From the heart Mark 7:1-8,14,15,21-23

Mark 7:1-8,14,15,21-23  Gospel reading for Sunday 2nd September 2012

Tricky text this one. It is made even more so by the fact that the 'lectioneers' have taken to Mark 7 with the scalpel. Popular commentaries suggest that the intention of this editing is to help us focus in on a particular concept in the reading, which is otherwise at risk of being derailed by a number of distracting comments from Jesus.

If we read between the lines of the (whole) reading it is easy to go off on a tangent. This is particularly obvious if we look at verse 9 ..."In saying this Jesus declared all foods clean". This can easily be interpreted as Jesus signalling the end to all of the old Jewish rituals and laws about food. While this to some extent may be the case, it is probably the reason why we have been given an edited version of the reading so that we are not distracted down that pathway.

Central to the reading seems to be more so the idea of defilement.

DeWHO? or DeWHAT? we might say ... for defilement is not a word that is at all familiar to us or in regular use in our common vocabulary. Eugene Peterson helps us decipher it by using the word pollution and the graphic imagery of vomit! Or, we can think of defilement in terms of contamination, to make filthy or dirty, to become corrupt.

So Jesus says it is not what we take in through our mouths that is the problem, it's what comes out of mouths (from the heart) that really can mess us up and get us off track. We are challenged to get our hearts right, to shape our lives from the heart.

All things considered, in the broader context of the text, perhaps we are being prompted to ask ourselves some critical questions along the lines of ...

What are the 'human traditions' that have shaped our faith practice? 

Are there some things here that we need to reconsider and reexamine?

Are there some things that we have always done which perhaps no longer quite work today when it comes to shaping a vibrant and dynamic Christian spiritual culture for our schools?

Is this perhaps a suggestion from Jesus that our spirituality needs to be shaped less on 'rules and regulations', but more from the heart?

Nev