Sometimes – probably, more often than we realize – we have
to remind ourselves that Jesus was a Jew to understand what he is going on
about and why it matters to us. Today’s
Gospel reading is a case in point. Jesus
is arguing with the Pharisees about how to observe the Torah – Jewish teaching
– not about whether to observe it, but how to do it. To understand what is at stake in this
debate, those of us who are Gentiles need a little background information.[1]
The argument appears to be about whether or not one needs to
wash one’s hands before meals. This
isn’t a health precaution, but a matter of maintaining purity from the
perspective of Jewish law. There are two
classes of Jewish law under consideration in Jesus’ argument with the
Pharisees. The first are the kashrut or
kosher laws defining which foods are muttar
– permitted or forbidden. These laws
govern the familiar practice of pious Jews, who abstain from eating
non-ruminants such as pigs and rabbits, birds of prey, and sea creatures
without fins or scales. Kosher meat must
be prepared in a such a way that the animal’s death is painless, and milk and
meat are kept separate. Although food
that is not kosher is sometimes confusingly referred to as “impure,” kosher law
actually has nothing to do with the purity or impurity of the body or other
items per se.
The system of law that governs what is tahor – clean or unclean, pure or impure – is distinct from kashrut
or kosher law in the Torah. It has to do
with the issue of pollution: touching various objects, such as a dead body, or
experiencing certain conditions, such as skin diseases or bodily fluxes, which
render one impure. It also governs how
one can be restored to purity through certain ritual actions. Note that “impurity” is not equivalent to
“immorality” and does not involve moral condemnation. A person may very well become impure quite
accidentally through no fault of his or her own. In fact, most Israelites in Jesus’ time were
impure most of the time (and today all Jews are all of the time), because
purification required a trip to the Temple in Jerusalem (which was destroyed by
the Romans in 70 AD and never rebuilt).
According to the Torah, these two sets of rules governing
kosher foods and purity regulations are kept strictly separate. While kosher food could become impure under
certain circumstances, eating such food did not make the body impure. According to the Torah, carrion is the only
food that renders a body impure. It seems the Pharisees imposed a stricter
definition beyond that of the Torah, derived from oral tradition (the tradition
of the Elders), stipulating that eating defiled kosher food would make you
impure. Hence their strict observance of
a ritual washing of the hands before touching food to make sure that the food
does not become impure.
By arguing that only what comes out of the person renders
one impure, rather than what one ingests, Jesus is protesting against the
extension of the purity laws beyond their specific biblical foundation. He is actually making a conservative argument
for Torah observance in opposition to the innovations of the Pharisees. Jesus kept kosher. He simply refused to accept the idea that
eating defiled kosher food could make one impure. This is the meaning of his declaration that all
foods are clean. All food is clean, but
not all food is kosher.
Now, this may very well be interesting, but what does it
have to do with us Gentile Christians?
Jesus takes the argument to a deeper level, indicating that the laws of
purity are a kind of parable. Those who
are concerned with being contaminated by what is outside of us, miss the
spiritual import of the Torah’s teaching that it is only what comes from within
us – from the heart, from actions flowing from interior intention – that renders
us impure.
This is underscored by the other example that Jesus’ uses to
criticize the Pharisees: the practice of Corban, of making an offering to
God. Evidently, oral tradition had made
provision for people to avoid taking responsibility for supporting aging
parents by taking a vow to dedicate their resources as a sacrifice to God only. Jesus rejects this kind of legal legerdemain
as an abrogation of the demands of the Torah: a human creation devoid of the
legitimacy of scriptural teaching. He is
sensitive to the many ways we can use the veneer of religion to justify
practices that in reality are antithetical to the deeper moral and spiritual
meaning of religious practices.
Far from rejecting Jewish teaching, Jesus attempts to
retrieve and protect its core concern to sanctify all of human life through the
practices of justice and mercy that form, and flow from, a compassionate
heart. The observance of kashrut and
halakhic teaching is in the service of this core. The literal practice serves to form our
intentions and actions in conformity with the love of God. Becoming obsessive about the literal practice
can blind us to the mercy of God that is at the heart of the life of faith.
We do not need to worry about the contagion of
impurity. Nothing and no one outside of
us can defile us. What matters is what
we are putting out into the world. This
is what reveals our spiritual condition.
This past week I was visiting with my aunt, a conservative
Baptist and something of a biblical literalist, who loves me dearly. She was telling me about her daughter’s
sister-in-law, who was recently married to another woman – in Indiana. My aunt was lamenting that this newlywed’s
parents and other family members refused to attend her wedding and completely
ostracized her and her wife. For them,
to be touched by a gay or lesbian person is to risk defilement. Their purity trumps their compassion.
My aunt, bless her heart, understands that this was not the
teaching of Jesus. It is not the sexual
orientation of their child – whatever they may think about it – that defiled
them, but rather their cruel rejection of her.
My hope is that their daughter has the faith to resist internalizing the
sense of worthlessness that her family is attempting to impose upon her.
It seems to me that this is the purpose of our spiritual
practices: to inoculate us from the attempts of others to define us as impure,
worthless, expendable. They serve to
remind us that we are God’s beloved, holy children. Our observance of spiritual practices and
moral teachings are meaningful only if they help us to see ourselves and others
in this way. Let our compassion be
contagious.
Unless our literal observance serves this deeper meaning, it
can quickly become a weapon to degrade other people while masking the rot in
our own hearts. This is the tragic outcome
of so many purity campaigns: they reveal
more about the hard heartedness of the moralizers than they do about the
morality of the “impure.” The attempts
of certain presidential candidates to condemn the impurity of “illegals,”
branding them as rapists and murderers, is but the latest in a long history of
using the fear of contagion to manipulate and control people.
True religious observance relieves us of the fear of the
other, the fear of contagion, so that we can be free to love and serve our
neighbor. Authentically conservative
spiritual teachers – like Jesus – are dogged and dogmatic in their resistance
to attempts to dilute the core meaning of faith. They are adamant about protecting the
essence of religious practice:
recognizing the dignity of humanity created in God’s image and
preserving the gift of a world full of wonder, beauty, and joy for generations
to come.
Jesus offers us a kosher parable: it is possible to keep the
whole law and lose your soul. How we
keep the law, not whether we keep it, makes all the difference. It is not our purity or perfection that saves
us, but only and always the mercy of God.
Amen
[1]
The following reading of Mark 7 draws on the work of Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish
Christ, especially the chapter entitled “Jesus Kept Kosher.”
