The Lectionary and Scripture Interpretation for Ordinary Time
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Last week we were urged to make a choice. As we move back into the gospel of Mark, we’ll find that, time and again, Mark also asks us urgently to make a choice. We won’t be getting away from that theme, but the question today is this: What constitutes true religion?
All three passages challenge us to make sure we have our priorities in order, especially in regards to whatever we call “religion:”
- Moses: make sure you’re following God who liberated you
- James – make sure your religion serves the right purpose and produces the right fruits
- Jesus – it’s what’s inside that counts, not what you do
What constitutes true religion?
Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8
V1-40 of chapter 4 form a unit with one purpose: an exhortation to obey the Torah. We could summarize today’s verses as follows: God is giving you commands to obey. Not just the Ten Commandments but many statutes and ordinances. The purpose of these is to live in right relationship with God. The result of doing so is being able to enter into and possess the promised land. YHWH is the supreme God. If they obey the commands, everyone around them will see that and know that YHWH is supreme.
Vv 3-5 are not in the lectionary. There are many stories in the Old Testament that portray violence, much of it seemingly sanctioned or even commanded by God. These verses reference Baal-peor which you can read about in Number 25. It’s the story of a violent episode of slaughtering those within the Israelite community who worshipped other gods. The audience of today’s reading, then, are the survivors of that incident.
This passage tells us about the centrality of the law to the Jewish people. It also tells us about the importance God placed on following the law.
V7 tells us that God is close to us. Do you truly believe that God is close when you call? In what life situations has God been close? In what life situations has God seemed distant?
James 1:17-18, 21b-22, 27
The lectionary spends five weeks with this short letter. I encourage you to read it in its entirety at least once, if not every week. In today’s passage, James defines religion as being liberated from the corrupting influences of one’s environment and being responsive to the needs of the weak and marginalized.
V16 begins by saying “Don’t be deceived.” This is a rhetorical device that calls attention to something important. V17 tells us what to not be deceived about: God rains down gifts on God’s beloved and God is the author of everything good. Our trials aren’t sent as a punishment from God; rather, they come as a natural by-product of us trying to control things, trying to do things our own way. In contrast, God sends gifts. Perhaps the best and surest way to “find” God in our lives is to look for the gifts, both the blessings that God has showered down but also the unique skills and talents God has given each one of us.
The end of v15 says that following after our own desires gives birth to death. That’s contrasted in v18 with God, who gives us birth into new life.
V19-21 aren’t in the lectionary but don’t’ worry – we’ll come back to the topic of speech in chapter 3!
V22 is a basic summary of the entire letter: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.”
V23-26 give us an image or metaphor of what it means to be a hearer only: looking in a mirror and forgetting what you look like. The Word functions like a mirror that shows us an ideal picture. When we gaze into it, we see our image superimposed and it becomes obvious where we do not align. We should understand this metaphor both in terms of Scripture, but, perhaps more importantly, as Jesus himself. These verses tell us to peer into that mirror of Scripture and Jesus, and don’t forget what you see there. And then act on it.
The passage concludes in v27 referencing widows and orphans, the most vulnerable members of that society and the ones least able to help themselves. They were completely dependent on others for their very lives. True religion, then, consists in caring for those wholly unable to care for and defend themselves. This feels quite the opposite to folks who lock themselves up in a church building on Sunday mornings and scrutinize those around them to see how they are living up to some standard.
James is a very practical book. He tells us don’t just hear the Word – you have to do something and here’s what that looks like.
Ponder the meaning of “religion” in your own life. How do you define it and in what ways does James’ definition resonate with you?
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
The last five weeks we’ve been in the gospel of John. Today we switch back to Mark’s gospel, where we’ll be until the very last Sunday of this liturgical year. We last heard from Mark on the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, just before Mark’s account of the feeding of the 5,000.
You can divide today’s narrative by the audience:
- The Pharisees – have legal and moral authority in that culture.
- The crowd – listens.
- The disciples – ask questions.
Audience of the Pharisees: those who have legal and moral authority
The setting in v1 is near the Sea of Galilee, about 75 miles north of Jerusalem. These people had traveled quite a long way to find Jesus. As we progress in Mark, we see that Jerusalem will become the epicenter of opposition to Jesus. These guys are on a fact-finding mission, which means that news of Jesus has reached the capital from the farthest reaches of the country. Pretty impressive for a rural country teacher!
V2 sounds trivial to our ears, but to them, it was a big deal and told you a lot about a person. Unclean means to be defiled or ritually impure. It means being ordinary in that it is not set apart for God. Defile means to make not sacred. So the Pharisees expected people to ritually wash their hands before eating and that made their hands sacred or set apart for God. The food would have been the same – sacred.
V3-4 are a little indication that the original audience of this gospel was not Jewish. Mark had to explain why this was a big deal to his Gentile audience. Matthew 15 is the only parallel to this story and Matthew does not explain this to his Jewish audience. He references the tradition of the elders: the Jews had an understanding of passing on tradition a lot like our notion of apostolic successors – teaching is passed down from generation to generation, forming a long, unbroken chain.
This type of washing developed after the exile and Pharisees as a religious group were particularly observant of these customs. They prided themselves on making clear what the law did not make clear. The Pharisees were actually viewed positively in their culture – they wanted to help the people follow the law in those areas where the law was vague, to spell things out.
Not only did the Pharisees observe rules around washing themselves but also around the washing of the vessels to hold the water for such washing. “And beds” – a better translation of the word in this context is dining couch. The length of this list makes it sound almost satirical on Mark’s part. He’s poking fun at the Pharisees.
The Pharisees came to check out this country teacher and, at a minimum, they expected to see him instructing his followers to follow the basics of the law. And they’re perplexed that this isn’t happening. They do admit that this is tradition and not the Torah. But for them, it had become pretty much the same thing. In v5 they use the word follow, literally “to walk;” it encompasses the entirety of how one lives. To them, this breach is just tip-of-the-iceberg evidence that Jesus and his disciples are not serious about following God! What irony 🙂
Jesus responds pretty urgently in v6. He calls them a hypocrite. In Greek drama, this was one who played a part, an actor putting on an identity not his own and performing for the approval of others. It is interesting that someone in rural Palestine would know sophisticated terms associated with Greek drama.
Then Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13. Isaiah was predicting the exile. He was speaking to a nation that had lost intimate contact with God and, instead, sought refuge in outward observances.
V9-13 aren’t in the lectionary but Jesus expands on v8 by giving an example of the law to honor your father and mother. He says the Pharisees have made a convenient loophole out of another law to get around that one in some situations. For Jesus, it was this loophole that was just the tip of the iceberg, “You do many such things.”
In these verses, the Pharisees wonder why Jesus doesn’t properly observe the law. Jesus accuses them of the same thing. Notice that Mark doesn’t record any response from the Pharisees. In traditional rhetoric, silence is assumed to signal defeat. Jesus has silenced them and they have been shamed. We won’t hear any more about the Pharisees in this passage, but this whole interaction is just another antagonism by Jesus that will increase their persecution of him which will ultimately lead to his death.
Audience of the crowd: those who listen
In v14, Jesus summons “the crowd,” those who listen to him. This passage takes a pretty big logical leap. The Pharisees are concerned about all these externals, in particular washing one’s hands, and washing all the containers associated with washing one’s hands and one’s food. And the food they eat. They’re purifying everything that goes into them. Jesus is going to take that idea and connect what goes in with what comes out. Jesus’ conclusion is that nothing you ingest or touch can render you unholy to God. The only thing that can do that is the kind of person you are on the inside, and what you are on the inside is what’s going to come out to show on the outside. That’s evidence of what renders you unholy to God.
To put it a different way: the Pharisees think that the food they eat or what touches that food could separate them from God. Jesus says no – it’s not what you take in, it’s who you are on the inside. And who you are on the inside is going to manifest on the outside, in your actions. The behavior that results from who you are on the inside – those actions – that’s what renders you unholy to God.
Audience of the disciples: those who ask questions
V16 “Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear,” is omitted because it is lacking in some of the best Greek manuscripts and was probably transferred here by scribes from Mark 4:9, 23.
The first audience, the Pharisees, have the moral authority but Jesus silences them. The second audience merely listens. Now we get to the third audience, the disciples. It is they who will begin to ask the pertinent questions. And it’s here we get one of those glimpses of the very human Jesus. He gets a little testy in v18. Weren’t you listening?! Don’t you get it?!
But let’s back up a minute to the ending of v17: they ask him about the parable. What parable?! The wording and the situation parallel 4:10-12 with the sower and the seed. Most likely, v15 is the “parable.” Scholar C.H. Dodd says the definition of a parable is “a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or everyday life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt of its precise application so as to tease it into active thought.” It seems to reference food but Jesus will expand and explain the parable so that we understand it’s more about our behavior.
Jesus says the same thing he said to the crowds, but now in v18-20 he gets a little more graphic with his talk about the latrine. He will go on to reiterate that your external behavior reflects your internal orientation and that is what keeps you in or out of relationship with God.
V19 “he declared all foods clean” – probably an anachronism, something added later on. Had Jesus so definitively declared Jewish kosher laws null and void in his earthly ministry, it wouldn’t have been such a huge controversy after his Ascension. And it would have been referenced in the New Testament accounts of that controversy. This is a great example of how the words of Jesus were interpreted through later experience and given new meaning.
V21-23 are a typical “vice list” – a catalog of moral failing used to teach the “don’ts.” We can read these verses as a reflection on what Jesus meant by v20.
Are there rules in the church today that might restrict our ability to love and show mercy?
What moments of grace have you missed recently because you were too focused on the externals?
What practices or rituals of the faith do you find most meaningful, that keep you most connected to God? What practices are the opposite of this – things you go through but have very little meaning?
Pray with this gospel from the point of view of various characters:
- you are a Pharisee who is very deeply offended by the disciples’ lack of observation of the Law
- you see through the eyes of Jesus, who loved the Pharisees even though they were misguided
- you are in the crowd, listening as Jesus basically says that the Law is no longer the most relevant guiding factor
- you are a disciple, asking Jesus a question
Putting it all together
Some questions we might ask at this point: Is the law bad? Are traditions bad? I don’t think Jesus is saying that. Our laws and traditions are not bad in and of themselves. It’s when those laws and traditions stand in the way of our relationship with God that they become a problem.
From the outset, the law was intended to facilitate the relationship between God and his chosen people. Take a moment to appreciate the irony of this whole scene: the law was intended to help bring people into relationship with God. The disciples are so close to God they’re physically sharing food with him. What the Pharisees don’t understand is that the law has now become superfluous for the disciples; they are already in relationship with God and very intimately so. The law has served its purpose. This is a lot like when people debate over strict observances of things like meat on Friday. For some people, not eating meat on Friday guided their relationship with God to the degree that now they don’t need to follow it to be in relationship with God. The law has done its work. But this is also where the voice of Paul can come in: in 1 Corinthians 8 Paul says that a weaker brother or sister might be led astray by this behavior so maybe it’s better to just not do it (or at least not openly and visibly).
Think about the things that you do that keep you in relationship with God. How do they nourish that connection?
Think about things that used to be helpful in your journey but no longer are. In what ways did they serve their purpose?
Are there any external observances that you think someone ought to be doing? Can you find any evidence that perhaps that observance has served its purpose for that person?
In what ways do your actions evidence your relationship with God?
by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout 1658 National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
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© 2024 Kelly Sollinger