Living Faith or Dead Practices: Mark 7

​Jesus was a controversial figure during his ministry. We will see that controversy take center stage at the beginning of Mark 7. One thing to remember about Mark’s Gospel: scholars believe that Mark’s Gospel was written mostly for Gentile converts. This insight might help explain why Mark goes into greater detail about the practice of certain groups of Jews when it came to hand washing and daily utensils (vv. 3-4). Another point to keep in mind: religious people in Jesus’ day had devotional books that they read, too. People in Jesus’ day read commentaries on the Scriptures and looked to religious authorities for insight into applying the Mosaic Law (those laws and ritual codes passed down especially in the first five books of the Bible). Surprise, surprise, like today, people debated one another about rules, and some thought they were holier than others, and so on. A lot has changed...but, people are people in every era. Jesus wades into churned waters with panache.  

It is also important to keep in mind the separation between Gentiles and Jews took on religious significance in the first century. Society became divided, in the Jewish mind, between the clean and unclean, the holy and unholy peoples. The Gentiles lived on the “outside” and the Jewish people lived on the “inside” group. In the Second Temple Period (Jesus’ time until the destruction of the Temple in 70AD), this insider-outsider divide came with strong Scriptural and Traditional force that related the division to the Fall, the angelic Fall in Genesis 6, and the Tower of Babel with the dividing up of the nations with the LORD’s portion being Israel. I say all of this to say this: a lot is happening below the surface in the Gospels that can really assist us in our read and prayer with Scripture. 

 Reflection Questions: 

 1.) Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13 in Mk. 7:6-7 and applies it to the Pharisees and scribes. Tradition that loosens itself from an authentic relationship from God becomes a stumbling block to faith. How do you prepare your heart for Mass to ensure that your heart is open to the mysteries celebrated? The Sacraments – handed down not by “elders” but by Jesus – can become rote if we aren’t careful. How can you keep the Mystery we enter at Mass alive in your life and personally in your heart? 
2.) When you read the section about the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter’s deliverance from an evil spirit, what was the prayer Jesus prayed that caused the deliverance? What was it that brought about the woman’s daughter’s liberation from evil?  
3.) Read the details of Jesus healing the deaf man very careful and picture it in your mind (see especially verses 33-34). If you saw someone doing that on the sidelines of a local baseball game, I don’t think you’d say to yourself, “Wow! That’s normal! I bet that fella spitting and touching that other guy’s tongue is healing him right now.” What is going on? If you felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray with someone and then sensed the Holy Spirit leading you to a prophetic action like Jesus, what would your reaction be? 

 Food for Thought: 

 Jesus doesn’t want robots, he wants disciples. Robots (not the Terminator type, but the local Amazon warehouse type) follow a code written into their program; they aren’t obedient because they do not “choose” anything, even if the “decision tree” written into their code gives us the illusion of their “choices.” Robots go through the motions, but we can’t say that have a particular fondness for work, they don’t love their fellow robot, etc. When it comes to the traditions of our faith, we want to keep in mind that Jesus does not want robots, but heartfelt obedience out of faith-filled charity. Jesus desires to heal us and free us from the inside out. Jesus doesn’t want robotic rule followers, he wants trusting believers who will open their hearts to him and allow him to set them free from fear and shame and sin. Our Catholic faith contains many treasures of devotion, but we will always need to make sure that - whatever our devotional practices might be – they lead us to the heart of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If our devotions become about the devotions themselves, then we’ve mistaken the sign for the destination. And, if our devotions do not help us move away from sin and into compassionate love, then perhaps we need to find another devotional payer. 

The story of the Syrophoenician woman is awesome! A couple powerful things happen in this short section. (1) We see Jesus’ ministry expand from the Jews only to the Gentiles. Jesus thus reveals himself as the Messiah who will gather all the nations of all the world back into the family of God the Father. (2) That ministry expansion and deliverance happen because of the non-Jewish woman’s faith in Jesus. How do we know she had faith in Jesus? Because she didn’t give up and was willing to take a lower place to feast on the bread of the children of God. Would people belive that we believed in Jesus’ real presence in the Eucharist – as one example – if they looked at our lives and our devotion to the Blessed Sacrament? Faith that does nothing is dead (see James 2:14-18). Faith propels us forward. Faith looks like an eager expectation. What does our faith look like; is it a small blip on the screen or is it our very heartbeat?