This passage is a turning point in the Gospel of Mark. After this exchange on living according to tradition, Jesus will start to interact with non-Jewish people. Given the fact that Mark’s gospel audience were likely Gentile, they were hearing an added layer of good news about Jesus breaking yet another barrier to belonging.
And yet, they were also hearing an even more thorough calling about belonging. As Jesus discusses things with the Pharisees and Scribes, then the crowd, and finally his disciples, Jesus makes clear that discipleship is much more involved than following tradition.
It begins with a question as to why Jesus has not taught his disciples to follow tradition since they do not wash their hands in the way that other religious leaders do. The Pharisees do not just mean their question in a literal sense, they mean it as a matter of their discipleship to Jesus, using the word peripateō (walk) and drawing upon the wisdom of the elders in teaching all of them how they ought to conduct themselves. (See the textual point below.)
Quoting from the prophet Isaiah, Jesus reminds them that “the elders” haven’t always gotten it right. In fact, we humans have a pretty shoddy track record of adding to—let alone keeping—the intent of God’s law. Isaiah’s message from God was a complaint about the people’s hearts being far from God even as they acted in ways that had enough of a sense of piety to them that they became the human standard for holiness. In other words, the tradition that formed made holiness almost solely about what one did rather than beginning with whether one communed with God.
Jesus’s damning declaration, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition” sets it in stark contrast. We (and the scholars) might be confused as to whether Jesus means “the commandment” in a broad and general sense, the decalogue more specifically, or the commandment, the Shema. But it is clear that he is not impressed by what has become of the religious interpretation of things.
I tend to think Jesus is thinking of the greatest commandment from which all others flow, the Shema’s holistic call to love the Lord our God with all that we are, from our mind, spirit, and body. When we use the Shema as our lens by which we interpret all of the other commands of God, everything gets filtered through love. If what comes in is God’s love, then what goes out should be done from God’s love. Even if hurtful or not so good things for us get into us, there is possibility for it to be transformed by God’s love—whether that be by the Spirit’s healing or by the Spirit’s leading us to repentance—so that it doesn’t go out as words or actions of sin against God, ourselves, and neighbour, but as redemptive signs of God’s glory.
The human heart is depicted by Jesus as a powerful place of connection. It is in our hearts that our intentions and motivations are connected to our actions. It is in our hearts that we know the power of the Spirit and the reign of Christ Jesus. It is in our hearts that evil can spring just as much as they are places where the Spirit ignites the good God intends us to do.
So if we’re only sticking to the tradition, then we’re never getting to the heart level. We’re never asking ourselves how the heart might be using tradition (good or bad) for good or bad purposes. We’re never held accountable for ourselves, never have to ask if we’re living our lives as though they were in the presence of God (aka holiness). Appealing to tradition fools us into denying a multitude of sins.
And the problem only expands as we move from the level of the individual to the institution. Institutions thrive on tradition and doing things the way they’ve always been done. Any living system resists change. As R.T. France writes in his commentary on this passage, “The explanation for the church’s remarkable slowness in drawing out the implications of what Jesus had said… [is found] in the instinctive conservatism of almost all religious communities which tends to resist any change to fundamental traditional values until there is no other option.”
Unfortunately, for the human heart, individually and collectively, tradition continues to fool us into thinking it is a viable option.
Textual Points
Though the verb peripateō is used in the Synoptic gospels, it is usually for the literal sense of “to walk” or “walking”. Only here does it carry the connotation that it does throughout the New Testament epistles regarding the way we live as disciples, taking on the meaning of “live by.”
Because the lectionary pieces together the narrative flow of verses 1-23, congregations might get confused as to who Jesus is talking to in each of the chunks of verses—especially for verses 21-23. In verses 1-8, he dialogues is with the Pharisees and Scribes and in verses 14-15 Jesus is speaking to a larger crowd. By the time we get to verses 21-23, Jesus has moved indoors with his disciples and is explaining what he meant by his words to the crowd.
Illustration Idea
Did you know that appealing to tradition—without providing any other arguments for your case—is a logical fallacy in rhetoric? In other words, it is not good enough justification. Perhaps Jesus’s teaching helps us understand why: when tradition is appealed to, we can fool ourselves into thinking that we are not responsible. After all, we didn’t come up with the tradition, we’re just following it. Plus, we don’t have to think about why we are eager to follow the tradition (and what vices or prejudices might be motivating us), we just have to do what we’ve always done. Following tradition becomes an easy out for those it privileges.
