ROME IMPROVEMENT 8/1/2021

MORE POWER !  MORE GLORY !!  MORE SPIRIT !!!

SURVEYING THE SITE—Mark 7:14-23

The debate over ritual cleanliness has concluded. Jesus has satisfied the challenge from the people who recognized him. We have witnessed that Jesus is willing to take the brokenness of the world on to himself, and the deterrent that tradition can impose on a people has been pointed out. It has been a stunning and revealing time.

READING THE BLUEPRINT

And having called the crowd to him, he was saying to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand! There is nothing from outside the man traveling into him which is able to make him common [that is, ritually unclean]; but the things, from the man, traveling out are the things that make the man common.” And when he went into the house apart from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he says to them, “Then also you? Are you not understanding? Do you not see that all [the stuff] from the outside traveling into the man is not able to make him common because it travels not in him into the  heart but into the stomach, and into the latrine it travels out purifying all the food?” He was saying, “[It is the stuff] out of a man traveling out that makes the man common. It is from within, out of the heart of the man, the unjust reasonings, the bad, travels out—sexual immorality, thefts, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, insolence, envy, blasphemies, pride, lack of true wisdom. All these evils from within travel out and make common the man.

ROUGHING IN THE HOUSE

Like the aftermath of presidential debates or analytical reviews of major speeches, when the pundits appear or the locals at the coffee shop gather for a review of salient points, what the implications are, and the significance for the days ahead, Jesus now makes sure that the disciples understand the shortcomings of tradition when it serves to limit the people God loves and cares for.

In the NRSV, the statement “thus he declared all foods clean” appears to me to be a redacted criticism. My reading is more like, “Through the digestive process, after the body has taken all of the nutrients it can, all food is rendered equal.” I can hear my mother saying to me when I complained that my Jell-O had melted into my mashed potatoes, “Just eat it. It’s all going to the same place.” The previous debate, over ritual cleanliness, and the rules we impose on ourselves and others, reminds us that, in the garden, there was only one food restriction and humanity quickly violated that law.

Less evident, but no less important, is the tension between the Scribes and the Pharisees. The Scribes were part of the temple structure while the Pharisees were a reform movement within Judaism. Each group had its own standards of ritual cleanliness and where worship was to be centered. These codes each acted as a means by which others could determine who was “in” and who was “out”.

PUTTING UP THE WALLS

Here at Gennesaret, those who recognize Jesus, as the demons and unclean spirits have recognized Jesus throughout the rest of Mark, do not bring the diseased, the sick, and the broken out of faith, but as a test. How unclean is Jesus willing to be to demonstrate the reality of the kingdom of God?

As a pre-crucifixion/resurrection story, Gennesaret challenges us to wonder why they were healed but so many others weren’t. As a post-resurrection story, the “sozo” saving is much more understandable. Whether it be the leper alongside the road, those in the synagogue, in the home of friends, at home with the roof falling in, at the shore with leaders, in the marketplace, in the wilderness, and all along the way where the people have abandoned them, Jesus continues to engage, i.e., draw near, to those whom the world rejects and makes them know that they are included, valued, honored. Through the cross and resurrection, all are saved.

It is this salvific impulse that makes the difference for me. This interaction between the sick, disabled, and broken of the world may not alter their condition, but the kingdom of God reality claims each of them as being valued, honored, and blessed. No longer are the segregated of the world segregated. The clean and the unclean are gathered into one community of faith. Jesus’ bodily resurrected entry into the garden (See Rome Improvement, July 25, 2021.) restores the relationship of creation, giving value to all that God has made. This new relationship anchors us in the body of Christ and promises us a life of new wholeness—a wholeness that recognizes the value of all people regardless of health and social status.

HANGING THE TRIM

As we all enter into the body of Christ, just as food enters our body, all are made equal before God. Okay, I think that Jesus might have found a better metaphor, but Mom was right when she said, “It’s all going to the same place.” By Christ’s justifying work we all go out into the kingdom of God.