Sunday Gospel Comment
Sunday Gospel Comment
Alberic Jacovone OSB
YEAR B
TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR - 31.8.03
Dt 4,1-2.6-8; Jas 1,17-18.21-22.27; Mk
7.1-8.14-15.21-23
What's Clean
Every culture has its taboos on food, washing, transfusions,
mutilations They are part of an ancient, ancestral past: lost in time and
pointing to irrational, archetypal values. Naturally, what's clean for one
culture is not for another, and what's a delicacy in one country is repulsive in
another. Conveniently, each culture justifies its taboos, by saying they are
ancient wise laws, based on hygiene when contagion was poorly understood; and it
enforces them with scientific and health reasons, to show they are still
beneficial. Taboos however, have no rational explanations: on the basis of
strictly nutritional value no food and no meat stands the test of being unclean:
it is simply a matter of taste.
Taboos in the early Church
As Christianity set out from its Semitic world, into the liberated, western
Greek culture, the clash of their taboos was inevitable. At first, the Jewish
view dominated, insisting that the strict laws on what's kosher or treif(=permitted
or forbidden) were sacred and wise laws; and warning pagan Christians, lest
becoming free in Christ degenerated into: nothing is sacred and nothing has
value. However, as Christians from the pagan world found it impossible to live
with the Jewish laws on body mutilations and food limitations, the angry debate
on what's clean or not, raged for years. It divided the communities: Peter was
accused of eating non-kosher food (=not permitted by the Jewish dietary laws),
and had to explain how he had been directed to do so by the Holy Spirit (Read Ch
10 of Acts of the Apostles). Paul also, (in his letters to Galatians 2,1+,
Romans 14,13+, Colossians 2,2+), proclaimed that Jewish Christians have no right
to impose Jewish taboos on Pagan converts. And even when in 50AD, this matter
was dealt with at the Council of Jerusalem, the problem remained, until the
pagan culture prevailed and the Jewish way disappeared, sadly, never to return.
Mark and kosher food
Todayıs reading of Mark presents Jesus who rebuffs Pharisees on clean or
unclean (Kosher or treif) food. Jesus settles this matter clearly. He says: in
life, always obey God and not man; follow your customs, but never at cost of
making void the will and word of God. All food is good and created by God: if
evil comes, it comes not from food, but from the evil intentions of our heart.
Such clear liberal thinking, is Mark's own view as a Pagan Christian, not the
specific teaching of Jesus. Had Jesus given it, the controversy on clean and
unclean would never have torn the early Christians apart In today's story, Mark
shows remarkable ignorance: first, he says that at Jesus time Pharisees and all
Jews were staunch Kosher followers, when only the priests were bound (Ex 30,19).
Second, he quotes Isaiah from a Greek version which does not have the same
meaning as its Hebrew counterpart: Jesus spoke Hebrew, could not have argued on
those lines. Third, he is inaccurate and unfair against the Pharisees: he gives
his translation to the word corban, which is a gift, to imply no obligation to
support needy parents. Fourth, if Jesus had been so clear and specific about
what's clean or not, why was this topic so divisive? and why was Jesus' own
teaching never quoted by anyone?
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