MARK
7: 1-8, 14-23
13th S.after Pentecost '06
Back to MK & more
straight-forward thought patterns than John's / John's successor's as
he / they tell their version of the Jesus story. Well, that's my point
of view!
It's pretty clear 9-13 are omitted from the lectionary because the
example is so abstruse. But the issue raised there of over-riding God's
will with our own human traditions is still spot on! Right up there
with 1-8. And deserves top billing from the preacher rather than
elimination not just from the lectionary but our agenda too. In my
experience of church, being ruled by tradition is still one of
the 'hard matters' (remember last week's JN 6: 56-69 passage?)
Dare to deal with it! Go on! We could introduce it with a rendition of
Tevye's song, 'Tradition' from 'Fiddler On The Roof''. That should go
down well!
I don't know where the expression 'cleanliness is next to godliness'
comes from, but some significant godliness I've experienced out in
life's margins has been in the person of people not too clean in soap
& water terms. 'The Great Unwashed'. Not the kind of person we'd
relish sitting near us in the pews
. But maybe just the one to rescue us in some kind of need out there
somewhere. I doubt any of us would want Jesus on his way to Golgotha
reeking of his own sweat & blood, or hanging up there on the cross
sans deoderant, after-shave, or even fly spray too close to us either.
Let's not sanitise it too much. It wasn't nice in any sense. To any
sense! Come to think of it, I don't recall any of the many great art
depicitons of the Passion really depicting it as it must have been,
either. Maybe censored by the church, symbolic of the way we censor the
Gospel as a whole, too? Or, maybe that kind of honesty doesn't sell
paintings / windows, etc.
Those who insist on the influence of a devil / demon exterior to us
might like to pnder what Jesus says here about bad things arising
within, from the human 'innards' to defile us. Blaimng some external
devil for the evil that corrupts our own hearts is a cop out as old as
that vitally important creation myth set in the Garden of Eden., &
about as convincing as Adam's & Eve's passing the buck in that
great & seminal story. A key thrust of Gospel is surely accepting
responsibility for my own life even when, paradoxically, I've handed it
over to Christ. (But not to any demon!)
