Cleanliness
5 So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” 8 You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” 14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. 15 Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” (Mark 7:5,8,14)
When the religious leaders noticed that Jesus' disciples did not practice the ritual washing before eating, they questioned Jesus. Jesus did not oppose the traditional cleansing. He understood the potential unifying value of traditions of faith and community, but Jesus also understood that the Pharisees were just looking for ways to criticize Jesus and his followers. And Jesus had noticed that these teachers of the law sometimes placed higher value on their traditions than on the actual commands of God.
Jesus had come to fulfill the law, not overturn it. Yet, it was the purpose of the law, rather than the letter of the law, that Jesus fulfilled. God had chosen the people of Israel with the purpose of drawing all people to God through them. Jesus took issue with strictly enforcing traditions in ways that kept people out - if someone is hungry, it's more important to feed them than to insist they follow all of the rules before they can eat.
Jesus went on to teach that if we really want to be clean - right with God and one another - we should be more concerned with what comes out of us than what we ingest. Strict adherence to dietary, and other, rules may check off boxes and make us appear holy, but our piety needs to reflect a purified heart such that our words and actions uplift others, thereby honoring God. Otherwise we are just "holier than thou".
With God's help, may we interrogate our traditions and align our intentions with God's heart.
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. 26 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:22-27)
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