews was the issue of their separateness, expressed among other things by their exacting dietary regulations. 

At the time of Jesus, Jews generally had an extremely strong sense of their own ethnic and spiritual destiny. They were the chosen People of God. Given that sense of themselves, the boundaries distinguishing them from other peoples were to be defended at all costs. Dialogue with Gentiles presented its problems. Gentiles who showed interest in Judaism and its God could approach, but always on Jewish terms and without any watering down of Jewish separateness. “God-fearers” were welcomed, but to become assimilated into the religion, they had to be circumcised and agree to kosher regulations and the observance of the Sabbath. On the other hand, any lessening by Jews of the importance of their ritual practices was seen precisely as an unacceptable threat to their identity.

Throughout their history God had indeed called the Jewish people to recognise and to experience being especially loved. The purpose of that call, however, was so that they could learn to speak with passion about it to all others who were also similarly loved but did not yet know it. 

The Jews in the Markan community needed clear reassurance that Jewish separateness was no longer something to be preserved at all costs. Gentiles needed to be and to feel welcome in the community of disciples.

Next >> Mark 7:14-23